I'm a scientist. I'm blowing the whistle on the Trump administration.
By Joel Clement July 19 at 4:10 PM
Joel Clement was director of the Office of Policy Analysis at the U.S. Interior Department until last week. He is now a senior adviser at the department’s Office of Natural Resources Revenue.
I am not a member of the deep state. I am not big government.
I am a scientist, a policy expert, a civil servant and a worried citizen. Reluctantly, as of today, I am also a whistleblower on an administration that chooses silence over science.
Nearly seven years ago, I came to work for the Interior Department, where, among other things, I’ve helped endangered communities in Alaska prepare for and adapt to a changing climate. But on June 15, I was one of about 50 senior department employees who received letters informing us of involuntary reassignments. Citing a need to “improve talent development, mission delivery and collaboration,” the letter informed me that I was reassigned to an unrelated job in the accounting office that collects royalty checks from fossil fuel companies.
I am not an accountant — but you don’t have to be one to see that the administration’s excuse for a reassignment such as mine doesn’t add up. A few days after my reassignment, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke testified before Congress that the department would use reassignments as part of its effort to eliminate employees; the only reasonable inference from that testimony is that he expects people to quit in response to undesirable transfers. Some of my colleagues are being relocated across the country, at taxpayer expense, to serve in equally ill-fitting jobs.
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Take a step back
Take a deep breath
Let it out
The mid terms are closer to us now than the original day that 45 announced his campaign. We need everybody here to watch what happens on Election day. With a good strong Democratic campaign the Republican stronghold in Washington will weaken.
Cross your fingers.
and his ridiculous cabinet of destroyers. You are absolutely correct -- in so many public institutions, from schools to government agencies, they "use reassignments as part of its effort to eliminate employees." Someone in the Dump administration is adding up the total "savings" of departed employees so that he can claim millions in savings from the halt of "wasteful government spending." Connect with your like-minded fellow employees and form your own underground networks of "resistance." We out here are behind you, and as pigman says, working many avenues to halt this runaway train.
