There was no evidence this week of a blanket gag order on external communication from the Energy Department under newly inaugurated President Donald Trump, whose administration has tweeted steadily since Inauguration Day from the official @ENERGY Twitter account.
The Environmental Protection Agency and other federal agencies were directed to stand down temporarily from communication with the public this week. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), an advocate for DOE’s Hanford Site in Washinton state, worried Thursday the EPA gag order might in some fashion affect cleanup of the former plutonium production site, which EPA helps regulate along with DOE and the state Ecology Department.
The were as of Friday a handful of post-inauguration tweets by Frank Klotz, an Obama administration holdover who for now remains head of the National Nuclear Security Administration. The official NNSA account had also posted four of its own tweets, at deadline for Weapons Complex Monitor.
Also in the first week of the Trump administration, the official DOE Twitter account had tweeted twice about nuclear matters as of deadline — though not yet about the $6-billion-a-year Cold War nuclear waste cleanup managed by the agency’s Office of Environmental Management (EM).
Elsewhere on social media, activity continued more or less as usual on the official EM Facebook page this week. During the Obama administration, the DOE office used its Facebook account mostly to share officially vetted photos and videos of its many nuclear cleanup sites across the nation. Early Trump-administration posts are similar.
Environmental Management headquarters in Washington has issued a single press release since Inauguration Day: a notice that the agency is now taking bids on a Moab Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action Technical Assistance Contract, in Moab, Utah.
DOE spokespersons across the complex did reply to some queries this week by Weapons Complex Monitor, though not for this article.
Elsewhere in the federal nuclear world, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission continued a stream of new social media updates and press communications after inauguration day.
