Trump White House orders EPA to freeze all grants and contracts, reportedly stay mum about order

EPA has been told to freeze all contracts and grants as Senate considers Scott Pruitt for EPA chief
(Image credit: Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images)

Staff at the Environmental Protection Agency has been told to freeze all grants and contracts until further notice, an unusual move that will likely affect everything from state-level efforts to improve air and water quality to toxic waste cleanup efforts, The Washington Post and ProPublica reported Monday night. The order went out to the EPA Office of Acquisition Management within hours of President Trump's inauguration, and EPA staff were ordered not to talk about the freeze, The Huffington Post reports, citing an email purportedly sent to EPA employees on Monday, the same day Trump issued a blanket hiring freeze.

"They're trying to freeze things to make sure nothing happens they don't want to have happen, so any regulations going forward, contracts, grants, hires, they want to make sure to look at them first," Myron Ebell, an EPA critic at the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute who led Trump's EPA transition team, told ProPublica Monday night. "This may be a little wider than some previous administrations, but it's very similar to what others have done." EPA veterans and The Washington Post disagree, saying the blanket freeze was unprecedented in recent history.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
Explore More
Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.