Environmental Protection Agency

They are at it again.

For the second day in a row, after Senate Democrats boycotted the committee votes for Steven Mnuchin and Tom Price yesterday only for republicans to implement a loophole, allowing the vote to take place as described earlier, on Wednesday morning Senate Democrats again boycotted a committee vote on a President Trump  pick, this time focusing on his choice to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, preventing the GOP from moving his confirmation forward.

Following a new Trump directive mandating that all EPA research must undergo "political review" prior to release, a number of anonymous employees from more than a dozen U.S.

The Trump administration has instituted gag orders and freezes on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Trump has banned Environmental Protection Agency staff from talking to press after suspending all contracts Other agencies, including the US Department of Agriculture and the Health and Human Services, have been issued similar gag orders EPA staff were instructed to freeze all its grants and contracts, as well as to stop communicating with the media and on social media.

The Trump administration has instituted a media blackout at the Environmental Protection Agency and barred staff from awarding any new contracts or grants according to the AP.

BREAKING: Trump bans EPA employees from providing updates on social media or to reporters, bars awarding new contracts or grants.

— The Associated Press (@AP) January 24, 2017

n the last days of the Obama administration, the outgoing president has taken on a surprising urgency in closing "open" cases of alleged fraud, if mostly involving foreign carmakers. Case in point, this week's $4.3 billion settlement with Volkswagen to put the diesel emmisions scandal to rest, and yesterday's unexpected accusation by the EPA that Fiat was likely engaging in a similar scheme to defraud the US government of its true emissions.