Sweeping layoffs and resignations at the U.S. Energy Information Administration threaten to cripple data reports showing the expansion of clean energy.
More than 100 EIA employees have resigned or been fired as the Trump administration moves aggressively to shrink the federal workforce, according to former officials at the agency, which had about 350 people analyzing energy statistics before the partial purge.
The wave of departures comes as officials in the Trump administration have joined congressional Republicans and fossil fuel groups in an effort to shift EIA’s mission away from tracking clean energy growth to focusing on statistical forecasts that could show higher demand for oil and gas. That threatens to collide with its 48-year-old mandate to provide policymakers and the public with impartial data and analysis about the country’s use of energy.
“EIA is just a statistical agency. It has no politics in it at all,” said Joseph Romm, a former official at the Department of Energy, which houses the EIA. “I think [the Trump administration] would like to hobble the EIA because they prefer the public not know what is going on.”
