There was no evidence as of Wednesday 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 have been directed to stand down temporarily from communication with the public.
Not counting a tweet from Frank Klotz, an Obama administration holdover who for now remains head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, the Trump DOE had tweeted twice about nuclear matters as of deadline for Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, 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, a trickle of activity continues in the Trump administration on the official EM Facebook page. 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.
All that said, EM has issued no press releases since Inauguration Day. The new administration’s so-called beachhead teams, which arrived at DOE to take the reins after Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, are now more firmly entrenched at the agency, including at its communications offices.
Aside from Klotz’s tweet, there have been no official Twitter posts, press releases, or blog posts from the NNSA, the semiautonomous DOE branch tasked with sustaining the U.S. nuclear deterrent.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been moderately more active, both with new social media updates and in press communications.
