"A DOE official's controversial request this summer for scientists to remove 'climate change' from research abstracts was ordered by senior national lab managers and was intended to satisfy President Trump's budget request, according to emails obtained by E&E News and confirmed by a lab aide.

The communications, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, suggest officials at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, a national lab funded by DOE, were trying to protect scientists. But the emails also leave unanswered questions about why decisions were made on a Trump plan that was not law.

The senior officials "don't have the authority to say ... 'We don't care whether Congress appropriated the funds,'" said Andrew Rosenberg, director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists."

Christa Marshall reports for Greenwire December 11, 2017. [2]