Civil servants charge Trump is sidelining workers with expertise on climate change and environment

The L.A. Times reports:

Interior Department manager Joel Clement figured his new bosses in the Trump administration might disapprove of his climate-change-focused work protecting Alaskan villages from rising seas.

But the reassignment slip Clement received in June stunned him. He was not only removed from his post as director of policy analysis, he was deposited into a new job auditing fossil fuel company leases.

Approximately 50 such slips went out to the department’s most experienced and highly paid managers. Other recipients interviewed were just as puzzled as Clement. It seemed to them that they were getting moved for the sake of getting moved — often to jobs unrelated to their skills. On Wednesday, Clement joined those who have quit in frustration.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke may have shed some light on his thinking last week when he told a petroleum industry group that he believes nearly a third of his workforce is disloyal to the Trump agenda. “I got 30% of the crew that's not loyal to the flag,” he said, in a remark first reported by the Associated Press.

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