Trump Energy Dept. Under Fire for Banning 'Climate Change' and Related Terms

President Donald Trump's administration has faced a flood of criticism since Politico reported Sunday that the US Department of Energy has added "climate change" and other related terms to its "list of words to avoid" at a key office.

According to a Friday email obtained by the news outlet, other banned words at the DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy include carbon/CO2 "footprint," clean, decarbonization, "dirty" energy, emissions, energy transition, green, sustainability/sustainable, and tax breaks/tax credits/subsidies.

“Please ensure that every member of your team is aware that this is the latest list of words to avoid—and continue to be conscientious about avoiding any terminology that you know to be misaligned with the administration's perspectives and priorities," Rachel Overbey, acting director of external affairs, reportedly wrote.

While the DOE did not respond to Politico's request for comment, critics were quick to blast the administration for yet another anti-science move.

"Censorship can't erase facts: The climate crisis is real, it's human-made, and deadly."

"Welcome to the Donald Trump post-truth world," Dr. Ali Khan, a retired US assistant surgeon general, responded on social media.

Since returning to power in January—after raking in campaign cash from Big Oil by promising to "drill, baby, drill"—Trump has also ditched the Paris Agreement (again), declared an "energy emergency" to benefit the fossil fuel industry, and claimed during his speech to the United Nations General Assembly last week that scientists' predictions about the climate crisis were "wrong" and "made by stupid people."

Trump also nominated climate liar and former fracking CEO Chris Wright as energy secretary. Under his leadership, the department has celebrated planet-wrecking coal on social media while spreading disinformation about solar and wind energy. It also published a July climate report that independent experts said is "biased, full of errors, and not fit to inform policymaking."

The department crafted that report as part of the Environmental Protection Agency's effort to scrap the "endangerment finding," the 2009 legal opinion that greenhouse gases endanger public health and the welfare of the American people, which underpins federal climate policy.

Responding to the DOE's newly revealed directive on banned words, the Environmental Voter Project charged, "It's like they're trying to cover up a homicide."

Paul Dorfman, chair of the Nuclear Consulting Group and a Bennett scholar at the University of Sussex, said, "Death cult does its thing."

Climate Rights International's advocacy director, Lotte Leicht, declared: "Ridiculous! Banning words won't change reality... Censorship can't erase facts: The climate crisis is real, it's human-made, and deadly. Silencing science = endangering lives."

Rakesh Bhandari, associate director of interdisciplinary studies at the University of California, Berkeley, warned of the likely impacts of the DOE's banned words.

"This will not only affect research and policy directly, it will also affect what we see and don't see and what we say and don't say. The state has this power in virtue of its legitimate and cognitive authority," Bhandari said. "Note that the Democrats are pretty silent about what matters most to the GOP: The protection of fossil fuels."

Nodding to the Trump administration's broad assault on First Amendment rights, Ross Seidman, senior counsel for a Democratic state senator in Maryland, said, "More 'banned words' from the party of free speech."

The New York Times in March compiled a list of nearly 200 terms that agencies' leaders have told staff to limit or avoid as part of Trump's purge of "woke" initiatives. They range from clean energy, climate crisis, and climate science to activism, disability, diversity, gender, hate speech, mental health, pregnant people, sexuality, racism, stereotypes, and victim.