據華盛頓郵報消息，「新的美國環保署被要求暫時中止所有合同和資金獎勵，立即生效」。
從美國環保署的網站獲悉，美國環保署每年都有超過40億美元的資助或獎勵款項，到目前為止，這些資金還沒有被發放。 這個命令不但會影響到美國環保署的核心職能，受益於該基金的相關的科學家，聯邦和地方工作人員，大學以及美國的印第安人部落也將受到影響。
消息來源：華盛頓郵報 原文如下
The Trump administration has instructed officials at the Environmental Protection Agency to freeze its grants and contracts, a move that could affect everything from state-led climate research to localized efforts to improve air and water quality to environmental justice projects aimed at helping poor communities.
An email went out to employees in the agency’s Office of Acquisition Management within hours of President Trump’s swearing-in on Friday.
「New EPA administration has asked that all contract and grant awards be temporarily suspended, effective immediately,」 read the email, which was shared with The Washington Post. 「Until we receive further clarification, which we hope to have soon, please construe this to include task orders and work assignments.」
According to its website, each year the EPA awards more than $4 billion in funding for grants and other assistance agreements. For now, it appears, that funding is on hold, casting a cloud of uncertainty over one of the agency’s core functions, as well as over the scientists, state and local officials, universities and Native American tribes that often benefit from the grants.
A spokesperson for the EPA declined comment.
It is unclear whether the move by the incoming administration was related to President Trump’s order Monday that federal agencies halt hiring in all areas on the executive branch except for the military, national security and public safety, which also curbed contracting as a way of compensating for the freeze. 「Contracting outside the Government to circumvent the intent of this memorandum shall not be permitted,」 the memorandum states.
Administration officials inserted the language in an apparent attempt to curb the growth in federal contracts that arose during previous freezes imposed under Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. But the total halt in contracts and grants for a single agency appeared to go beyond that specific provision, which applied solely to contracting activities in response to the halt in hiring.
Myron Ebell, who oversaw the EPA transition for the new administration, told ProPublica on Monday that the freezing of grants and contracts was not unprecedented.
「They’re trying to freeze things to make sure nothing happens they don’t want to have happen, so any regulations going forward, contracts, grants, hires, they want to make sure to look at them first,」 said Ebell, director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, an industry-backed group that has long sought to slash the authority of the EPA.
「This may be a little wider than some previous administrations, but it’s very similar to what others have done,」 he told the publication.
But not in recent history has such a blanket freeze taken place, and one employee told ProPublica he did not recall anything like it in nearly a decade with the agency.
The move is likely to increase anxieties inside an already tense agency. Ebell and other transition officials have made little secret about their goal of greatly reducing the EPA’s footprint and regulatory reach. Trump has repeatedly criticized the EPA for what he calls a string of onerous, expensive regulations that are hampering businesses. And his nominee to run the agency, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, has repeatedly sued the EPA over the years, challenging its legal authority to regulate everything from mercury pollution to various wetlands and waterways to carbon emissions from power plants.