WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 27th December, 2018) The Trump administration is using the US government shutdown as an excuse to close websites giving public access to fossil fuel leases and wildlife protection, the Center for Biological Diversity said in a press release.
"The... Department of the Interior has taken down environmental review websites for many of its key agencies, a step that violates its own policies for government shutdowns and stymies public involvement in decisions like fossil fuel leasing and wildlife protections," the release said on Wednesday.
Among the sites abruptly taken down were those that provided planning information and ways for the public to comment on key decisions, the Center for Biological Diversity said.
"The Trump administration is cynically using the government shutdown as a flimsy pretense for locking the public out of environmental decisions. This goes right along with Deputy Secretary David Bernhardt's pattern of denying public involvement to help fossil fuel companies pillage our public lands," Center for Biological Diversity official Taylor McKinnon said.
The Bureau of Land Management's environmental planning web page was blocked on Monday and by mid-day Wednesday, environmental-planning websites for the National Park Service and the US Fish and Wildlife Service were also blocked, but the Bureau of Land Management's site had been reactivated, the Center for Biological Diversity said.
