Emails show clash between Trump appointees and Facebook over Zuckerberg glacier visit
Source: Washington Post
Emails show clash between Trump appointees and Facebook over Zuckerberg glacier visit
By Lisa Rein September 7 at 6:00 AM
When Facebook’s communications chief approached the National Park Service to ask the agency to show company founder Mark Zuckerberg how the warming climate is melting ice sheets at Glacier National Park, scientists, park rangers and public affairs staff were giddy with excitement.
“This is going to be great!” wilderness specialist Kyle Johnson wrote in an email June 21 to Facebook’s Derick Mains as planning for a July 15 tour got underway. When Mains had approached him two days earlier, Johnson responded, “I think something like this would be outstanding for all. … Thanks for helping us showcase Glacier.”
The U.S. Geological Survey’s public affairs office was thrilled to make the park’s top climate scientist, a USGS staffer, available to Zuckerberg to explain how global warming is altering the ecosystem of the northern Rockies.
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But their eagerness to accommodate Zuckerberg on his high-profile tour quickly turned into a high-wire scramble for Park Service staffers, as political appointees at the Interior Department, the Park Service’s parent agency, demanded that they walk back their generosity, according to documents The Washington Post obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.
The Trump administration was far less keen on Zuckerberg — who has been increasingly vocal in his criticism of the president — and apparently balked at giving him the red-carpet treatment that national parks often roll out for lawmakers, potential donors and dignitaries.
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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/09/07/emails-show-clash-between-trump-appointees-and-facebook-over-zuckerberg-glacier-visit/
