President Donald Trump's administration has ordered the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to temporarily halt all grants and contracts, as well as external communications according to emails obtained by The Washington Post and ProPublica.

The Huffington Post reports that another email blocked EPA staff from sending out press releases, social media posts, blog posts, updating web sites or other forms of communication. All restrictions were said to be effective immediately and in place until further notice.

Lynn Battle, external affairs director for the Alabama Department of Environmental Management, said Tuesday the department was waiting for additional clarification on what these actions will mean for environmental activities in Alabama.

ADEM operates many of its state-level programs through grants funded by EPA. Exact figures and details on which state programs are funded through EPA grants were not immediately available Tuesday.

The Washington Post notes that impacted programs could include "state-led climate research to localized efforts to improve air and water quality to environmental justice projects aimed at helping poor communities."

The high level of federal funding to Alabama's state environmental program has allowed ADEM to maintain its operations while receiving low or even net-negative funding from state appropriations in recent years.

Last year, ADEM asked EPA to step in and take over the emergency response to a diesel fuel spill in Birmingham because the state department was short of funds to deal with the response.

The EPA is not the only federal agency whose communications have been limited by the new administration, which temporarily shut down social media accounts from the Department of the Interior after the National Park Service retweeted a photo that compared the crowd sizes of Trump's and Obama's inaugurations. The Department of Agriculture is under similar media restrictions as the EPA, the Associated Press reports.

Since taking office Friday, Trump has also initiated a federal hiring freeze and issued an executive order to advance construction of the Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines.

More details on the freeze and its impacts will be posted as they become available.