The Energy Department declined to provide President-elect Donald Trump's transition team with the names of staffers who worked on climate issues. | Getty DOE won't provide names of climate change staffers to Trump team

The Department of Energy will not provide the names of staffers who worked on climate issues to President-elect Donald Trump's transition team, a spokesman for the department told POLITICO Tuesday.

The Trump transition team submitted 74 questions to DOE last week, including two which asked for identities of staffers who worked on Obama administration climate policy efforts.


"We will be forthcoming with all publicly available information with the transition team. We will not be providing any individual names to the transition team," DOE spokesman Eben Burnham-Snyder said in an email.

Burnham-Snyder said questions from Trump's team had "left many in our workforce unsettled."

"We are going to respect the professional and scientific integrity and independence of our employees at our labs and across our department," he said.

The decision not to release names was first reported by The Washington Post.

Trump has been dubious about the science of man-made climate change, and his nomination of Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, who has challenged EPA rules on climate change in court, indicates the administration will seek unravel Obama's climate change policies.