Citing a potential “public relations nightmare,” the Trump administration successfully stopped the publication of a study measuring the health effects of a group of hazardous chemicals found in drinking water and household products throughout the United States. Many of the contaminated sites are on military bases across the country and affect military families directly. Multiple Republicans and Democrats have expressed concern about the censorship and have called for the report to be released, and Trump administration officials are scrambling to contain the political fallout. 

The two email chains (here and here) show the exchanges among White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and Department of Defense (DoD) attempting to strong-arm the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) into censoring the report. The emails were released to UCS by the EPA as part of a larger request under the Freedom of Information Act for documents related to an attempt to restrict the types of science that are used in EPA public health protection decisions (the EPA subsequently tried to bury the documents).