State Department suspension reports on air quality level staff and family relying abroad

The State Department staff was surprised by the Directive of the Department this week, which directed the embassy and consulates to stop publishing information on air quality monitoring.

CBS News examined the message sent to the staff on March 4, which says that “there is currently no scheduled date for real -time data to be available”. The Eat Fathers Staff and their families rely on reports to warn them poor air quality Days.

“I was shocked by the announcement,” said the current staff, who asked to remain anonymous for concern about his job, and who said that the decision made a lot of sense because the existing infrastructure for monitoring air is already in force and operating. “I don’t see any purpose in the exclusion of this information, that doesn’t make sense,” said the second employee of the department.

The State Department spokesman told CBS News in a statement that the monitor monitors of air quality are being launched, but the effort to convey the air pollution data from embassies and consulates no longer happens “due to the limit of financing for which the department has excluded the basic network.” When asked what costs to manage the program, the State Department did not answer.

“The cost of maintaining these systems is trivial,” said Rick Duke, who by January was the deputy of a special climate envoy in the State Department and believes that it is not a savings of money as much as they run it to the wrong anti-climate Ideology in Trump’s administration. “These monitors are not even about the climate,” Duke said, “why deduct the health information of the Embassy and the public staff?”

The monitoring of air in US embassies began informally in 2008 when one monitor was erected at the Beijing Embassy in Beijing. The results on Twitter were published on the clock, informing the public about air pollution levels in the city. An account called Airbeijing Became a well -known Internet in 2010 when he tweeted that the air on November 11 was “crazy bad” when the machine registered a dangerous high level air pollution.

The purpose behind the surveillance was to inform American citizens living in the region of the city of the city, but the Chinese public quickly picked up information and began to demand that their government was dealing with toxic pollution that local officials often diminished.

State Department has expanded air monitoring in other embassies around the world, installing 78 monitors somewhere else and has made data available on AINOW.GOV. AND 2022 They found that the embassy program was very successful in reducing air pollutants, “resulting in a significant reduction of the risk of early mortality, which is facing over 300 million people living in the cities of the House of the Embassy in the USA.”

But now that the program has been abolished, Embassy website only produces an error message. AND The last available reading in Beijing was published on March 4the day the agency stopped transferring the data.

Currently, State Department staff said CBS News that access to air quality data is crucial when weighing foreign tasks, especially for those who have to move the whole family and children in places with unhealthy air or in locations where air control by local self-government is unreliable or non-existent.

“Robbing employees of the information they need for their children’s health decisions is immoral,” said the current staff, who spoke from fear of retaliation under fear of retaliation.

A State Department spokesman told CBS News in a statement that air data is still collected and “will be available when there is a safe and reliable way to transfer it.” They said the department “evaluates other transmission options”.

A spokesman also said that air quality monitoring equipment “is just one of a series of tools that the department uses to ensure the health and safety of our staff.”

When the CBS News asked employees about other tools, they said they were not aware and did not know how to access the information differently.