Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg flew to Glacier National Park last Saturday to tour the melting ice fields that have become the poster child for climate change’s effects on Montana’s northern Rockies.

But days before the tech tycoon’s visit, the Trump administration abruptly removed two of the park’s top climate experts from a delegation scheduled to show him around, telling a prominent research ecologist and the widely respected park superintendent that they were no longer going to participate in the tour.

The decision to micromanage Zuckerberg’s stop in Montana from 2,232 miles east in Washington, made by top officials at the Interior Department, the National Park Service’s parent agency, was highly unusual — even for a celebrity visit.

It capped days of internal discussions among top Interior and Park Service officials about how much the park should roll out the welcome mat for Zuckerberg, who along with the broader tech community in Silicon Valley has positioned himself as a vocal critic of President Trump.

The high-level scrutiny comes as the Trump administration deemphasizes climate issues, removing references to global warming from many federal websites.

washington post