In the summer of 2015 a tropical storm slammed into the mountains of Myanmar and triggered one of the largest landslides not caused by an earthquake in a decade. We know this because of pictures—stunning in their devastation—taken with a satellite run by NASA. We know this because of government science.

On Monday, news broke that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is now barred from communicating with the public. That means no press releases, blogs, messages, or social media postings.

And on Tuesday, Buzzfeed revealed that The US Department of Agriculture had banned scientists and other employees in its Agricultural Research Service division from sharing the results of its taxpayer-funded research with the broader public. The ARS is the main research agency of the USDA and is tasked with “finding solutions to agricultural problems that affect Americans every day from field to table.”

The memo outlining these new rules was not made public, but the ban reportedly included everything from summaries of scientific papers to USDA-branded tweets. Scientists could still publish their findings in peer-reviewed journals, according to those who saw the memo, but they were apparently forbidden from talking about that research without prior consent from their agency.

Since this piece was initially published on Tuesday, USDA acting deputy Administrator Michael Young (the USDA lacks a permanent head—Georgia governor Sonny Perdue was nominated last week by President Trump) has stated that the initial memo was not sent in coordination with other offices within the USDA. Young told the Washington Post that the memo in fact contradicted, at least in part, a separate memo that was also sent the same day. Young sent the second memo to clarify the department’s position.

The new memo emphasizes that press releases and policy statements related to peer-reviewed research can indeed be made public, but must be routed through the Office of the Secretary—the general management arm of the Department of Commerce that provides the principal support to the Secretary in formulating policy and providing advice to the President.