As the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term progresses, there is increasing concern over the administration’s approach to online environmental resources. Reports indicate that the current situation is more severe than during his first term and suggests a troubling trajectory for environmental policies under his leadership.
A recent study by a watchdog organization focused on public environmental data reveals a significant uptick in federal website alterations during the first 100 days of Trump’s second term, showing a 70 percent increase compared to the same period in 2017.
The report highlights how federal agencies are now more aggressively removing public resources from their websites. This effort includes concealing information about communities that bear the brunt of pollution impacts. Factually accurate national climate change reports have been discarded in favor of misleading information, leading to a disturbing shift in the portrayal of reality.
“You can say anything you want to say if you remove evidence to the contrary.”
Gretchen Gehrke, a lead author of the report by the Environmental Data & Governance Initiative (EDGI), expressed concerns that suppressing data allows for the creation of narratives that ignore facts and evidence.
In a stark comparison between Trump’s two terms, the EDGI identified 632 notable website changes in the first 100 days of the current term versus 371 changes in 2017. This discrepancy is underscored by the fact that EDGI monitored only 20 percent of the websites it tracked in the previous term due to resource limitations.
Throughout the initial six months of this administration, EDGI documented 879 significant modifications to 639 distinct federal webpages. These modifications included changing terminology, such as replacing “climate change” with “extreme weather,” and outright removal of various web pages.
The most significant targets for removal have been resources addressing pollution disparities and health impacts linked to climate change. Notably, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) removed its EJScreen mapping tool, which was aimed at identifying vulnerable populations affected by air pollution and health risks, early in the term.
Gehrke notes that there has been a dramatic erasure of information related to environmental racism, stating that this term is being actively removed from public discourse.
A 2021 EPA report indicated that Latino populations are disproportionately affected by climate change, revealing that they are significantly more likely to reside in coastal areas vulnerable to worsening flooding. While press releases regarding this report are still accessible, links to further environmental justice information have been deleted.
“Information control was about removing evidence of inequality.”
Gehrke suggests that the shift towards increased control of information regarding climate change could lead to more dramatic changes as the administration continues. Although the EPA’s climate change website remains operational, the Trump administration recently terminated the team responsible for maintaining it and redirected users to other federal resources.
Concerns were raised when the administration removed the national climate assessments from federal websites, hindering access to critical data regarding how climate change impacts various regions of the United States. Researchers involved in the next report were also let go, further signaling the administration’s stance on climate issues.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright recently indicated that the administration may update previous climate assessments while commissioning reports that challenge widely accepted climate science. The shift reflects an overarching effort to recalibrate federally produced scientific narratives, particularly with respect to greenhouse gas regulation.
Neither the Department of Energy nor NOAA responded to requests for comments on these developments. In a statement, the EPA emphasized its commitment to serving the American public more effectively.
During Trump’s first term, access to a substantial portion of the EPA’s website was restricted. Recent research points to the continued removal of essential data during the current term.
In response to these issues, EDGI and other organizations are working to archive crucial environmental data online. The Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine enables recovery of previous webpage versions, helping preserve valuable information that has been deleted.
Moreover, legal actions have been initiated to compel the Trump administration to restore access to critical federal resources. This includes successful efforts by farmers to reinstate climate information on USDA websites and ongoing litigation by environmental groups aiming to reinstate important tools like EJScreen.
