EPA has hidden access to information on its website about climate change.
The American public relies on EPA’s website for detailed and dependable information about critical environmental subjects, including climate change. On April 28, 2017, EPA announced it was updating its website to “reflect the agency’s new direction under President Donald Trump and Administrator Scott Pruitt.”
Many of these “updates” take the form of climate change webpages with notices that they will be updated. While some pages remain available via a “snapshot” of what was available on the website at the end of the Obama administration, accessing this information requires searching for it specifically within the old archive.
The removed pages include EPA’s main climate change webpage which previously contained information about regulations, policies, and science, with a special focus on “reviewing” information related to climate change. Webpages that provide information about EPA rules and programs used to include benefits or impacts related to climate change. Those disclosures are no longer included. The Environmental Data and Governance Initiative released a study that found “of all agencies, the EPA has removed the most climate web content.” This leaves the public without a reliable, comprehensive and up-to-date source of information about a critical and complex subject.
As of November 2018, the update notice has been removed from the climate change webpage and it appears as though the administration has abandoned the update project for the page. The only link provided is to the archived version of the page from January 19, 2017.
For more information on EPA’s actions regarding climate change science, please see our posts:
- Misleading the Public on Climate Science
- EPA Removes Academic Scientists from Science Advisory Panels
- Appointing a Climate Change Skeptic to EPA’s Advisory Committee
This post was edited for clarity on Jan. 28, 2020.