Since Donald Trump returned to the White House, thousands of government datasets have been changed or removed, including key tools researchers and policymakers use to track communities at the most risk from climate change and toxic risks.
Eric Nost is a geographer and policy scholar at the University of Guelph in Canada and works with the US-based environmental data and governance initiative to help track and back up these resources before they are lost. He says that every administrative change involves changes to the website, shifting to the way data is presented or organized, but this time things are very different.
“When you start deleting this information, you change the way you write the issue and do so in a misleading way,” he says. He spoke Yale Environment 360 About his efforts.
Yale Environment 360: When it became clear in 2024 that Trump might return to the White House, what did you and your colleagues from Environmental Data and Governance Initiative start?
Eric Nost.
University of Guelph
Eric Nost: Given the possibility that Trump will be elected again, there were plans for work as the Biden administration approaches its end. The Wayback machine, which takes a snapshot of a page over time, is perfect for capturing static web pages. So we started reaching out and working with our partners, and eventually we started calling ourselves Public Environment Data Partner. We have created a list of hundreds of datasets across federal agencies in the United States. The list turns out to be hundreds of data sets, which is very important. This has led to a list of 60 datasets that we felt truly at risk. This was split, archived, downloaded in a variety of ways, and made available in some way.
E360: What happened since Trump took office in January?
NOST: data.gov is the central repository of government datasets that index things and make them easier to find. As of the end of January, there were about 2,000 records. Got missing data.gov out of a total of approximately 308,000. That doesn’t necessarily mean that data is gone from the record forever. But that certainly isn’t good. Because it’s not all available.
Trump’s first action from day one really targeted Day [diversity, equity, and inclusion]in addition to the fundamental withdrawal of involvement in climate action such as the Paris Agreement. It really directs what the agency has done. For example, the Department of Transport’s 25-year-old Climate Change Center was very quick. EPA delete There is “climate change” from the website navigation, making it difficult to find those pages.
The biggest set of changes we have seen is the removal of languages about environmental justice and DEI, namely language, data and tools. What I’ve never seen before is the deletion of pure biophysical climate data. It is not that the entire NASA climate data set is missing. We tend to be very wary of missing data or completely missing data. Every agent has an internal data system and certainly on someone’s laptop. Whether it’s actually published or not is a completely different question. For example, there is a dataset, such as a set of records related to grants created or created by the EPA for environmental justice purposes. I don’t think it exists anywhere on the internet.
“It seems very difficult for American colleagues. People who aren’t in the US may have more room for this kind of job.”
E360: What important things have been removed?
NOST: It’s not just the data that matters, but the code for the websites people interact with. There are many important tools out there. Even if you have data somewhere, it’s not very useful if everything is zipped with files.
Climate and economic justice screening tools were developed under Biden Justice40 Initiativean early executive order under his administration, attempting to allocate 40% of climate investment to so-called disadvantaged communities. This tool helped identify these communities. Trump has withdrawn Biden’s executive order and tools It’s gone down It’s within 72 hours of Trump’s appointment.
However, this was developed as an open source tool from day one, so the code was already available. So we’ve already made a copy. It was pretty easy to do Rebuild the tool And we host it ourselves Website.
Similarly, ejscreen Similarly, it was the EPA’s tool to understand communities at the forefront of toxic pollutants. There are many issues with EJScreen, but certainly there are many limitations. However, the tool was often used by community organizations, state and local governments for grants, communications or advocacy. It has existed since the Obama administration. It survived the first Trump administration. However, it was removed on February 5th. Again, the code was public so I was able to either make a copy of that data or, in some cases, reverse engineer what the data should be. We could Make a copy And once again, make it fully functional.
Click to enlarge. Left: FEMA’s Climate Resilience website for December. Right: The same site after Trump took office in January, explicit references to “climate change,” have been removed.
Wayback machine
E360: When was your first involvement in government data tracking?
NOST: Eight years ago, at the start of Trump’s first administration, I joined the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative. [EDGI, pronounced “edgy”]. The group was founded in November 2016 and shortly after Trump’s first election and took him there. threat Deconstruct the EPA seriously. EDGI is the leading organization that tracks changes to government websites.
E360:What does work with EDGI involve?
NOST: I use an internet archive and a Wayback machine. Essentially, we generate reports that are weekly and twice a week from Trump’s first victory, and a spreadsheet of links to government pages. After that, we will pull these up with custom software and look like the volunteers are watching. If so, is that page or is the change important?
E360: Who is funding EDGI?
NOST: various Funding providermainly the basics. EDGI is funded by the National Science Foundation. The funds were paid. Perhaps there was a problem if the timing was different.
“It’s really discouraging. What we’re seeing is a real gush of public infrastructure and public capabilities.”
E360: Does it help to be Canadians doing this job, not someone in the US?
NOST: There are all changes to research funding at NSF [National Science Foundation] And beyond that, it seems very difficult for some of my colleagues in America to be productively working on some of these. People who are not in the US may have more room for this kind of job.
E360: What happened in Trump’s first administration?
NOST: The overall story of Trump 1.0 is that we didn’t see much of the data that was missing in itself. But what we saw was the removal and modification of many different web resources. As a result, the web page has been taken offline. The text on the web page was changed to change how climate issues were presented, often undermining the climate language into a more delicious and vague statement. We saw a lot of it. a has been published Report 2019.
E360: Has the court been involved in the issue of missing data and resources?
NOST: This isn’t something we really saw in the first Trump administration, but we are now looking at legal activism. USDA [U.S. Department of Agriculture]for example, many climate-related resources have been removed, and now a group of farmers are appealing to restore these resources. This follows a similar lawsuit filed by a doctor against the CDC. [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] When you delete a large number of public health datasets and web pages. They could argue that the CDC must revert it for public health, and they I did that.
President Trump will sign an executive order adjacent to cabinet members on February 14th.
Andrew Harnik / Getty Images
E360: Is the record protected?
NOST: One reason we don’t see much of the biophysical climate data missing is because many of them are mandatory in Congress. For example, an industry report on the number of greenhouse gases released each year – that is mandatory in Congress. The same goes for many NOAA datasets. That’s not to say that, like other Congressional requirements like USAID, the Trump administration doesn’t underestimate them at some point. [U.S. Agency for International Development] Funds. However, that’s why we still don’t know that much of that data is not missing.
E360: Of course, it’s not just the data, it’s the work of people. Thousands of government workers, including research scientists, have been fired. Do you have any comments about that?
NOST: That’s really disappointing. What we see is a real eruption of public infrastructure and public capabilities. That’s from both the people and the dataset’s perspective. These are investments in people and data that the public has made over decades. What are we blocking it for? Tax cuts for the wealthy?
Those people are people who create data, collect it and steward it. NOAA may be mandatory to collect certain data, but it is not mandatory to have a workforce of a certain size. If no one is there to create the data, you will see a gap in the record.
“The US government is the world’s largest publisher. People around the world will turn it as a source of information.”
E360: What’s different about this administration?
NOST: One thing we haven’t seen for the first time this time is removing access to information from people outside the US, like FEMA, county-by-county counties. tracking The risks to natural disasters are no longer available to people outside the US
E360: Why are these changes important?
NOST: The Trump administration revoked 30 years of environmental justice work by rescinding Clinton’s 1994 executive order. Required An institution that makes achieving EJ a part of their mission. For example, by having the EPA assess whether it disproportionately allows contaminants in the black community. It doesn’t necessarily have many teeth, and there have been many complaints about it over the years, but at least there. It was the first day.
The US government is the world’s largest publisher. People all over the world will turn into it as a source of information. So, starting to delete this information, change the way we explain the problem, and do so in a misleading way, is actually censorship and propaganda.
E360: What should people do or should they do?
NOST: Advocating for policy changes. Join an organization like EDGI – we always want more volunteers. Even if you have one website you use on a daily basis, make a copy with Wayback Machine. It’s easy – just put the link. This will help you build public backups and public records.
