U.S. Environmental Protection Agency employees have been ordered by the Trump administration to remove the agency's climate change webpage, a resource used by scientists and educators worldwide, according to Reuters, whose report early Wednesday morning is based on the accounts of two anonymous EPA staffers:
The employees were notified by EPA officials on Tuesday that the administration had instructed EPA's communications team to remove the website's climate change page, which contains links to scientific global warming research, as well as detailed data on emissions. The page could go down as early as Wednesday, the sources said.
While the new administration has restricted communications between several federal scientific agencies and external audiences during recent days, this is the first example where an agency has been directly ordered to remove science-based content from the webpage of an agency dedicated to protecting human health. As Reuters reporter Valerie Volcovici writes, these collective actions appear "designed to tighten control and discourage dissenting views."
The EPA's climate change page was still active as of 12 noon EST on Wednesday.
When asked for comment, the EPA's climate change press officer referred me to the main EPA press email account. The main press office has not yet responded.
Update, Wednesday, January 26, 3:05 pm - Greenwire from E&E News, an energy and environmental news organization, has now reported that "Trump administration officials appear to have walked back plans to scrub climate change references from U.S. EPA's website." An unnamed EPA employee told reporters Robin Bravender and Hannah Hess that, "We've been told to stand down."
Established by President Richard M. Nixon in 1970, the EPA drafts and enforces regulations based on environmental laws passed in Congress. But the agency also operates 27 research laboratories and awards $4 billion in grants each year to local nonprofits, state governments and academic researchers. In addition, EPA meets Section 207(f)(2) of the E-Government Act of 2002, a rule that requires federal agencies to publish information online to teach the public, students and educators about environmental issues that affect health. The type of information provided to taxpayers is left to the discretion of each agency.
Reuters is reporting that the Trump administration has not commented on the report. Myron Ebell, an anti-climate change activist who led Trump's transition efforts at the EPA, is quoted as saying, "My guess is the web pages will be taken down, but the links and information will be available," implying that the individual resources might be buried within the EPA web directory when the climate change landing page is deleted.
The EPA student guide is a popular resource among educators. Source:... [+]
Currently, Oklahoma Attorney General E. Scott Pruitt has been the subject of Senate confirmation hearings to lead the EPA, but no vote has been taken thus far. Pruitt's office has filed 14 lawsuits against the EPA and he is generally known to consider federal regulations an overreach in the business of states. As such, he established Oklahoma's first federalism unit to combat what his office calls "unwarranted regulation and overreach of the federal government."
Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the EPA operates 10 regional offices, and the largest of all the facilities is in my local area, the Research Triangle Park of North Carolina. In addition to its 15 offices, EPA RTP is the central research site for air pollution research and regulation. Their inhalation toxicology expertise and experimental resources are where some of the seminal research was done on health effects of tobacco smoke.
