EPA Enforcement Still Struggling to Recover Under Biden
The report EPA Enforcement Still Struggling to Recover Under Biden examines the slow to minimal progress the Biden Administration has made restoring the capacity of the EPA to handle enforcement and compliance of our nation’s environmental laws. While showing some recovery, EPA enforcement and compliance has overall been weak and some enforcement measures, such as criminal cases opened and compliance ...
Publication Date:
February 22, 2023
2022 Annual Report
Open PDF LETTER FROM OUR COORDINATING COMMITTEE We are very grateful to present this annual report for fiscal year 2022. In the midst of the intensifying climate emergency and growing evidence about the dangers of pollution, we are relieved to see the federal government working to address environmental injustices, especially for communities disproportionately burdened. We are coming to realize however ...
Publication Date:
February 13, 2023
50 Years After the Clean Water Act, Toxic Chemicals it Regulates are Still Used in Fracking
This October marks the 50th anniversary of the Clean Water Act (CWA), the United States’ primary federal legislation protecting water quality. The CWA is meant to minimize water pollution in rivers, lakes, and streams, protecting both public health and wildlife habitat. Fifty years later, and over seventy years after the onset of hydraulic fracturing (or fracking), federal loopholes and the ...
Publication Date:
October 31, 2022
How Gaps and Disparities in EPA Data Undermine Climate and Environmental Justice Screening Tools
The report How Gaps and Disparities in EPA Data Undermine Climate and Environmental Justice Screening Tools examines gaps and disparities in the data the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) uses to track violations and enforce compliance of the Clean Water, Clean Air, Resource Conservation and Recovery, and Safe Drinking Water Acts (CWA, CAA, RCRA, SDWA). Open and replicable analytical methods were ...
Publication Date:
September 28, 2022
Work in Progress: Governance of Digital Environmental Information In the Biden Administration’s First Year
Throughout its first year, the Biden administration has conveyed the importance it places on public information. Websites are the primary medium of communication from federal agencies to the public, and in the past year, many federal agencies have demonstrated attention to their websites. The Environmental Data and Governance Initiative’s (EDGI’s) Website Monitoring Team has been tracking changes to federal climate, ...
Publication Date:
January 20, 2022
Crossing the Line: Analyzing EPA News Releases Under Trump and Ensuring Trust in Federal Information in the Future
Crossing the Line: Analyzing EPA News Releases Under Trump and Ensuring Trust in Federal Information in the Future examines the politicization of EPA’s news releases under the Trump administration and recommends guidelines for protection of the integrity of information coming from the EPA’s press office. Crossing the Line provides a comprehensive analysis of EPA news releases during the Trump administration ...
Publication Date:
December 21, 2021
EDGI 2021 Annual Report
Open PDF LETTER FROM OUR COORDINATING COMMITTEE In the Environmental Data & Governance Initiative (EDGI)’s first four years, we tracked harms to federal environmental governance in the United States made by the Trump administration. Our vision was always to do more than document harm; we seek accountability and restoration. We dream of an active justice, an environmental governance system that ...
Publication Date:
August 31, 2021
Access Denied: Federal Web Governance Under the Trump Administration
Access Denied: Federal Web Governance Under the Trump Administration examines the Trump administration’s management of federal websites related to environmental regulation and makes recommendations for the Biden administration moving forward. Currently, there are few policies governing website content. This report highlights the need to address these gaps. It’s the most comprehensive report yet from EDGI’s website monitoring program. Since Trump ...
Publication Date:
February 25, 2021
Democratizing Data: Environmental Enforcement Watch’s Report Cards for Congressional Oversight of the EPA
On October 22, 2020, EDGI released the Democratizing Data: Environmental Enforcement Watch’s Report Cards for Congressional Oversight of the EPA report and project. The summary report provides, for the first time, an analysis of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data on compliance with, and enforcement of, environmental laws in select congressional districts and states. It focuses on three of the most ...
Publication Date:
October 22, 2020
EDGI Annual Report 2020
Open PDF LETTER FROM OUR COORDINATING COMMITTEE Our Annual Report celebrates and reviews EDGI’s meaningful work in the last year. In this letter we wish to reflect on the enormity of the task at hand in this crucial moment of intersecting crises of social, racial, and environmental injustices and irreversible climate change, and to express our commitment to redoubling our ...
Publication Date:
July 13, 2020
The New Digital Landscape: How the Trump Administration Has Undermined Federal Web Infrastructures for Climate Information
In this report, we build on our existing research to present a broad analysis of how the Trump administration has altered the use of terms related to climate change on federal environmental websites. Over the thousands of websites we monitor, use of the terms “climate change,” “clean energy,” and “adaptation” dropped by 26% between 2016 and 2018, while catch-all terms ...
Publication Date:
July 22, 2019
EDGI Annual Report 2019
In the past year, we have had the opportunity to grow and mature as an organization, to make important contributions to highlighting the dismantling of federal environmental protections, and to think proactively about models of environmental data justice. This annual report is a place to learn about our work, celebrate where we’ve come from, what we’ve accomplished, and what we ...
Publication Date:
April 8, 2019
A Sheep in the Closet: The Erosion of Enforcement at the EPA
This report examines environmental enforcement at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) two years into the Trump administration. Based on extensive interviewing with EPA employees and recent retirees as well as in-depth wide-ranging research into EPA data and documents as well as news coverage, we conclude that the EPA is no longer so capable of fulfilling its mission to ensure ...
Publication Date:
May 31, 2019
EDGI Annual Report 2018
In the last year, we have formed a thriving organization, supported almost entirely by volunteer labor, driven by a shared concern about the dismantling of federal environmental protections. Together, we’ve accomplished more than we could have imagined. We invite you to learn more about our organization and to celebrate all we have done in the past year. Open PDF EDGI-Annual-Report-2018 ...
Publication Date:
March 1, 2018
Changing the Digital Climate
The Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI) continues its series of reports on the Trump administration’s impacts on environmental policy and data governance. “Changing the Digital Climate” is the third of a multi-part series on the early days of the Trump administration. In this series, EDGI authors systematically investigate historical precedents for Trump’s attack on the EPA, consequences for toxic ...
Publication Date:
January 10, 2018
Pursuing A Toxic Agenda
The Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI) continues its series of reports on the Trump administration’s impacts on environmental policy and data governance, this time focusing on Environmental Justice, the right for all communities to human and environmental health. Pursuing a Toxic Agenda: Environmental Injustice in the Early Trump Administration, extensively analyzes recent policy shifts, and highlights EDGI’s interview with ...
Publication Date:
September 19, 2017
The EPA Under Siege
In the first report of its kind, the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI) has conducted an in-depth analysis of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under Trump and Administrator Scott Pruitt. In stark contrast to Pruitt’s June 15 Congressional testimony, our report shows that his administration has already damaged the agency, and currently poses the greatest threat to the EPA ...
Publication Date:
June 19, 2017
EDGI Introduction and Accomplishments — Report
May report covering highlights of EDGI’s projects include monitoring and analyzing changes to federal environmental agency websites, and researching the effects of environmental deregulation and changes at federal agencies, such as EPA, DOE, NASA, NOAA, and OSHA. EDGI also co-coordinates “DataRescue” events to proactively archive public environmental data and ensure its continued public availability. More information about our core working ...
Publication Date:
May 5, 2017
Public Protections Under Threat at the EPA: Examining Safeguards and Programs That Would Have Been Blocked by H.R. 1430 — White Paper
Protecting safe drinking water and healthy air depends on the EPA’s ability to incorporate the best available evidence from all scientific fields of study into its risk assessments and regulation drafting processes. EDGI’s analysis and research here shows that the passage of H.R. 1430 would block the EPA from using the data it needs to fulfill its mission of protecting ...
Publication Date:
March 27, 2017
Introducing the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative — Report
As we follow the impacts of the transition on agency websites, operations, capacities, and policies, we’ll be preparing and posting here other written works, oriented to general as well as more specialized readerships, that summarize and analyze what we find. Among the public outreach activities in the works are roundtables, biweekly reports, and an assessment of the new administration’s first ...
Publication Date:
February 1, 2017