Public outreach, accessibility, and transparency are central to EDGI’s vision of good environmental governance; we apply the same aspirations for our own work. Documents appearing here reflect that commitment, with a report that recounts our early accomplishments and plans below.

EDGI Reports

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) nearly 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 ...
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EDGI Annual Report 2018

Publication Author:

Stephanie Knutson, Marcy Beck, Steven Braun, Ray Cha, Lindsey Dillon, Gretchen Gehrke, Rebecca Lave, Michelle Murphy, Matt Price, Toly Rinberg, Sara Rubinow, Chris Sellers, Nick Shapiro, Kyala Shea, Lourdes Vera, Dawn Walker, Sara Wylie, EDGI

Publication Date:

March 1, 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. Download Report EDGI-Annual-Report-2018 ...
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Changing the Digital Climate

Publication Author:

Toly Rinberg, Maya Anjur-Dietrich, Marcy Beck, Andrew Bergman, Justin Derry, Lindsey Dillon, Gretchen Gehrke, Rebecca Lave, Chris Sellers, Nick Shapiro, Anastasia Aizman, Dan Allan, Madelaine Britt, Raymond Cha, Janak Chadha, Morgan Currie, Sara Johns, Abby Klionsky, Stephanie Knutson, Katherine Kulik, Aaron Lemelin, Kevin Nguyen, Eric Nost, Kendra Ouellette, Lindsay Poirier, Sara Rubinow, Justin Schell, Lizz Ultee, Julia Upfal, Tyler Wedrosky, Jacob Wylie, EDGI

Publication Date:

January 10, 2018

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 ...
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Pursuing A Toxic Agenda

Publication Author:

Britt S. Paris, Lindsey Dillon, Jennifer Pierre, Irene V. Pasquetto, Emily Marquez, Sara Wylie, Michelle Murphy, Phil Brown, Rebecca Lave, Chris Sellers, Becky Mansfield, Leif Fredrickson, Nicholas Shapiro, EDGI

Publication Date:

September 19, 2017

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 ...
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The EPA Under Siege

Publication Author:

Christopher Sellers, Lindsey Dillon, Jennifer Liss Ohayon, Nick Shapiro, Marianne Sullivan, Chris Amoss, Stephen Bocking, Phil Brown, Vanessa De la Rosa, Jill Harrison, Sara Johns, Katherine Kulik, Rebecca Lave, Michelle Murphy, Liza Piper, Lauren Richter, Sara Wylie

Publication Date:

June 19, 2017

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 ...
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EDGI Introduction and Accomplishments — Report

Publication Author:

Environmental Data and Governance Initiative

Publication Date:

May 5, 2017

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 ...
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Public Protections Under Threat at the EPA: Examining Safeguards and Programs That Would Have Been Blocked by H.R. 1430 — White Paper

Publication Author:

Vivian Underhill, Megan Martenyi, Sarah Lamdan, Andrew Bergman

Publication Date:

March 27, 2017

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 ...
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Introducing the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative — Report

Publication Author:

Environmental Data and Governance Initiative

Publication Date:

February 1, 2017

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 ...
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Academic Publications

The Environmental Protection Agency in the Early Trump Administration: Prelude to Regulatory Capture

Lindsey Dillon, Christopher Sellers, Vivian Underhill, Nicholas Shapiro, Jennifer Liss OhayonPhD, Marianne Sullivan, Phil Brown, Jill Harrison, Sara Wylie, and the “EPA Under Siege” Writing Group. The American Journal of Public Health. April 2018, 108(S2), S89-S94.

History of US Presidential Assaults on Modern Environmental Health Protection

Leif Fredrickson, Christopher Sellers, Lindsey Dillon, Jennifer Liss Ohayon, Nicholas Shapiro, Marianne Sullivan, Stephen Bocking, Phil Brown, Vanessa de la Rosa, Jill Harrison, Sara Johns, Katherine Kulik, Rebecca Lave, Michelle Murphy, Liza Piper, Lauren Richter, and Sara Wylie. The American Journal of Public Health. April 2018, 108(S2), S95-S103,

Environmental Data Justice and the Trump Administration: Reflections from the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative

Dillon Lindsey, Walker Dawn, Shapiro Nicholas, Underhill Vivian, Martenyi Megan, Wylie Sara, Lave Rebecca, Murphy Michelle, Brown Phil, and Environmental Data and Governance Initiative. Environmental Justice. December 2017, 10(6): 186-192. https://doi.org/10.1089/env.2017.0020.

Commentaries and Blog Posts

Lindsey Dillon, Christopher Sellers and Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (2017, December 5) “Environmental Data and Governance in the Trump Era” SSRC “Just Environments” Series
Leif Fredrickson (2017, September 28) “The federal agency that few Americans have heard of and which we all need to know.” Washington Post.
Britt Paris and Rebecca Lave (2017, July 20) “Environmental Injustice in the Early Days of the Trump Administration.” Union of Concerned Scientists.
Leif Fredrickson (2017, July 14) “Scott Pruitt is wrong about the origins of the EPA.” Washington Post.
Chris Sellers (2017, July 1) “Trump and Pruitt are the biggest threat to the EPA in its 47 years of existence.” Vox.
Chris Sellers (2017, April 22) “How Republicans came to embrace anti-environmentalism.” Vox.
Rebecca Lave (2017, February 16) “It’s vital for science that we cache US federal agency facts.” Higher Education.
Phil Brown, Gretchen Gehrke, Michelle Murphy, Chris Sellers, and Sara Wylie (2017, February 23) “Scott Pruitt’s First Address to the EPA: As Annotated by EDGI”
Jerome Whitington (2017, January 17) “Environmental Data, Guerrilla Archiving, and the Trump Transition.” Cultural Anthropology.

Publications

EDGI Reports

Academic Publications

The Environmental Protection Agency in the Early Trump Administration: Prelude to Regulatory Capture

History of US Presidential Assaults on Modern Environmental Health Protection

Environmental Data Justice and the Trump Administration: Reflections from the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative

Commentaries and Blog Posts

EDGI’s Public Comments

Website Monitoring Reports