In response to the Trump administration’s rapid dismantling of federal websites, the Environmental Data & Governance Initiative (EDGI) has relaunched its Federal Environmental Web Tracker.
On February 5th, EPA removed several web pages about the environmental justice mapping and screening tool, EJScreen, as well as the tool itself. These pages, which now cannot be accessed or simply say, “Sorry, but this web page does not exist,” include:
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has renamed its “Climate Resilience” website to “Future Conditions,” and has removed much of the climate-specific language from the site’s landing page. For example, FEMA replaced the introductory sentence from “Climate change is the defining crisis of our time” to “Disaster incidents are rising due to increased human vulnerability, exposure and a changing climate.”
In the first couple of days of the second Trump administration, the EPA removed several web pages related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts at the EPA.
In anticipation of a second and likely more significant assault on federal environmental information by the Trump administration, the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI) is ramping up its website monitoring work, coordinating a broad multi-organizational data preservation effort, and expanding its civic data science tools for accessing federal environmental data. EDGI is also supporting the End of Term Archive as it works to build the largest archive of federal web-based data and information ever created.
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.
This October marks the 50th anniversary of the 1972 Clean Water Act (CWA). With the original goal of eliminating point-source pollution within ten years, the CWA articulated nationwide water quality standards to protect both public health and wildlife habitats. Fifty years later, and over seventy years after the onset of hydraulic fracturing (or fracking), federal loopholes and the structure of the CWA itself have left fracking largely unregulated.
Webmaps that are meant to evaluate and “screen” neighborhoods for environmental injustices have seen a lot of interest in both the United States and Canada lately. From informing where to distribute climate funding in the US as “Justice 40” to Canada’s Bill C-226, the pursuit of environmental equity has led to a strongly felt need for data and mapping tools that overlay environmental health with racial and income disparities.
The EPA plans to retire its online archive in July 2022. Open Letter to EPA Asks Agency Not to Sunset its Online […]
Image shows the beta version of the federal Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool. EDGI Urges CEQ to Incorporate Federal Enforcement Data […]