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For Immediate Release
May, 04 2017, 02:45pm EDT
Thursday May, 04 2017, 02:45pm EDT
Contact:
Amy Atwood, (503) 504-5660, atwood@biologicaldiversity.org
Stuart Pimm, Ph.D., (646) 489-5481, stuartpimm@me.com
Nick Surgey, (608) 628-1668, nick@prwatch.org
Trump Administration Continues Attack on Science, Scrubs Data on Climate Change From Interior Department Websites
Conservationists, Scientist Fight Back With Freedom of Information Act
WASHINGTON
WASHINGTON - As the Trump administration continues to censor science, the Center for Biological Diversity, Center for Media and Democracy and scientist Dr. Stuart Pimm today launched a novel legal strategy to force the Department of the Interior to restore climate change information that was deleted from the agency's website.
"Scrubbing information about climate change will not make it any less dangerous," said Amy Atwood, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. "We're going to fight the Trump administration's efforts to bury the science showing the dangerous impacts of climate change at every turn."
Under a seldom-utilized provision of the Freedom of Information Act added in 2016, when federal agencies receive requests for the same records three or more times, they must make the records freely available to the public on their websites. The groups and Dr. Pimm today each filed information requests for the information from the deleted webpages in order to force the Interior department to restore them.
"The public has a right to know important scientific information, particularly when it threatens to unravel the web of life we all depend on," said Stuart Pimm, Doris Duke professor of conservation ecology at Duke University. "I continue to be deeply troubled by the Trump administration's efforts to bury the irrefutable science of climate change."
As has been widely reported, Interior's website formerly included detailed information about how human activities are the primary cause of climate action, the consequences of climate change, the federal government's strategies to respond to climate change and the consequences of inaction. The website now includes just one paragraph about climate change.
"The Trump administration is attempting a giant scam," said Nick Surgey, director of research at the Center for Media and Democracy. "Trump officials routinely mislead by saying the science around climate change isn't settled, all while implementing policies to purge the web of the actual science."
The Center has now found that in addition to the Interior Department's own website, the websites of multiple agencies within the Interior Department -- including the Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Climate Science Centers, National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Geological Survey -- have also deeply cut information about climate change from their webpages. The BLM site on climate change, for example, is now a dead link.
The Centers and Dr. Pimm have now submitted Freedom of Information Act requests for all the data scrubbed from these websites, as well as from the Environmental Protection Agency, which has also removed climate change information from its website.
These requests add to others filed in March that sought to ensure thousands of data sets on oil and gas projections, energy use, climate data, human population and the status of scores of endangered and threatened species and other wildlife remained publically available on agency websites. By invoking the little-used provision of the Freedom of Information Act, the Centers and Dr. Pimm are ensuring that the lost data are made electronically available to the public once again.
At the Center for Biological Diversity, we believe that the welfare of human beings is deeply linked to nature — to the existence in our world of a vast diversity of wild animals and plants. Because diversity has intrinsic value, and because its loss impoverishes society, we work to secure a future for all species, great and small, hovering on the brink of extinction. We do so through science, law and creative media, with a focus on protecting the lands, waters and climate that species need to survive.
(520) 623-5252LATEST NEWS
Leaked Drafts Show Trump Administration Scrubbing Out Human Rights Violations of Favored Nations
"It would be a travesty and subversion of congressional intent to downplay or ignore human rights violations faced by marginalized populations," said a representative from Amnesty International.
Aug 08, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump's administration earned condemnation from Amnesty International on Thursday over its leaked plans to downplay human rights violations in countries favored by the American government.
News of the plan was originally reported on Wednesday by The Washington Post, which documented how the administration has been revising State Department reports on human rights in El Salvador, Israel, and Russia to "strike all references to LGBTQ+ individuals or crimes against them." The Post also added that "the descriptions of government abuses that do remain have been softened."
In the case of El Salvador, where the administration earlier this year began lawlessly shipping immigrants deported from the United States, the administration's report stated that were "no credible reports of significant human rights abuses" there, even though a State Department report under former President Joe Biden's administration issued last year documented "significant human rights issues" in the country.
Human rights violations against LGBTQ+ people were deleted from the State Department's report on Russia, while the report on Israel deleted references to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's corruption trial and to his government's threats to the country's independent judiciary.
Amanda Klasing, Amnesty International USA's national director of government relations and advocacy, ripped the administration for selectively whitewashing human rights records of nations favored by the president.
"The leaked chapters of the latest Annual Human Rights Report reveal a disturbing effort by the Trump administration to purposefully fail to fully capture the alarming and growing attacks on human rights in certain countries around the globe," she said. "Alarmingly, we understand that the mandate from Secretary Rubio was... to go back and wipe out portions of the reports that had already been written—to delete stories from survivors of human rights violations."
Klasing went on to accuse the administration of turning the human rights report "into yet another tool to obscure facts to push forward anti-rights policy choices."
She also emphasized that "it would be a travesty and subversion of congressional intent to downplay or ignore human rights violations faced by marginalized populations including refugees and asylum seekers, women and girls, Indigenous people, ethnic and religious minorities, and LGBTQI+ people throughout the world."
An unnamed State Department official this week told the Post that the administration was merely simplifying the human rights reports to make them more "readable."
"The 2024 Human Rights report has been restructured in a way that removes redundancies, increases report readability, and is more responsive to the legislative mandate that underpins the report," the official said. "The human rights report focuses on core issues."
'Horrifying Escalation': Global Outcry as Israeli Cabinet Approves Military Takeover of Gaza City
The United Nations' human rights chief warned the move would "result in more massive forced displacement, more killing, more unbearable suffering, senseless destruction, and atrocity crimes."
Aug 08, 2025
Foreign ministers from countries around the world, the United Nations' human rights chief, the families of Israeli hostages, and aid organizations were among those condemning the Israeli security cabinet's approval of a plan early Friday for a full military takeover of Gaza City, a move seen as the opening salvo in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's push for total occupation of the besieged Palestinian enclave.
Netanyahu's office said in a statement that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), which already controls much of the Gaza Strip, "will prepare for taking control of Gaza City while distributing humanitarian assistance to the civilian population outside the combat zones."
Since the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023, the Israeli government has systematically obstructed humanitarian aid distribution in Gaza, sparking a growing starvation crisis. The World Health Organization said Thursday that around 12,000 children under the age of five in the strip are suffering from acute malnutrition—a crisis that Israel's newly approved ground operation in Gaza City is likely to worsen.
The Associated Press noted that Gaza City "is one of the few areas in Gaza that hasn’t been turned into an Israeli buffer zone or placed under evacuation orders." An Israeli ground operation in the city "could displace tens of thousands of people and further disrupt efforts to deliver food to the hunger-stricken territory," the outlet added.
Hannah Bond, co-CEO of ActionAid U.K., in a statement on Friday that "this horrifying escalation will forcibly displace hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who are already experiencing starvation and have nowhere else to flee, and will inevitably result in even more bloodshed."
"The U.K. government has condemned this decision," Bond added, "but it should know by now that words are not enough to stop the Israeli authorities from pursuing a course of destruction."
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Israel's plan for Gaza City "will do nothing to bring an end to this conflict or to help secure the release of the hostages."
"It will only bring more bloodshed," he warned.
"Australia calls on Israel to not go down this path, which will only worsen the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza."
Starmer was among many world leaders who spoke out in the wake of the Israeli security cabinet vote, with the foreign ministers of Australia, the Netherlands, Scotland, China, Turkey, and other nations decrying the impending operation as a disaster that could crush any remaining hope of a deal to end the military assault.
"Australia calls on Israel to not go down this path, which will only worsen the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza," said Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong. "Permanent forced displacement is a violation of international law."
Citing Israel's continued expansion of military operations in Gaza, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Friday that his government wouldn't authorize any exports of military equipment that could be used in Gaza "until further notice."
"The even harsher military action by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip, approved by the Israeli cabinet last night, makes it increasingly difficult for the German government to see how these goals will be achieved," said Merz, referring to a cease-fire and the release of Israeli hostages.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which represents the families of Israeli hostages held in Gaza, issued a scathing statement in response to the cabinet vote, saying the Israeli government has "sentenced the living hostages to death and the fallen hostages to disappearance."
"The cabinet decision to launch the process of occupying the strip," the group added, "is an official declaration of the abandonment of the hostages, while completely ignoring the repeated warnings by the military echelon and the clear desire of most of the public in Israel."
Hamas, which governs Gaza, called Israel's plan to "occupy Gaza City and forcibly evacuate its residents" a "new war crime that the occupation army is preparing to commit against the city and its nearly one million inhabitants."
One voice that was conspicuously absent from the global outrage over Friday's cabinet vote was that of the U.S. government under President Donald Trump, who reportedly does not oppose Netanyahu's plan for full occupation of the Gaza Strip. The U.S. is Israel's top ally and leading supplier of weaponry that has been used extensively to massacre civilians in Gaza.
Citing unnamed sources, Axios reported earlier this week that Trump "has decided not to intervene and to let the Israeli government make its own decisions."
Volker Türk, the U.N. human rights chief, said that the Netanyahu government's expansion of its war on Gaza "must be immediately halted," noting that it "runs contrary to the ruling of the International Court of Justice that Israel must bring its occupation to an end as soon as possible."
"On all evidence to date, this further escalation will result in more massive forced displacement, more killing, more unbearable suffering, senseless destruction, and atrocity crimes," said Türk. "Instead of intensifying this war, the Israeli government should put all its efforts into saving the lives of Gaza's civilians by allowing the full, unfettered flow of humanitarian aid."
Trump DOJ Gives Monopolist UnitedHealth a Green Light to Swallow Yet Another Competitor
"As a result, Big Medicine will profit at the expense of vulnerable hospice patients, some of whom will pay with their lives, and the workers who care for them."
Aug 08, 2025
The Trump Justice Department on Thursday paved the way for yet another corporate merger, this time settling a Biden-era legal challenge that aimed to block UnitedHealth Group from adding the home health and hospice care provider Amedisys to its eye-popping list of subsidiaries.
The DOJ's Antitrust Division, which is under siege by lobbyists connected to the White House, said the settlement would require UnitedHealth and Amedisys to "divest 164 home health and hospice locations across 19 states." The deal, which must be approved by a judge, would also require Amedisys to "pay a $1.1 million civil penalty to the United States for falsely certifying that it had provided 'true, correct, and complete' responses under the Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976."
The settlement was announced on the same day that Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) launched an investigation into UnitedHealth, specifically probing the company's alleged practice of incentivizing nursing homes to slash patient care costs.
Warren was among those who criticized the UnitedHealth-Amedisys settlement, writing on social media that she "sounded the alarm about UnitedHealth's attempt to purchase this home health giant years ago."
"This is another half-baked merger settlement by the Trump DOJ—this time at the expense of the most vulnerable," Warren added. "The public deserves to know if this deal is based on political favors."
"It claims to divest home health and hospice care providers in overlapping markets but, in actuality, cedes them to similarly conflicted buyers, including a highly leveraged private equity firm."
The settlement came as the Trump Justice Department is under growing scrutiny for terminating or sidelining top antitrust officials and acquiescing to lobbyists fighting DOJ merger lawsuits.
Last week, as Common Dreams reported, the Justice Department dropped an antitrust case against American Express Global Business Travel, a company that has paid Ballard Partners—Attorney General Pam Bondi's former lobbying firm—hundreds of thousands of dollars this year to pressure the DOJ on antitrust matters.
Ballard has also been paid big money this year by UnitedHealth, far and away the most powerful healthcare company in the U.S. According to a recent analysis by the Center for Health and Democracy, UnitedHealth currently has around 2,700 subsidiaries, giving it a foothold in virtually every aspect of the U.S. healthcare system.
The legal challenge against UnitedHealth's proposed $3.3 billion acquisition of Amedisys was brought in November 2024 by the Biden Justice Department alongside the attorneys general of Maryland, Illinois, New Jersey, and New York, each of whom backed the Trump DOJ's settlement.
Upon announcing the challenge, then-Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter—the head of the Biden DOJ's Antitrust Division—warned that "unless this $3.3 billion transaction is stopped, UnitedHealth Group will further extend its grip to home health and hospice care, threatening seniors, their families, and nurses."
Emma Freer, senior policy analyst for healthcare at the American Economic Liberties Project, said in a statement Thursday that "the DOJ was right to challenge this deal, which would eliminate head-to-head competition that lowers costs, improves care quality, and betters working conditions for nurses and other caregivers."
"This settlement abandons that goal and caves to UnitedHealth Group, one of the most dangerous monopolists in American healthcare," said Freer. "It claims to divest home health and hospice care providers in overlapping markets but, in actuality, cedes them to similarly conflicted buyers, including a highly leveraged private equity firm."
"As a result," Freer added, "Big Medicine will profit at the expense of vulnerable hospice patients, some of whom will pay with their lives, and the workers who care for them."
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