EPA’s Climate Science Erasure Part of Trump Administration’s Agenda to Boost Fossil Fuels, Harm People

The Trump administration has removed scientific data and climate change information from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) webpages, including all references to human activities driving climate change. This includes key U.S. climate change indicators such as changes in temperature, drought and extreme precipitation over the last few decades. The EPA also removed critical research evaluating the risks and impacts that climate change in the United States poses to human health, air quality and the economy.

Below is a statement by Dr. Rachel Cleetus, senior policy director for the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).

“EPA is trying to bury the evidence on human-caused climate change, but it cannot change the reality of climate science or the harsh toll climate impacts are taking on people’s lives. Deleting and distorting this scientific information only serves to give a free pass to fossil fuel polluters who are raking in profits even as communities reel from extreme heatwaves, record-breaking floods, intensified storms and catastrophic wildfires. This isn’t just about data on a website; it’s an attack on independent science and scientific integrity.

“Administrator Zeldin has fully abdicated EPA’s responsibility to protect our health and the environment by tearing down science-based pollution standards. Up next: the likely overturning of the Endangerment Finding, a legal and scientific foundation for standards to limit the heat-trapping emissions driving climate change and threatening human health. This is all part of the Trump administration’s authoritarian playbook to replace facts with propaganda, to enrich a few while harming the rest of us.”