Archivists and Environmental Organizations Fight to Preserve Critical Data

Washington, D.C., February 6, 2025 – In the first weeks of President Donald Trump’s second term, numerous climate data and environmental information have been removed from government websites. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are among the most affected. The “Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool” (CEJST) has also been taken offline.

Since the 2024 election, environmental organizations such as the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI) have been working to archive government data. The “End of Term Web Archive Project” secures web pages and stores them in the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. Additionally, EDGI and the Public Environmental Data Partners (PEDP) have published a functional copy of the CEJST tool to maintain public access.

NOAA and the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) are also under scrutiny, as key climate databases are already in “maintenance mode.” More than 2,000 datasets have disappeared from data.gov.

Access to deleted data is still possible through the Wayback Machine and the “End of Term Web Archive,” which regularly creates backups of government websites. EDGI and PEDP continue to provide archived datasets.

Platforms for accessing deleted data:

• Wayback Machine (Internet Archive): https://web.archive.org

• End of Term Web Archive: https://eotarchive.org

• Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI): https://envirodatagov.org

Preserving this data is crucial for scientific research and environmental monitoring.

Further Information:

Climate Change Transparency Project

Contact: 202-994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu