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Page 122 of 496
No. 200
Filed JANUARY 28, 2025
Environment & Climate
Second Term

Trump Administration Begins Systematic Deletion Of Climate Change From Federal Websites, Resolving Long-Standing Concern That Tax-Funded Servers Were Continuing To Acknowledge It

The Filing

WASHINGTON. The Trump administration this week began the systematic removal of references to climate change from federal websites, resolving a long-standing administration concern that the phrase had continued to appear on servers paid for by the American public.

The deletions, which began within days of the inauguration, have so far affected pages maintained by the Environmental Protection Agency, the State Department, the Department of Agriculture, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Independent monitors tracking federal web content report that occurrences of the term 'climate change' across .gov domains have dropped sharply in the first week of the term, with further reductions described by officials as ongoing.

'The previous administration had allowed climate change to be mentioned on hundreds of federal pages,' said a senior White House official, who spoke on the condition that he be identified as a senior White House official. 'We are restoring the pre-2009 baseline, when federal employees were expected to keep certain phrases to themselves.'

The scrubbed material includes regional climate impact assessments used by farmers, county planners, and insurance regulators. The EPA's main climate change landing page now returns an error. NOAA's State Climate Summaries page has been replaced with an internal placeholder. Officials at the Department of Agriculture confirmed that the agency's database of climate-related rural assistance programs is currently 'under review,' a term sources within the administration describe as functionally indistinguishable from 'gone.'

A second administration spokesperson, briefing reporters separately, characterized federal climate research as a 'left-wing scam' and confirmed that the work of restoring federal websites to a state of agnosticism on the question of whether the planet is warming would continue indefinitely. Asked whether the removals indicated a change in the underlying climate, the spokesperson declined to comment, citing a recent EPA directive on the topic.

At press time, the EPA's 'Climate Change Indicators' page had been replaced with a 404 message thanking visitors for their interest in topics the agency no longer covered, and recommending that they instead consult publications of the American Petroleum Institute, several of whose former officials are now employed at the agency.

Sourced to the public record · presented without editorial embellishment
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