An Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) website focused on global climate change was just reinstated, four years after having been removed by the Trump administration.
The reinstatement of the site, which reappeared among the EPA webpages on Thursday, reflects the stark differences on climate policy between the Biden administration and the former Trump administration.
In a video message announcing the site’s return, EPA Administrator Michael Regan announced that “climate change” is “not optional” for the agency.
“EPA’s climate change website is back, with more content to come,” the reinstated site’s main page currently states. “Please return in the coming weeks as we add new information and features.… Understanding and addressing climate change is critical to EPA’s mission of protecting human health and the environment.”
Environmental activists lauded the reinstatement of the website.
“Communities across our nation are facing tremendous risks from climate change. Only when we’re armed with the facts about what we face now and in the coming years — and have information on what we can do to make a difference on climate change — can we make the best decisions possible to protect the vibrancy of our communities and a stable future for our children and grandchildren,” Andrea McGimsey, senior director for Environment America, said in a statement reacting to the reinstatement of the site.
“By empowering Americans with the best scientific evidence available, the Environmental Protection Agency is providing a critical service that aligns squarely with its mission to protect our environment and public health,” McGimsey added.
The Trump administration formally removed the EPA site on climate change in April of 2017. At the time, J.P. Freire, the EPA’s former associate administrator for public affairs, explained that the agency was doing so in order to “eliminate confusion by removing outdated language first and making room to discuss how we’re protecting the environment and human health by partnering with states and working within the law.”
The site never returned under Trump’s tenure. Meanwhile, during his presidency, Trump frequently questioned scientific reports about climate change. “I don’t believe it,” Trump infamously said of one report warning about the global phenomenon’s likely effects, which was authored by climate experts within the U.S. government.
The reinstatement of the EPA website reflects the Biden administration’s broader policy goals concerning climate change. The White House announced earlier this year that it has a goal to achieve “a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035,” and to put the U.S. “on an irreversible path to a net-zero economy by 2050.”
Actions taken by the Biden administration so far to discourage carbon usage include the cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline, a step that Biden defended as a crucial step toward a “clean energy economy.”
Nevertheless, many climate activists say the Biden administration’s policies don’t reflect the kind of urgency required by the climate crisis, arguing that his current policies will not necessarily lead to less carbon-based usage, and that some of his executive orders are at odds with other needed changes, such as a ban on fracking.
Speaking recently to Truthout about the matter, Thomas Meyer, national organizing manager for Food and Water Watch, said a commitment on ending fracking is urgently needed from the Biden administration.
“To have [Biden] say in one breath ‘we’re going to listen to science’ and then to say ‘we are not banning fracking’ is really just unacceptable,” Meyer said.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment. We are presently looking for 182 new monthly donors in the next 24 hours.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy