Enck Decries Vanished EPA Climate Change Section
Visiting faculty member Judith Enck was quoted in The Guardian's investigation into the removal of the EPA's climate change section.
From the article:
"More than a year after the US Environmental Protection Agency took down information on climate change from its website for an 'update,' it now seems uncertain whether it will ever reappear.
In April last year, the EPA replaced its online climate change section with a holding page that said the content was being updated to 'reflect the agency’s new direction under President Donald Trump.'
Information previously found at epa.gov/climatechange made it clear that human activity was warming the planet, resulting in harm to Americans’ health as well as crucial ecosystems on which humans depend.
The 'update' page has now given way to a page that simply states: 'We want to help you find what you are looking for.' Below, there are links to search other areas of the EPA website, as well as to an archived 'snapshot' of the site from the day before Trump became president in January 2017. The switch was observed by the Environmental Data & Governance Initiative, which tracks changes in government websites.
'It’s an embarrassment. It is a ghost page,' said Judith Enck, who was EPA regional administrator during Barack Obama’s presidency. 'It’s a bit like Amazon not allowing the public to order books via its website – it’s that fundamental. There’s no other issue at the EPA more important than climate change; it affects air, water, health and whether large parts of the world will survive.'"