"The removal of websites designed to help disadvantaged communities will hurt those communities the most, lawyers argue."
"When the Trump administration took down websites over the past three months that track pollution and climate impacts on low-income communities, it removed key sources of government data about the environmental risks faced by tens of thousands of Americans.
On Monday, environmental groups filed a lawsuit in federal court to force the administration to restore these websites.
“This isn’t controversial stuff. These are tools that present factual information in a way that allows policy makers to refer to them quickly, for communities to understand and engage with information,” said Zach Shelley, an attorney with the Public Citizen Litigation Group. “Without this information, it’s going to be harder for people to engage with their government and for policy makers to understand the consequence their actions will have.”
The lawsuit, filed by Public Citizen and the Sierra Club’s Environmental Law Program on behalf of the Sierra Club, Union of Concerned Scientists, Environmental Integrity Project and California Communities Against Toxics, says the Trump administration illegally removed websites that were designed to provide interactive and easy-to-access information for anyone looking to track climate-related risks or pollution in disadvantaged communities. These sites were used by a range of people, from academics to government officials to neighborhood advocacy groups, concerned about the impacts of a project in their community."
Georgina Gustin reports for Inside Climate News April 14, 2025.
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