Latest news with #EDGI
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
3 ways Trump's EPA could use the language of science to weaken pollution controls
Environmental issues were conspicuously absent from the 2024 U.S. presidential campaign, but moves by President-elect Donald Trump's first administration and his leadership picks for his next administration offer clues to what may be ahead. They point to a second Trump administration likely loosening regulations on industries, particularly oil, gas and petrochemicals, giving them wider permission to pollute. Some actions will be overt. But history suggests this administration may also try to use the language of science – terms such as transparency, citizen science and uncertainty – to weaken environmental and health protections and write regulations more favorable to industry. Those ideas surfaced during the first Trump administration and in conservative agendas such as Project 2025. Project 2025 was written by former Trump administration officials, including several people Trump has tapped for his next administration. Trump distanced himself from the project during the campaign but now says he agrees with many parts of it. I followed the first Trump administration closely as a researcher involved in the Environmental Data & Governance Initiative, or EDGI. The group was founded in 2016 to document Trump's efforts to dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency. During Trump's first administration, we archived climate and environment datasets used by scientists, advocates and policymakers who were worried these might be hidden by the administration. We also tracked how the Trump administration changed climate language on agency websites. EDGI also interviewed agency staffers facing political pressure and explained the potential impact of policy shifts and rule changes. Here are three ways the second Trump administration could try to use the language of science to write policies that sound beneficial but could have profound effects on environmental health. When you hear words such as 'transparency' or 'open source,' they probably sound positive – the idea is that all of the parts can be seen and checked. But would you want your health records open for anyone to see? The privacy of health care records was at the heart of a debate over a policy the first Trump administration created called 'Strengthening Transparency in Pivotal Science Underlying Significant Regulation Actions,' or the 'secret science' rule. The rule could have prevented the government from considering important health research in setting pollution limits. Decades of health data gathered from people across the United States have shown how air pollution from power plants and other sources can contribute to cancer and other illnesses. That data has provided the evidence for regulations that have cleaned up the nation's air and water for a healthier environment. But the raw data from those studies can't be made public because it involves people's personal health records. The rule the EPA finalized during the last weeks of the first Trump administration required the agency to give less consideration to studies if the underlying data wasn't publicly available. A court vacated the rule on Feb. 1, 2021. I expect Trump's EPA will try again to require that the agency's rules have a basis in published raw data. The Project 2025 agenda calls for 'true transparency' to be a defining characteristic of the EPA, including 'the establishment of open source science.' That would limit the use of private health data or data whose use is licensed by companies. This would make it harder to develop rules protecting public health. The author of Project 2025's chapter on the EPA was Mandy Gunasekara, who served as chief of staff to Trump's EPA administrator in the first administration. Apart from transparency, Gunasekara has also pitched 'citizen science' as a way to 'deputize the public to subject the agency's science to greater scrutiny.' At its best, citizen science is an important way for the public to ensure research reflects their interests and experiences. At its worst, citizen science is used to delay meaningful actions. Who benefits from 'deputizing the public' to scrutinize EPA science depends on who has access to information and the resources to engage. Wealthy industries and private interests may gain a greater voice, while the communities most affected by pollution remain sidelined, particularly if government makes the EPA's science difficult to find. Project 2025 also calls for resetting the composition of the EPA's advisory boards – and even suspending some of them. These boards consider feedback from industry, academia and communities. Similar actions during Trump's first administration reduced the number of academics and representatives of nongovernmental organizations on these boards, while increasing the number of industry consultants. Uncertainty is another important scientific term that the first Trump administration used to promote deregulation, particularly for chemicals. When the EPA studies chemicals, there are uncertainties around the health effects at different levels and types of exposure. A precautionary approach assumes that chemicals have adverse effects at low doses and that those effects grow as exposures increase or accumulate. Many scientists consider precaution a safer bet when not enough is known about the chemicals' effects. Yet some chemicals may not actually cause harm until they reach a certain threshold. In the view of the chemical industry, that means a 'better safe than sorry' approach can be wrong. Instead, the industry says, chemical regulation should be based on the best available science. However, the best available science on chemicals is often inconclusive. In the absence of a precautionary approach, the industry's argument for the 'best available science' could actually mean less justification for regulation. Project 2025 proposes that, on his first day in office, Trump should issue an order to 'reject precautionary default models and uncertainty factors' that 'drive flawed and opaque decisions.' The consequences could include EPA analyses that understate the risks of toxic chemicals when research is still emerging, such as with PFAS. Our team at EDGI is working with partners to again identify federal web pages and datasets vulnerable to removal, modification or attrition. That allows us to sound the alarm if these resources for tracking and addressing climate and environmental change go missing. We believe watchdog strategies made political appointees hesitant to order more changes during the first Trump administration. I don't think Trump's next EPA will be straightforwardly 'anti-science.' I believe, however, that it will use language that appears to boost research openness and citizen participation but that is aimed at undermining policies that protect human health and the environment. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Eric Nost, University of Guelph Read more: What Trump can do to reverse US climate policy − and what he probably can't change EPA's 'secret science' rule will make it harder for the agency to protect public health Under both Trump and Biden-Harris, US oil and gas production surged to record highs, despite very different energy goals Eric Nost is a member of the Environmental Data & Governance Initiative, which received funding from The David and Lucile Packard Foundation to support some of the research summarized in this article.
Time of India
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Web archivists scrambling to save US public data from deletion
As President Donald Trump's administration purges public records since storming back to power, experts and volunteers are preserving thousands of web pages and government sites devoted to climate change, health or LGBTQ rights and other on AIDS prevention and care, weather records, references to ethnic or gender minorities: numerous databases were destroyed or modified after Trump signed an executive order in January declaring diversity, equality and inclusion programs and policies within the federal governmentto be than 3,000 pages from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention site were taken down and more than 1,000 from the Justice Department's website, Paul Schroeder, president of the Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics, told AFP. 404 error Some websites have disappeared altogether, such as that of the US development agency USAID, which has been effectively shuttered as Trump slashes US aid to poor countries. And the National Children's Health Survey page displays a "404 error" message. Federal agencies must now avoid hundreds of words such as "woman," "disability," "racism", "climate crisis" and "pollution" in their communications, the New York Times reported. "The focus has been on removing language related to environmental (or) climate justice on websites, as well as removing data and tools related to environmental (or) climate justice," Eric Nost, a geographer at Canada's University of Guelph and member of the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI) told AFP. "This Trump administration moved more quickly and with a greater scope than the previous Trump administration," he said. EDGI, a consortium of academics and volunteers, began safeguarding public climate and environmental data after Trump's first election in 2016. Among the tools used are the WayBack Machine from the non-profit Internet Archive, or developed by the Library Innovation Lab at Harvard Law School. These systems, which long predate Trump's election, help "courts and law journals preserve the web pages they cite to," said Jack Cushman, director of the Library Innovation Lab. Long used by journalists, researchers and NGOs, web archiving enables a page to be preserved, even if it were to disappear from the internet or be modified later. This data is then stored on servers in a large digital library, allowing anyone to consult it freely. Volunteer work Archiving initiatives have multiplied, expanded and coordinated since Trump's return to the White House. The Data Rescue Project (DRP) brought together several organisations to save as much data as possible. "We were concerned about data being deleted. We wanted to try to see what we could do to rescue them," Lynda Kellam, a university librarian and DRP organizer, told AFP. She first launched the project as an online Google doc in February -- a simple word-processing tool listing downloaded PDF files, original dataset titles and archived links. It is now maintained by volunteers "who are working after work" to keep it running, said Kellam. "We are all volunteers, even myself. We have other jobs so that has been challenging," Kellam added. The data collection work, largely carried out by associations and university libraries, is threatened by a lack of resources. "Funding is the key issue... as the library and archives community rushes to take on a larger preservation challenges than ever before," Cushman said. "We need to fund coordinators for the ongoing effort, new tools, and new homes for the data." Harvard is also battling the ire of the Trump administration, which has cut federal grants to the prestigious university and threatened its tax-exempt status after it refused to comply with the president's demands to accept government oversight. "Data is the modern lighthouse, helping us plan our lives: it shows where we are so we can plan where we're going," Cushman said. "Businesses, individuals, and governments will suffer greatly from any failure to collect and share reliable data on weather and climate, health, justice, housing, employment, and so on."
Iraqi News
08-05-2025
- Politics
- Iraqi News
Web archivists scrambling to save US public data from deletion
Washington – As President Donald Trump's administration purges public records since storming back to power, experts and volunteers are preserving thousands of web pages and government sites devoted to climate change, health or LGBTQ rights and other issues. Resources on AIDS prevention and care, weather records, references to ethnic or gender minorities: numerous databases were destroyed or modified after Trump signed an executive order in January declaring diversity, equality and inclusion programs and policies within the federal governmentto be illegal. More than 3,000 pages from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention site were taken down and more than 1,000 from the Justice Department's website, Paul Schroeder, president of the Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics, told AFP. – 404 error – Some websites have disappeared altogether, such as that of the US development agency USAID, which has been effectively shuttered as Trump slashes US aid to poor countries. And the National Children's Health Survey page displays a '404 error' message. Federal agencies must now avoid hundreds of words such as 'woman,' 'disability,' 'racism', 'climate crisis' and 'pollution' in their communications, the New York Times reported. 'The focus has been on removing language related to environmental (or) climate justice on websites, as well as removing data and tools related to environmental (or) climate justice,' Eric Nost, a geographer at Canada's University of Guelph and member of the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI) told AFP. 'This Trump administration moved more quickly and with a greater scope than the previous Trump administration,' he said. EDGI, a consortium of academics and volunteers, began safeguarding public climate and environmental data after Trump's first election in 2016. Among the tools used are the WayBack Machine from the non-profit Internet Archive, or developed by the Library Innovation Lab at Harvard Law School. These systems, which long predate Trump's election, help 'courts and law journals preserve the web pages they cite to,' said Jack Cushman, director of the Library Innovation Lab. Long used by journalists, researchers and NGOs, web archiving enables a page to be preserved, even if it were to disappear from the internet or be modified later. This data is then stored on servers in a large digital library, allowing anyone to consult it freely. – Volunteer work – Archiving initiatives have multiplied, expanded and coordinated since Trump's return to the White House. The Data Rescue Project (DRP) brought together several organizations to save as much data as possible. 'We were concerned about data being deleted. We wanted to try to see what we could do to rescue them,' Lynda Kellam, a university librarian and DRP organizer, told AFP. She first launched the project as an online Google doc in February — a simple word-processing tool listing downloaded PDF files, original dataset titles and archived links. It is now maintained by volunteers 'who are working after work' to keep it running, said Kellam. 'We are all volunteers, even myself. We have other jobs so that has been challenging,' Kellam added. The data collection work, largely carried out by associations and university libraries, is threatened by a lack of resources. 'Funding is the key issue… as the library and archives community rushes to take on a larger preservation challenges than ever before,' Cushman said. 'We need to fund coordinators for the ongoing effort, new tools, and new homes for the data.' Harvard is also battling the ire of the Trump administration, which has cut federal grants to the prestigious university and threatened its tax-exempt status after it refused to comply with the president's demands to accept government oversight. 'Data is the modern lighthouse, helping us plan our lives: it shows where we are so we can plan where we're going,' Cushman said. 'Businesses, individuals, and governments will suffer greatly from any failure to collect and share reliable data on weather and climate, health, justice, housing, employment, and so on.'
The Sun
08-05-2025
- Politics
- The Sun
Trump Purges Data; Experts Rush to Save Public Records
WASHINGTON: As President Donald Trump's administration purges public records since storming back to power, experts and volunteers are preserving thousands of web pages and government sites devoted to climate change, health or LGBTQ rights and other issues. Resources on AIDS prevention and care, weather records, references to ethnic or gender minorities: numerous databases were destroyed or modified after Trump signed an executive order in January declaring diversity, equality and inclusion programs and policies within the federal governmentto be illegal. More than 3,000 pages from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention site were taken down and more than 1,000 from the Justice Department's website, Paul Schroeder, president of the Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics, told AFP. 404 error Some websites have disappeared altogether, such as that of the US development agency USAID, which has been effectively shuttered as Trump slashes US aid to poor countries. And the National Children's Health Survey page displays a '404 error' message. Federal agencies must now avoid hundreds of words such as 'woman,' 'disability,' 'racism', 'climate crisis' and 'pollution' in their communications, the New York Times reported. 'The focus has been on removing language related to environmental (or) climate justice on websites, as well as removing data and tools related to environmental (or) climate justice,' Eric Nost, a geographer at Canada's University of Guelph and member of the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI) told AFP. 'This Trump administration moved more quickly and with a greater scope than the previous Trump administration,' he said. EDGI, a consortium of academics and volunteers, began safeguarding public climate and environmental data after Trump's first election in 2016. Among the tools used are the WayBack Machine from the non-profit Internet Archive, or developed by the Library Innovation Lab at Harvard Law School. These systems, which long predate Trump's election, help 'courts and law journals preserve the web pages they cite to,' said Jack Cushman, director of the Library Innovation Lab. Long used by journalists, researchers and NGOs, web archiving enables a page to be preserved, even if it were to disappear from the internet or be modified later. This data is then stored on servers in a large digital library, allowing anyone to consult it freely. Volunteer work Archiving initiatives have multiplied, expanded and coordinated since Trump's return to the White House. The Data Rescue Project (DRP) brought together several organizations to save as much data as possible. 'We were concerned about data being deleted. We wanted to try to see what we could do to rescue them,' Lynda Kellam, a university librarian and DRP organizer, told AFP. She first launched the project as an online Google doc in February -- a simple word-processing tool listing downloaded PDF files, original dataset titles and archived links. It is now maintained by volunteers 'who are working after work' to keep it running, said Kellam. 'We are all volunteers, even myself. We have other jobs so that has been challenging,' Kellam added. The data collection work, largely carried out by associations and university libraries, is threatened by a lack of resources. 'Funding is the key issue... as the library and archives community rushes to take on a larger preservation challenges than ever before,' Cushman said. 'We need to fund coordinators for the ongoing effort, new tools, and new homes for the data.' Harvard is also battling the ire of the Trump administration, which has cut federal grants to the prestigious university and threatened its tax-exempt status after it refused to comply with the president's demands to accept government oversight. 'Data is the modern lighthouse, helping us plan our lives: it shows where we are so we can plan where we're going,' Cushman said. 'Businesses, individuals, and governments will suffer greatly from any failure to collect and share reliable data on weather and climate, health, justice, housing, employment, and so on.'
The Star
08-05-2025
- Politics
- The Star
Web archivists scrambling to save US public data from deletion
WASHINGTON: As US President Donald Trump's administration purges public records since storming back to power, experts and volunteers are preserving thousands of web pages and government sites devoted to climate change, health rights and other issues. Resources on AIDS prevention and care, weather records, references to ethnic or gender minorities: numerous databases were destroyed or modified after Trump signed an executive order in January declaring diversity, equality and inclusion programs and policies within the federal governmentto be illegal. More than 3,000 pages from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention site were taken down and more than 1,000 from the Justice Department's website, Paul Schroeder, president of the Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics, told AFP. 404 error Some websites have disappeared altogether, such as that of the US development agency USAID, which has been effectively shuttered as Trump slashes US aid to poor countries. And the National Children's Health Survey page displays a "404 error" message. Federal agencies must now avoid hundreds of words such as "woman", "disability", "racism", "climate crisis" and "pollution" in their communications, the New York Times reported. "The focus has been on removing language related to environmental (or) climate justice on websites, as well as removing data and tools related to environmental (or) climate justice," Eric Nost, a geographer at Canada's University of Guelph and member of the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI) told AFP. "This Trump administration moved more quickly and with a greater scope than the previous Trump administration," he said. EDGI, a consortium of academics and volunteers, began safeguarding public climate and environmental data after Trump's first election in 2016. Among the tools used are the WayBack Machine from the non-profit Internet Archive, or developed by the Library Innovation Lab at Harvard Law School. These systems, which long predate Trump's election, help "courts and law journals preserve the web pages they cite to," said Jack Cushman, director of the Library Innovation Lab. Long used by journalists, researchers and NGOs, web archiving enables a page to be preserved, even if it were to disappear from the internet or be modified later. This data is then stored on servers in a large digital library, allowing anyone to consult it freely. Volunteer work Archiving initiatives have multiplied, expanded and coordinated since Trump's return to the White House. The Data Rescue Project (DRP) brought together several organizations to save as much data as possible. "We were concerned about data being deleted. We wanted to try to see what we could do to rescue them," Lynda Kellam, a university librarian and DRP organiser, told AFP. She first launched the project as an online Google doc in February – a simple word-processing tool listing downloaded PDF files, original dataset titles and archived links. It is now maintained by volunteers "who are working after work" to keep it running, said Kellam. "We are all volunteers, even myself. We have other jobs so that has been challenging," Kellam added. The data collection work, largely carried out by associations and university libraries, is threatened by a lack of resources. "Funding is the key issue... as the library and archives community rushes to take on a larger preservation challenges than ever before," Cushman said. "We need to fund coordinators for the ongoing effort, new tools, and new homes for the data." Harvard is also battling the ire of the Trump administration, which has cut federal grants to the prestigious university and threatened its tax-exempt status after it refused to comply with the president's demands to accept government oversight. "Data is the modern lighthouse, helping us plan our lives: it shows where we are so we can plan where we're going," Cushman said. "Businesses, individuals, and governments will suffer greatly from any failure to collect and share reliable data on weather and climate, health, justice, housing, employment, and so on." – AFP
