EPA reinstates climate webpage taken down under Trump

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has reinstated a climate change webpage that was taken down during the Trump administration. 

The agency announced Thursday that it now has a page with information on greenhouse gas emissions data, climate change impacts and scientific reports “for the first time in four years.”

In April 2017, the agency scrubbed the page in question as part of an update to “reflect the agency’s new direction under President Donald Trump and Administrator Scott Pruitt.”

“Climate facts are back on EPA’s website where they should be,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement on the page’s renewal. 

“Considering the urgency of this crisis, it’s critical that Americans have access to information and resources so that we can all play a role in protecting our environment, our health, and vulnerable communities,” he said. 

Advocates saw the 2017 scrubbing of the page as part of a larger pattern of climate change denial under a president who himself had called climate change a hoax. 

“Today, we are relieved to see that the EPA is now actually going to post information about climate change on its website—again,” said Dominique Browning, co-founder and director of Moms Clean Air Force, in a statement. “The site was removed by a denier administration, and their denial is endangering all of us. It’s time to face reality. Science is back.”

When the page was first removed, the former Trump administration said that it was starting by getting rid of “outdated” language. 

“As EPA renews its commitment to human health and clean air, land and water, our website needs to reflect the views of the leadership of the agency,” J.P. Freire, the agency’s then-associate administrator for public affairs, said in a statement at the time. “We want to eliminate confusion by removing outdated language first.”