Agriculture Department employees have been ordered to delete landing pages discussing climate change across agency websites and document climate change references for further review, according to an internal email obtained by POLITICO.
The directive from USDA’s office of communications, whose authenticity was validated by three people, could affect information across dozens of programs including climate-smart agriculture initiatives, USDA climate hubs and Forest Service information regarding wildfires, the frequency and severity of which scientists have linked to hotter, drier conditions fueled by climate change. And it is reminiscent of moves made during the first Trump administration to remove references to climate change from federal government websites.
The email sent Thursday afternoon calls on website managers to “Identify and archive or unpublish any landing pages focused on climate change” and “Identify all web content related to climate change and document it in a spreadsheet” for the office to review. It set a Friday deadline for handing over titles, links and “your recommendation on how the content should be handled.”
The action comes as funds for clean energy and agriculture programs remain in limbo amid a federal spending review ordered by the Office of Management and Budget. The Trump administration has pushed to halt and reverse spending from the Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which provided billions of dollars for wildfire management, clean energy investments and credits to store carbon dioxide that benefit rural communities USDA serves.
