A coalition of environmental organizations has launched a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration, challenging the systematic removal of critical climate and environmental justice data from government websites. The lawsuit, filed in April 2025, represents a significant legal battle over public access to taxpayer-funded environmental information that communities, researchers, and policymakers have relied upon for years.
Within weeks of taking office for his second term, the Trump administration began dismantling online resources that tracked climate impacts, pollution burdens, and environmental risks affecting vulnerable communities across the United States. Environmental groups argue this represents an unprecedented attack on transparency and public access to vital information that helps protect public health and safety.
Legal Challenge Takes Shape
The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by a powerful coalition including the Sierra Club, Environmental Integrity Project, Union of Concerned Scientists, and California Communities Against Toxics, with representation from Public Citizen Litigation Group.
The legal action targets multiple federal agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy, the Department of Transportation, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The plaintiffs argue that the removal of these websites violates both the Paperwork Reduction Act and the Administrative Procedure Act, claiming the administration failed to follow proper procedures when eliminating public access to these resources. The lawsuit characterizes the data removal as “tantamount to theft” of taxpayer-funded information that belongs in the public domain.
Critical Tools Eliminated
The administration removed six essential government-operated websites that served diverse users, from academic researchers to community advocates. The most significant losses include EJScreen, an EPA interactive mapping tool that provided local demographic, pollution, and environmental justice data, and the Climate and Environmental Justice Screening Tool (CEJST), which was designed to identify disadvantaged communities eligible for federal climate investments under the Biden administration’s Justice40 initiative.
Additional eliminated resources encompassed the Department of Energy’s Low-Income Energy Affordability Data (LEAD) Tool and Community Benefits Plan Map, the Department of Transportation’s Equitable Transportation Community (ETC) Explorer, and FEMA’s Future Risk Index.
These tools collectively provided comprehensive data on energy affordability, transportation equity, climate vulnerabilities, and pollution burdens that disproportionately affect low-income and marginalized communities.
Community Impact and Consequences
Environmental advocates emphasize that these tools served as lifelines for communities seeking to understand and address environmental hazards in their neighborhoods. The data helped identify areas facing disproportionate pollution exposure, climate risks, and environmental health threats, enabling targeted advocacy and policy interventions.
“These data and tools save lives, and efforts to delete, unpublish, or in any way remove them jeopardize people’s ability to breathe clean air, drink clean water, and live safe and healthy lives,” stated Ben Jealous, executive director of the Sierra Club. The removal particularly impacts disadvantaged communities that relied on these resources to advocate for environmental justice and access federal support programs.
Data Preservation Efforts
Following the government’s removal of these websites, some environmental organizations and media outlets have attempted to preserve portions of the data by creating alternative platforms. However, these efforts face significant limitations since they cannot continuously update information as the original government-maintained systems did.
This creates a “frozen-in-time” snapshot of environmental data that becomes increasingly outdated and less useful for current decision-making. Experts warn that even if future administrations restore these tools, the data gap created during the Trump administration could persist for decades, hampering efforts to understand the long-term impacts of climate policies and investments.
Broader Policy Context
This lawsuit represents part of a broader pattern of environmental policy rollbacks under the Trump administration’s second term. The administration has simultaneously eliminated climate-related offices, fired federal employees working on environmental initiatives, and pursued sweeping deregulation of environmental protections.
The legal challenge follows a similar lawsuit filed against the U.S. Department of Agriculture over its removal of climate data from agency websites, indicating a coordinated effort by environmental groups to challenge the administration’s information suppression tactics through the courts.
The EPA declined to comment on the pending litigation, citing longstanding agency practice. Other named agencies have similarly remained silent about the lawsuit, leaving the legal battle to unfold in federal court as environmental groups fight to restore public access to critical climate and environmental justice information.