EPA removes climate change page from website

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) removed several pages – including those related to climate change – from its website on Friday as part of an update to “reflect the agency’s new direction under President Donald Trump and Administrator Scott Pruitt.”

EPA officials removed the page relating to the Obama administration’s main emissions regulation for power plants, which now directs to an article about an executive order Trump signed in March undoing Obama’s climate agenda.

The agency’s pages relating to climate change, climate science, the impacts of climate change and what readers can do about climate change are all gone from the live site, each replaced with a banner headline saying “this page is being updated.” 

The EPA’s website on climate information for children remains live.

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A snapshot of the agency’s website during the Obama administration is still available online, and the EPA said pages like those relating to climate change are still “under review.”

“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,” said J.P. Freire, the agency’s associate administrator for public affairs, in a statement. 

“We want to eliminate confusion by removing outdated language first and making room to discuss how we’re protecting the environment and human health by partnering with states and working within the law.”  

The White House made headlines by removing the climate change page from its official website in the moments after Trump was inaugurated in January, but that was part of a broader overhaul of the site.

The EPA’s website has, until now, maintained much of the content it presented during the Obama administration, despite efforts from Trump’s EPA team to reform the agency.

EPA officials announced the website updates in a press release sent after 7 p.m. on a Friday.  

Trump and Pruitt have used their first few months in office to begin the process of undoing many EPA climate rules finalized during the Obama administration, including the Clean Power Plan.

Trump has said he does not believe the science behind climate change. Pruitt has questioned whether carbon dioxide emissions are a “primary contributor” to climate change, while most climate scientists agree it is.