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Safe Climate Caucus Members Urge Trump To Halt “Systematic Effort” To Reduce Public Access To Climate Change Resources

“[February 28, 2018] the Congressional Safe Climate Caucus sent a letter condemning the White House’s systematic effort to reduce and suppress public access to climate change resources through federal channels. The members highlighted many examples and expressed their concerns that these efforts violate the intent of the Federal Records Act.  The letter comes after a report issued by the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative confirmed concerns that the Administration has been altering federal websites to reduce mentions of climate change and scientific research. The Members wrote: “As members of the Safe Climate Caucus, we have been alarmed by the systematic effort by your administration over the past year to reduce access to climate change resources, science, and other information that had previously been accessible through federal government channels. We are concerned that several of the administration’s actions violate the intent of the Federal Records Act. “Therefore, we urge your Administration, when editing the content of web pages such as those mentioned above, to consider the fact that human-caused global climate change is one of the greatest existential threats to the future of our planet. This includes ensuring that relevant federal agency websites contain clear, prominently featured statements of the Administration’s policies on this issue, and easily accessible links to archived climate information from past iterations of these web pages. Additionally, we suggest that in the future, federal agencies refrain from altering or reducing their web content before they have thoroughly documented their changes and ensured that the original content is made easily accessible through a public archive.” The full text of the letter appears below and the signed copy is here.”

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