Shortly after President Donald Trump took office last January, USDA officials were reportedly directed to flag and remove web pages that mentioned climate change, including resources farmers use to prepare for extreme weather events. In response, environmental and agricultural nonprofits sued government agencies for the loss of critical information. In May, days before a scheduled public hearing, the USDA announced it would restore its climate webpage. At that point, “we essentially won,” said Peter Lehner, lead attorney at Earthjustice, a nonprofit law firm representing the plaintiffs. However, negotiations over a legal settlement continued.
Last week, the agriculture department finally settled the lawsuit and agreed to share datasets used to power the climate risk viewer and other tools. Although most of the web pages in question had already been restored, the plaintiffs wanted to keep access open, a priority that led to protracted negotiations, Lehner added.
As part of the settlement, the USDA agreed to keep its Climate Risk Viewer, which includes more than 140 layers and maps of wildfire risk, online at least until plaintiffs receive the underlying raw data. That way, if those webpages were removed at some point in the future, plaintiffs such as the environmental nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council could recreate climate risk maps, Lehner told Grist.
This is important because this settlement does not guarantee that USDA will maintain these digital resources indefinitely. “Governments should be able to change their websites,” Lehner said. “But they have to do it in a certain way. And if it’s material information, they have to notify the public and they have to do it carefully.” (The Department of Justice, which represented USDA in the lawsuit, declined to comment on the settlement.)
In its original complaint, Earthjustice alleged that the Department of Agriculture’s removal of web pages that referenced climate change violated multiple federal laws. These include the Red tape Act of 1995, which requires federal agencies to provide adequate notice before changing the public’s access to information tools, and the Freedom of Information Act.
One of the plaintiffs, the Northeast New York Organic Agriculture Association (NOFA), was particularly interested in web pages related to climate-smart conservation financing. Wes Gillingham, chairman of the NOFA board, told Grist that the organization is directing many growers to these resources to help with the financial costs of implementing more sustainable growing practices.
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But this settlement does not mean farmers will get everything they need from the USDA. Gillingham, a farmer himself, added that it remains to be seen what loan programs will be available for farmers under the second Trump administration. “Which loan programs are in place and which are not is a big question,” he said.
The predicament highlights the financial instability of many U.S. farmers as the federal government cuts funding programs for farmers. And it shows the work agricultural groups have left to protect their livelihoods. Gillingham said he is now concerned about a future farm bill that could eradicate funding for conservation efforts such as conservation efforts that help farmers protect soil health.
Lehner agreed that farmers have suffered under the Trump administration, which in some ways lends weight to the lawsuit.
“Frankly, I think the fact that we were representing farmers and others who were saying, ‘Look, this is hurting us. We’re trying to deal with climate change, we’re trying to deal with extreme weather, and you’re cutting off our legs,’ I don’t think it made a very good impression on them,” he said. “The way I see it, it just makes them look stupid and mean.”
Editor’s note: Earthjustice and the Natural Resources Defense Council are advertisers on Grist. Advertisers have no role in Grist’s editorial decisions.
