These turned out to include scrubbing climate change science from its website that, according to the Washington Post, had been available for the public to view for the last twenty years.
The statement made by the EPA’s associate administrator for public affairs, J.P. Freire, to justify this institutional muzzling of urgent climate science, is extra painful:
“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our website needs to reflect the views of the leadership of the agency, we want to eliminate confusion by removing outdated language first and making room to discuss how we’re protecting the environment and human health by partnering with states and working within the law.”
Notice that “scientific research” is now going by the new names of “outdated language” and “confusion.”
A longtime EPA employee told the Post that people around the office are, “obviously unhappy,” and that the information that had previously so readily available constituted, “the best climate education website out there.”
According to the Post, Pruitt personally approved the changes, which include elimination of facts about how different demographics are affected by greenhouse gas emissions, and information on the previous administration’s Clean Power Plan.
So, if you want to visit the EPA’s climate change website, you will now be redirected instead to a page that says, “this page is being updated,” and, more sinister yet, “we are currently updating our website to reflect EPA’s priorities under the leadership of President Trump and Administrator Pruitt.” For now, there is still a link to an archive of how the site once looked on the new, brainwashed webpage.
