Information gathered by Reuters from Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) employees reveal that U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has instructed the EPA to remove the climate change page from its website. This news comes after all EPA staff were allegedly mandated a temporary blackout on media releases and social media activity, as well as a freeze on contract approvals and grant awards.
"If the website goes dark, years of work we have done on climate change will disappear," one of the EPA staffers told Reuters.
EPA is a federal agency conducts research about climate change and its effect on public health and the environment.
Scientific American said this is not the first time Trump attempted to axe information about global warming and climate change, as he also ordered all of former President Obama's climate initiatives to be removed on the official White House website and replaced with an "America First" energy plan.
In addition to removing the page, Associated Press reported that Trump also required that studies conducted by scientists at EPA must undergo review by political appointees before they can be released to the public. As in the past years, it was never the task of political appointees to edit the content of a scientific study. They are only rather notified about it, and nothing would go further than that.
"What the Trump administration is doing is extreme, and very troubling, especially when it comes to both the grant freeze and the public communications. Coupled with the administration's disdain for science, there is serious reason for alarm," said a former Obama EPA official, as quoted by Scientific American.
Meanwhile, a day after the news, a separate report from E&E News surfaced and said the Trump has ordered a suspension on the plan to delete the webpage. EPA's press office did not respond to requests for comment about the suspension.
White House is also yet to confirm all of these.