The EPA Is Quietly Killing Its Web Archive
The EPA has announced plans to decommission its online web archive by the end of the year, potentially erasing decades of environmental reports and policy data. Critics argue this move threatens democratic oversight and historical transparency regarding federal environmental actions.
Why it matters
The loss of this archive would permanently remove public access to 20 years of critical environmental research and regulatory history.
Screenshot of the Environmental Protection Agency's homepage. Mario Guti/Getty
In a little-noticed webpage update, the Environmental Protection Agency has announced a plan to decommission its online web archive at the end of the year, a move that would wipe tens of thousands of publicly available environmental resources from the web. The discreet banner notice comes in stark contrast to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin’s recent public takedowns of the agency’s power plant pollution standards and federal methane regulatory system .
“The EPA’s online archive makes information about a wide variety of environmental issues and past policies available to the public, dating back at least 20 years,” said Gretchen Gehrke, co-founder of the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI). “This information is irreplaceable, and if the archive is decommissioned, that information will be lost forever.”
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