Wielded like a shovel through a hedgerow, the Trump administration used the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) as a tool against itself in the early days of taking office, forcing it to delete reams of valuable data on climate change that helped American farmers know how to adapt the running of their farms to climate change and take advantage of clean energy technologies.
Farmers valued that data, and enough of them begrudged its deletion. So much so that a group of them filed a lawsuit against the USDA. And now the USDA has capitulated, saying they’ll restore the public data they’d deleted.
Farmers 1, Administration 0.
What was deleted?
Data deleted in the wake of Trump’s never-ending culture war included “climate-smart agriculture, forest conservation, climate change adaptation, and clean energy project investments in rural areas,” as reported by Engadget.
“The department had removed resources on its websites related to climate-smart farming, conservation practices, rural clean energy projects and access to federal loans related to those areas,” as reported by the Associated Press.
All of it will be once again available to the public by the end of this month. The USDA “will restore the climate change-related web content that was removed post-Inauguration, including all USDA webpages and interactive tools enumerated in Plaintiffs’ Complaint,” adding that they expect the process to take two weeks.
“This is a major victory and an important first step,” said staff attorney Stephanie Krent of Knight First Amendment Institute, which helped file the lawsuit.
“Members of the public, including our clients, rely on information from USDA to understand how climate change is affecting our nation’s forests, food supply, and energy systems. USDA was wrong to remove these webpages in the first place, and it must comply with federal law going forward.”
It should serve as inspiration that when useful public services fall victim to ill-thought-out policy decisions, people aren’t without the power to change it.
The post Score One for American Farmers. The USDA Is Restoring Climate Change Data. appeared first on VICE.
