We’re Suing to Stop the Trump Administration’s Climate Censorship

What happened: The Trump administration is removing climate-related information from government websites, including the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s multiple sites, which farmers rely on to adapt to increasingly extreme weather and access to funds. Earthjustice filed a lawsuit against Trump’s USDA, asking a court to restore access to this vital information and prohibit further website purging.

The administration’s actions follow President Trump’s executive orders reversing key climate policies, and they are part of a larger trend of this administration’s government censorship and obstruction.

Why it matters: Access to climate information and programs is essential for farmers to make informed decisions about planting and investments and secure critical financial and technical support. Many are also adopting climate-smart practices because it’s good for business. Research consistently shows that consumers prefer and are willing to pay more for climate-smart foods. Limiting farmers’ access to information on emerging markets and federal funding opportunities directly threatens their financial stability.

Our lawsuit is part of a longstanding push for climate-smart agriculture and reducing industrial agriculture’s climate impact. We are not backing down now.

How is the Trump administration attacking climate information?

• Censoring critical information: In late January, the USDA began removing all landing pages focused on climate change, which include critical resources on climate-smart farming, sites to access billions of dollars for conservation practices, and climate adaptation strategies.
• USDA subagencies such as the U.S. Forest Service, Natural Resources Conservation Service, and the Farm Service Agency also removed entire climate change sections from their websites.
• What else has been deleted? USDA also removed access to critical interactive tools and datasets that farmers, land managers, and researchers rely on to help tackle the climate crisis, including the Empowering Rural America program.
• Part of a trend: These removals follow President Trump’s various orders reversing federal climate policies, as well as cuts to billions in conservation funding and widespread USDA staff layoffs.

How do Trump’s actions harm farmers and food resiliency?

• Greater financial instability. Agriculture is already one of the industries most affected by climate change, with excessive heat and wildfires causing over $16.5 billion in crop losses in 2023 alone. Without access to USDA adaptation programs that provide billions of dollars in grant funding that help mitigate or manage the impacts of climate change, farmers are left empty-handed in adapting to the extreme weather, shifting growing seasons, and how best to enter climate-smart markets
• Vulnerable to increasingly extreme weather. Industrial agriculture is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. By censoring best practices for carbon sequestration and sustainable agriculture, USDA is making it harder and more costly for farmers to take the steps needed to limit the very climate pollution that is making it more difficult for them to farm successfully.
• More crop failures and higher consumer costs. Removing the USDA’s climate-smart conservation guidance and funding means fewer farmers will have access to best practices for soil health and water management. These practices are particularly critical as worsening droughts and other extreme weather affect the overall quantity and quality of U.S. crops, which could weaken American food security and increase costs for consumers.

How is Earthjustice fighting Trump’s climate censorship?  

• Taking it to court: On behalf of the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Environmental Working Group, Earthjustice is seeking a court order that requires the USDA to restore access to key webpages and prevent further removal of vital climate-related information.
• Our lawsuit argues that removing these webpages harms farmers who depend on USDA climate resources, scientists and researchers who rely on USDA research and tools to study climate change, and advocates whose mission is to help ensure a safe, secure, and sustainable food supply.
• Working in community: Earthjustice is also connecting with entities like Harvard and Yale Law Schools and End of Term Archive to protect critical government data from deletion.

We won’t back down.

• For 50 years and through 14 presidential administrations, we have fought to make our nation’s food system safer and more climate friendly. During the first Trump administration, for example, we successfully challenged Trump’s efforts to weaken school nutrition standards that affect 30 million children who eat school meals each day.
• Progress in the states: Earthjustice is also partnering with allies at the state level to reduce agriculture’s climate and environmental impact. In January, after years of advocacy by Earthjustice and our partners, New York’s Governor Hochul signed a bill expanding the state’s food donation and food scraps recycling program. The bill will help address food insecurity and aid the state’s efforts to meet its climate goals by dramatically reducing greenhouse gas emissions from food waste.
• The climate crisis is worsening, and USDA should be expanding access to federal farming information and funding programs, not hiding critical agricultural data for ideological reasons. Earthjustice will keep fighting for the just climate future and sustainable food system that we all deserve.