Boley Law Library: Environmental Law Research Guide: Removed U.S. Sites & Data

Introduction

Since the beginning of the second Trump administration thousands of federal webpages have seen changes or been taken down, with large sections of agency websites at various times taken offline, pages and documents removed because of topic and language, and multiple datasets removed from public view.

The following links point to resources providing access to removed U.S. federal government information, with a focus on environmental information and links to broader research guides and resources.

Background

Disappearing Data, Part II: Distorted Science and Deregulation (National Security Archive)
In a follow up to a previous posting on the administration's first two weeks of environmental data overhaul, the National Security Archive's Climate Change Transparency Project today publishes an update of the most recent actions the administration has taken to "disappear" climate information and what some advocates are doing to try to rescue and archive the data before it is removed from federal websites.
Trump Administration Intensifies Suppression of Climate Information (EDGI)
In July and August 2025, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other federal agencies altered and removed several webpages related to climate change. Pages spanned topics including climate adaptation and resilience, climate impacts, and the government's role in addressing climate change.
Why Donald Trump's Environmental Data Purge Is So Much Worse This Time (The Verge)
Resources on climate change and inequity have vanished, and disinformation is taking its place.
2025 United States Government Online Resource Removal
Wikipedia entry.

Environmental Information Archives

Federal Environmental Web Tracker (EDGI)
A collection of documented changes to environment-related federal webpages that EDGI's team deems noteworthy.Updated weekly.
Public Environmental Data Partners
Volunteer coalition of several environmental, justice and policy organizations, researchers, and archivists. Provides access to:
- Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool
- Environmental Justice Mapping and Screening Tool (EJScreen)
- Environmental Data Mapping Tools
- Environmental Justice Analysis Multisite tool (EJAM)
- DOE Local Investment Map for Demonstration and Deployment Projects
- FEMA Future Risk Index
Climate Mirror
Climate Mirror is a distributed effort conducted by volunteers, in conjunction with efforts from institutions such as University of Pennsylvania, University of Toronto, and the Internet Archive, to mirror and back up U.S. Federal Climate Data.

General Archiving and Tracking Resources

Wayback Machine (since 2001)
Access over 1 trillion saved web pages. Enter a URL, search by keyword, and be sure to use the collection drop-down menu to limit to government sites and much more.
GovWayback
Shortcut to access the Wayback Machine's historical versions of U.S. government websites from before January 20, 2025 with a simple URL change.
Internet Archive (since 1996)
Non-profit library of millions of free texts, movies, software, music, websites, and more.
End of Term Web Archive
The End of Term Web Archive captures and saves U.S. Government websites at the end of presidential administrations. The EOT has thus far preserved websites from administration changes in 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020, and 2024.
Data.gov Archive (Harvard Law School)
The Harvard Library Innovation Lab (LIL)'s archive of Data.gov datasets. The collection contains 17.9 TB of data across 311,604 datasets harvested, beginning in 2024, from public data cataloged at the "home of the U.S. government's open data."
Data Rescue Project
Clearinghouse for data rescue-related efforts and data access points for public US governmental data that are currently at risk. Efforts include: data gathering, data curation and cleaning, data cataloging, and providing sustained access and distribution of data assets.
Tracking Government Information (U. Minnesota)
Tracking actions by the current administration that impact government information, such as: removed or modified documents and websites; language censorship; suspension or elimination of agencies, program, funding, or services; and collection of government data. Point to where preserved copies of missing documents can be found, when possible.
DataLumos (ICPSR)
DataLumos is an ICPSR archive for valuable government data resources. Search by keyword or browse by agency, geography, and subject term.

Regulatory and Litigation Trackers

Climate Backtracker (Sabin Center for Climate Change Law)
The Climate Backtracker identifies steps taken by the Trump-Vance administration to scale back or wholly eliminate federal climate mitigation and adaptation measures.
Litigation Tracker: Legal Challenges to Trump Administration Actions (Just Security)
Tracks legal challenges to Trump administration actions.
Trump Administration Litigation Tracker (Lawfare)
Tracks legal challenges to the Trump administration's executive actions that deal with national security issues, as well as cases on behalf of the Trump administration to enforce them.

Other Research Guides

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Environmental Law Research Guide: Removed U.S. Sites & Data