Sierra Club v. EPA

Starting in January 2025, the Environmental Protection Agency, Center for Environmental Quality, Department of Energy, Department of Transportation, and Federal Emergency Management Agency have removed publicly accessible webpages that served as key sources for information about environmental justice and climate change. These webpages were essential tools for explaining how communities around the country are harmed or benefited by policy choices regarding the environment, transportation, and energy. The pages supported work examining how the costs of pollution affect disadvantaged communities, provided the means by which community advocates can explain environmental harms, and provided the foundation for public participation in regulatory and legislative processes. And taking down the webpages and datasets created a dangerous gap in the scientific data available to monitor the harms pollution and climate change impose on disadvantaged communities and takes away key resources that communities and their supporters to advocate for environmental protections.

On behalf of the Sierra Club, Unions of Concerned Scientists, Environmental Integrity Project, and California Communities Against Toxics, we filed a lawsuit challenging the agencies’ removal of numerous interactive webpages related to environmental justice and climate change from publicly accessible government websites.