Trump’s USDA tried to erase climate data. This lawsuit forced it back online.
The United States Department of Agriculture says it will restore climate-related information on its websites, following a lawsuit filed earlier this year by agriculture and environmental groups that say farmers rely heavily on these critical resources to adapt to warming temperatures.
In January, following President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the USDA’s communications office instructed employees to “identify and archive or unpublish any landing pages focused on climate change” and flag other pages that mention climate for review — a policy first reported by Politico. The following month, the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York, or NOFA-NY, joined the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Environmental Working Group in suing the agency to republish the pages, which included information about federal loans for farmers and an interactive climate map.
This week, the USDA filed a letter to a U.S. district …
