When the White House website removed all most all references to climate change within minutes of President Donald Trump's inauguration, it set the tone for the administration's environmental policy and led to concerns about how accurately government agencies would be allowed to report climate science during his term.
Those concerns resurfaced Monday when reports emerged that two different government agencies had removed "climate change" from documents and websites, Pacific Standard reported. The Treasury Department removed mentions of climate change and a section on "climate change resilience" from a draft of a 2017 sustainability report obtained by E&E news. And the Center for Disease Control (CDC) removed references to climate change from its National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) website, going so far as to change the name of one web page from "Climate Change and Occupational Safety and Health" to "Occupational Safety and Health and Climate," The Washington Post reported.The Treasury Department draft was obtained by E&E News under the Freedom of Information Act. Reporters compared it to the 2016 sustainability report released by the department under the Obama administration and found that it was nearly identical, except when it came to climate change. The 2016 report listed the department's progress on 10 environmental goals, including "Goal No. 10: Climate Change Resilience." In the 2017 draft, Goal NO. 10 was left out entirely.The report was the product of an Obama era executive order mandating that all government agencies update the White House with their progress on 10 environmental goals, among them reducing greenhouse gas emissions and promoting renewable energy. Other agencies' 2017 reports continued to mention climate change. Trump reversed the executive order in May.