In a reversal, NASA no longer plans to publish a major climate report whose previous website was scrubbed by the Trump administration.
The report in question, known as the National Climate Assessment, was previously housed on globalchange.gov.
After the Trump administration eliminated the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) website, NASA spokesperson Bethany Stevens said that “all preexisting reports will be hosted on the NASA website, ensuring continuity of reporting.”
But those plans have changed.
Stevens appeared to indicate in a statement to The Hill on Monday that NASA no longer plans to host the information on its website.
“The USGCRP met its statutory requirements by presenting its reports to Congress. NASA has no legal obligations to host globalchange.gov’s data,” Stevens said.
The announcement comes amid a broader effort by the Trump administration to downplay or deny climate change’s existence and its impact on extreme weather.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), for example, has said it wants to reconsider its finding that climate change poses a threat to the public. It has also dismissed all of the scientists who were set to work on the next version of the climate assessment, the completion of which is mandated by Congress.
The 2023 version of the climate assessment can still be downloaded from online government archives as of Tuesday, or it can be viewed using the Wayback Machine internet archive.
