Trump’s USDA tried to erase climate data. This lawsuit forced it back online. todayheadline

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 judge in the Southern District of New York saying that it “will restore the climate-change-related web content that was removed post-inauguration, including all USDA web pages and interactive tools enumerated in plaintiffs’ complaint.” The agency said it would also comply with federal laws with respect to “future publication or posting decisions” involving the scrubbed climate information. The letter came days before a hearing regarding the plaintiffs’ move for a preliminary injunction was scheduled to take place.

NOFA-NY, an organization that advocates for sustainable food systems and assists growers with adopting organic farming practices, called the USDA’s about-face “a big win” for its members. 

“I have to say that, for as much as farmers have been through in the past couple of months, this felt really good,” said Marcie Craig, the association’s executive director.

NOFA-NY and the other plaintiffs are represented by the nonprofit environmental law firm Earthjustice and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. 

The fact that the USDA agreed to restore its climate resources online without a court order and before the scheduled hearing “reinforces what we knew all along,” said Earthjustice associate attorney Jeff Stein, “which is that the purge of climate change-related web pages is blatantly unlawful.”

The development marks a rare moment of optimism for U.S. growers, who have faced numerous setbacks from the Trump administration. Since January, the administration has sent shockwaves through the agricultural sector as it paused federal grant and loan programs that supported local and regional food systems and farmers’ climate resiliency efforts. The administration also froze funding for rural clean energy programs, only to unfreeze it with caveats, creating headaches and financial stress for growers. Federal funding cuts have also threatened the status of agricultural research, including projects designed to boost sustainability in the face of climate change. 

In the face of these roadblocks, Craig noted that her optimism tempered with a healthy dose of skepticism. “I think we all bear a level of cautious optimism about what actually comes to fruition on this action,” she said. As of Thursday, the USDA has restored pages about the Inflation Reduction Act and rural clean energy programs, while other pages remain offline, according to Earthjustice. But Craig agreed with Stein that the USDA’s decision to restore resources that help farmers adapt to climate change without a hearing or court order is a “positive” sign. 

The purge of climate web pages, along with the federal funding freezes, have been “crippling” for farmers, said Craig. 

NOFA-NY staff often responded to growers’ questions by sharing the USDA’s online resources. One particularly helpful tool, said Craig, was a page about loans for “climate-smart agriculture,” or farming practices that help sequester carbon or reduce emissions, on the website of the Farmers Service Agency, a subagency of the USDA. The page included a chart that listed the practical and environmental benefits of different climate-smart agriculture techniques, as well as federal funding opportunities to help farmers implement these practices.

It was a “really great example of very specific, clear information” on climate adaptation, “very user-friendly,” said Craig.

Even if those funding sources were technically still available to farmers this winter and spring, the fact that web pages referring to those grants and loans were scrubbed made them inaccessible, she added.

A few days before the USDA filed its letter to the judge, the agency had alerted the plaintiffs’ lawyers of its decision to reupload its climate data, according to Stein. In its letter on Monday, the USDA said most of the content should be back online over the course of the following two weeks; the department also committed to filing a joint status report with Earthjustice and the Knight First Amendment Institute in three weeks to update the court on its progress. 

The hearing that the USDA and the plaintiffs were set to attend later this month has been adjourned. But, Stein said, the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction — which, if granted by a judge, would have ordered the USDA to put back up its climate-related web pages — is still pending. That means that, should the USDA not make progress toward republishing its climate resources online over the next few weeks, the plaintiffs have another way to push their demands forward.

“We want to make sure that USDA in fact follows through on its commitment,” said Stein.

Editor’s note: Earthjustice and the Natural Resources Defense Council are advertisers with Grist. Advertisers have no role in Grist’s editorial decisions.