Trump's Climate Purges and the Resistance
Our two main articles highlight how Trump is purging staff, experts, and climate data at the EPA and DOJ. But groups in Illinois and across the country are fighting back.
In This Issue
March Events
March 10: 350 Chicago General Meeting
March 12-15: Loyola Climate Change Conference
March 14: 350 Chicago Tabling at Reuse-a-Palooza
March 27: Delta Institute Green Soapbox Panel Discussion: Climate Refugees
In Brief
Offer Public Comment at IPCB Hearing on EV Standards
IEC Legislative Agenda for 2025
350 Chicago attends 350 Network Council Planning Retreat
Main Articles
The Racism and Inequality at the Heart of Trump’s Cuts to EPA and DOJ
Vanishing Records, Rising Resistance: The Fight to Preserve Federal Climate Data
Further Resources on Trump Purges
Events
350 Chicago General Meeting
Monday, March 10, 6:30pm - 7:30pm
via Zoom
Join 350 Chicago for our General Meeting! During the meeting, we will provide campaign updates and discuss the work 350 Chicago is doing in Chicago and Illinois to help preserve a livable planet. We will also provide information about ways to volunteer and get involved with 350 Chicago. Please contact info@350chicago.org to attend the General Meeting, we will send you the zoom link.
Loyola Climate Change Conference
Conference Dates: March 12th - 15th
350 Chicago table: Friday, March 14, 10:00am - 5:00pm
Loyola University, Rogers Park Campus (various locations)
Information and Registration HERE (register until Wednesday, March 5)
Loyola University is hosting a 4 day climate change conference entitled Shifting Waters: Water Security and the Emerging Water Crisis.
350 Chicago will be tabling at the conference on Friday March 14, all day. We will be gathering signatures for the State Fossil Fuel Divestment Campaign and the Utility Accountability Campaign. This is also a great opportunity to learn about what our organization does within the broader context of the movement to fight the climate crisis.
More on the conference via Loyola University: Climate change has dramatic implications for the world's water resources. Communities worldwide face worsening droughts, more frequent flooding, and rising sea levels. Warmer waters harm aquatic ecosystems and damage fisheries, while more than half the world's population faces water security challenges. Loyola University Chicago's 2025 Climate Change Conference will explore strategies for developing just solutions to the emerging water crisis. Speakers will discuss how people are working to protect water resources on global, regional, and local levels. The event will also provide opportunities for participants to become part of the solution and positively impact people and the planet.
There is a registration fee of $15 for the in-person keynote event, $5 for the online keynote, and $15 for the in-person programming on Friday, March 14.
350 Chicago Tabling at Reuse-a-Palooza
Friday, March 14, 11:00am - 3:00pm
The Plant, 1400 West 46th Street
350 Chicago will be returning to table at the Plant for Reuse-a-Palooza 2025! We will be gathering signatures in support of the State Fossil Fuel Divestment Campaign and the Utility Accountability Campaign. If you want to help contribute your name to these campaigns or learn more generally about our work in Chicago and Illinois come visit our table!
Delta Institute Green Soapbox Panel Discussion: Climate Refugees
Thursday, March 27, 5:00pm - 8:00pm
Salesforce Tower, 333 W Wolf Point Plaza, Chicago, IL 60654
via Delta Institute: According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, approximately 122 million people live forcibly displaced from their homes in 2024. Moreover, researchers at the Institute for Economics & Peace estimate that this number can grow to 1.2 billion people being forcibly displaced by 2050 as a result from climate change impacts like droughts that trigger food insecurity, conflicts over access to water, and the impacts of intensifying natural disasters around the globe.
These challenges have many more people asking questions like: What role will the Midwest play in climate migration patterns, and what can we do today about it? Please join Delta Institute for a special panel discussion featuring discussion on this important topic: Climate Refugees. Panelists to be announced soon.
In Brief
Offer Public Comment at IPCB Hearing on EV Standards
Offer comments on raising clean car and truck standards to the Illinois Pollution Control Board in writing or via Webex online at a public hearing scheduled March 10th – 12th. The “Proposed Clean Car and Truck Standards” asks the Board to raise pollution standards and implement EV sales quotas, based on California regulations, and includes both private vehicles and trucks. The proposition is sponsored by the Chicago Environmental Justice Network, among other allies, and the issue is vitally important to the health and welfare of frontline communities in Chicago and other Illinois urban centers.
Submit comments by email to PCB.Clerks@illinois.gov. The Online Public Comment Period is March 11th 2025 from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. Any member of the public who wishes to provide comment may do so by emailing Hearing Officer Horton at vanessa.horton@illinois.gov to request a time slot. Time slots will be awarded on a first-come, first-served basis. All requests must be received by 5 p.m. on March 3, 2025.
For more information about the hearings contact 350 Chicago member, Christine Skolnik at Christine.skolnik@vcfa.edu. (also see Community members demand stricter emissions standards to fight pollution, Chicago Reader)
IEC Legislative Agenda for 2025
The Illinois Environmental Council (IEC) has come out with their Legislative Agenda for 2025:
via the IEC: As communities across the Prairie State face a barrage of new and exacerbated challenges brought on by the Trump administration, with sweeping impacts on our environment, IEC is eager to work with a new Illinois state legislature in 2025 to make progress in key areas, including protection for Environmental Justice communities, reducing harmful plastics expansion, tackling climate-warming air pollution in our transportation sector, modernizing a more affordable power grid, and the continued protection of our nation-leading Climate and Equitable Jobs Act (CEJA) legislation for our clean energy economy. Additionally, we see some exciting opportunities to strengthen climate and conservation programs at the Illinois Department of Agriculture and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources as we pursue policy changes to improve conservation and sustainable agriculture practices in our state. (Read the full agenda at the link above)
350 Chicago Attends 350 Network Council Planning Retreat
Executive Director Larry Coble represented 350 Chicago at the 350 Network Council Planning Retreat in San Diego from February 24th-27th. The retreat was a gathering of the 16 largest 350 groups in the United States to coordinate and move forward on a number of priorities such as the national Utility Accountability Campaign, dealing with the new Trump administration, and how we can keep making big impacts in our states and local communities towards mitigating the climate crisis.
The Racism and Inequality at the Heart of Trump’s Cuts to the EPA and DOJ
by Christine Skolnik
Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is systematically dismissing programs and employees attempting to protect our environment. Trump’s EPA has placed 168 employees working for the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights on leave, and required 1000 “probationary” employees to justify their jobs or face “immediate termination.” (Trump administration cuts environmental justice programs at EPA, DOJ, by Reuters). Additionally Trump has dismissed the entire board of outside advisors on science and clean air.
In addition to gutting the EPA and deregulating the fossil fuel industry (discussed by this newsletter last month), the new federal government is effectively granting polluters immunity from prosecution for violating environmental laws and regulations. Revealing their utter contempt for the law, “the Trump administration has already suspended all environmental litigation and sidelined senior career section chiefs at the DOJ who oversee the natural resources, environmental enforcement, appellate and environmental crimes sections.” (per Reuters article, above) Environmental justice advocates recognize that weakening regulations and legal protections put frontline communities living near polluting facilities at risk.
The administration claims that “climate extremism has exploded inflation” (per Trump’s January Executive Orders) by overburdening business with regulations. This lie, based on no evidence whatsoever, only benefits polluters and fossil fuel interests. Environmental organizations like 350 Chicago, citizens affected by climate disasters, and multiple states suing the fossil fuel industry know well that the externalized costs of burning fossil fuels are the true drain on the U.S. economy, not government employees working to protect the populace from environmental toxins and the effects of climate change. Climate disasters are only becoming more and more frequent and are increasingly causing billions of dollars in damage to citizens and the US economy, not to mention the horrific human toll. In only the last few months both Hurricane Helene and the LA fires resulted in billions of dollars in damage and resulted in thousands of people losing their homes and livelihoods.
These climate disasters can potentially affect everyone, but the most vulnerable citizens are, as always, hit the hardest. While Chicago 350 has worked toward the goal of achieving greater environmental justice as a chapter and as a member of various coalitions, the new federal government is pursuing a policy of environmental injustice under a cynical banner of judicial evenhandedness. This umbrella policy is an attempt to erase decades of gains by the environmental justice movement and reinvent systemic racism and classicism in America so that the very wealthy can continue to prosper at the expense of marginalized populations. (see ‘Breathtakingly Ignorant and Dangerous’: Trump’s DOT Orders Sweeping Purge of Climate, Gender, Race, Environmental Justice Initiatives)
Siting toxic industrial facilities near communities of color, deregulating polluters, and decelerating alternative energy development, all forms of environmental injustice, increase health stressors and reduce life expectancy for people of color. Decelerating alternative energy development also forecloses economic opportunities for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) communities systemically excluded from high-tech and union jobs. Instead of lifting up the oppressed, these policies push down struggling, frontline communities and kill the American dream for the working class.
It’s hard to imagine any ethical ground for such actions designed to harm the most vulnerable but which will also harm everyone in the U.S. and around the world. Self-interest, greed, and lawlessness might be considered values in some dark quarters, but when they undermine the values of liberty, equality, and justice upon which this nation was founded they cannot be considered American values. The current federal government is betraying the American people as it continues to concentrate wealth and power in the hands of the few while allowing big industries and mega corporations to poison and economically exploit the poor.
These issues are not a surprise, and we have fought against these policies during the first presidency of Donald Trump. His decisions in 2016, such as the appointment of a fossil fuel cabinet and the first government attack on science prompted a surge of large public protests that helped solidify the Chicago coalition of civil rights, labor, and environmental organizations. In addition to the massive March for Science Chicago, which drew 40,000 people, Chicago 350 participated in and helped organize numerous large and small protests pushing for climate solutions and environmental justice. These were opportunities to reconnect with environmental justice groups in Chicago and special interest groups across Illinois. Now, more than ever, we need strong coalitions to oppose an authoritarian government and fight for a just, prosperous, and equitable planet, core values of 350.org.
How can environmentalists in Chicago and across the state resist tyranny, lawlessness, and the reinvention of racism in America? Share your thoughts in our comments section below, or come discuss with us, at our next 350 Chicago general meeting or at one of our tabling events in the ‘Events’ section above. We look forward to hearing from you, and we are always looking for new members to help us fight the climate crisis.
Vanishing Records, Rising Resistance: The Fight to Preserve Federal Climate Data
by Mary Baker
In my day job as a researcher, I use government sources often to discover, distill, and present information to help teammates answer pressing questions our clients. Starting January 31st this year, I could tell something weird was going on with federal data. Not only was the American Community Survey not loading, but I was getting error messages on CDC.gov. I soon realized the outages weren't the result of power failures or server overload. This data loss was the result of federal agencies abiding by President Trump's recent executive orders. These data purges have many targets such as "gender ideology" and diversity programs, as well as climate change information. For example, the USDA's office of communications ordered employees to "delete landing pages discussing climate change." And tools like the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool, created to pinpoint "communities with significant environmental, social and/or economic burdens" were removed as early as January 22.
The scope of these efforts isn't fully known but it is clear that huge amounts of data have been lost. As of February 22, almost 3,400 datasets were removed from Data.gov.
The speed and uncertainty surrounding the most recent changes to federal websites and datasets have researchers distressed. “In my lifetime, in the United States I don’t know of another situation where researchers have been this concerned about losing access to data that they’ve had access to their whole career. It's dire,” says Jonathan Gilmour, a data scientist at the Chan School quoted in a recent article The Journalist's Resource.
“I don’t know of another situation where researchers have been this concerned about losing access to data that they’ve had access to their whole career. It's dire”
- Jonathan Gilmour, data scientist at Chan School
Fortunately, researchers, academics, and everyday people alarmed by disappearing data have sprung into action. In addition to lawsuits (such as Farmers, green groups sue USDA over ‘unlawful purge’ of climate data and Doctors for America Sues Over Removal of Health Information From HHS, CDC, FDA) there are multiple efforts to mitigate damage by preserving at-risk data.
In February, I joined a Data Preservation Datathon led by Public Environmental Data Partners, a volunteer coalition dedicated to preserving and providing public access to federal environmental data. Datathon participants divided and conquered a list of databases and websites at risk of being removed due to federal mandates.
My assignment at the Datathon was preserving a Climate Change Resilience and Adaptation Planning Tool for Marine Protected Areas, hosted by The National Ocean and Atmospheric Association (NOAA). I cataloged metadata associated with the tool and downloaded relevant documents for safekeeping. As of today, the website and tool itself are still online, but if the federal government deems them unsuitable in the future, both are now safeguarded and preserved for future use.
Public Environmental Data Partners is just one of many groups doing this essential work. If you’re interested in these data preservation efforts, here's a non-exhaustive list of similar groups and resources to utilize, support, and volunteer with:
While the removal of federal data is alarming, the dedication of researchers, activists, and volunteers to protect vital information is powerful evidence that decades of data and knowledge won’t disappear without a fight.
Further Resources on Trump Purges
For those interested in further reading for our main articles above, there are a number of articles from Inside Climate News with more information about the federal government’s illegal actions purging staff and advisors at the EPA and DOJ and destroying data (courtesy of Environmental News Bits):
Reset or Purge? Trump EPA Dismisses Agency Science Advisers
Watchdog Groups Anticipate ‘an All-Out War on Science and Scientists’ by the Trump Administration