Over the past year, the Trump administration has been removing and altering decades' worth of federal datasets as part of a campaign against so-called 'woke programs', 'racial equity', 'gender ideology' and 'climate extremism'. This erasure includes not only data but also tools and surveys that help the public access information, experts warn that the consequences could affect generations to come.
'Federal data touch every corner of American lives,' said Denice Ross, former US chief data scientist under the Biden administration. 'When data disappears, we might not know or be able to connect the dots for why our lives are getting harder – but our lives will get harder.'
One example is the removal of the Environmental Protection Agency's Risk Management Program (RMP) web tool, which allowed residents to search for nearby chemical facilities storing hazardous materials. Latino, Black and low-income communities disproportionately live near such plants. The tool was taken down last April; now the only way to access this information is by visiting one of several dozen EPA reading rooms to examine paper records.
Another casualty is the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (Prams), the nation's most comprehensive survey on women's experiences before, during and after pregnancy. Researchers relied on this data to study the effects of paid leave policies and poverty on maternal and infant health, including low birth weight and preterm births.
The deletion of these resources comes as the administration proposes further dismantling accident-prevention regulations at chemical plants, despite the US averaging one chemical accident every two days. Experts fear the loss of data will hinder responses to extreme weather, public health monitoring, and food bank operations, ultimately making life harder for ordinary Americans.
