The Trump administration has removed all sorts of data from federal websites

Trump administration is purging data sets
(Image credit: Washington Post)

U.S. government scientists were worried that the Trump administration would take down federal websites with research and data on climate change, and they took steps accordingly. But it turns out federal agencies under Trump have removed or made inaccessible data on all sorts of topics, from resources on housing discrimination to reports on animal welfare abuses and workplace safety violations, The Washington Post reports. The Trump White House has also declined to publish ethics waivers granted to appointees, making it hard to know which officials have, for example, recently lobbied on issues they now oversee in government.

The Trump administration has removed thousands of massive data sets used by companies, researchers, and others — in January, there were 195,245 public data sets at www.data.gov, while there are now fewer than 156,000 data sets. Some of them were likely removed because they were outdated or consolidated with other data sets, The Washington Post says, but "the reduction was clearly a conscious decision."

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Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.