The EPA is quietly killing its web archive — SkimNews
Get the Energy newsletter
Daily energy & climate — solar, EVs, oil, the policy fights and tech bets shaping the transition. Free.
- EPA updated its website to set a December 31, 2026 deadline to decommission its online web archive, which hosts tens of thousands of environmental documents dating back to the 1990s
- Gretchen Gehrke of the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative warned the archive’s removal would permanently erase irreplaceable public information critical for democratic oversight and environmental enforcement
- EPA previously attempted to retire the archive in 2022, citing $2 million in annual maintenance costs, but paused after backlash from historians, librarians, and environmental groups
- Environmental Data and Governance Initiative and the American Society for Environmental History condemned the initial 2022 plan, calling it a threat to the historical record and government transparency
- Lauren Harper of the Freedom of the Press Foundation stated that eliminating easy access to archived records will overwhelm the EPA’s FOIA office with requests for once-public data
- EPA claims historical information will remain available through 'snapshot collections,' but experts express doubt these will preserve the full scope of the current archive
Why it matters: Decommissioning the archive shifts the burden of accessing public environmental records onto a strained FOIA system, increasing delays and costs for researchers and communities tracking pollution and regulatory changes—especially as past climate data vanishes under future political shifts. The $2 million annual cost contrasts with the far higher societal cost of lost transparency.
Ask SkimNews
