Last week, the Trump administration announced it would no longer mandate that thousands of industrial facilities report their planet-warming emissions. This decision highlights a disturbing pattern: if scientific data reveals an inconvenient truth or points to a problem, the administration’s solution appears to be discontinuing its collection altogether.
Similarly, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has ceased tracking the most costly extreme weather events – those causing at least a billion dollars in damage.
Meanwhile, officials at NASA, under the Trump administration’s directive, are looking to decommission and potentially destroy two advanced satellites responsible for precisely measuring the greenhouse gases fueling climate change.
Even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has seen significant cuts, with layoffs severely impacting a division dedicated to compiling vital statistics on issues ranging from car accidents and gun violence to homicides.
Experts warn that these actions could have profound consequences, as a government cannot effectively address problems it refuses to accurately measure.
According to Sarah Pralle, an associate professor of political science at Syracuse University, “When we don’t measure things, it makes it much harder to claim that there is a problem and that the government has some kind of responsibility to help alleviate it.”
Dr. Pralle emphasized that “Measuring itself is a political act with political consequences,” suggesting that the administration’s disinterest in data collection directly reflects its reluctance to address issues like climate change.
This pattern of sidelining unfavorable data is reminiscent of President Trump’s first term. In June 2020, as federal statistics showed a surge in coronavirus cases, Mr. Trump famously stated, “If we stopped testing right now, we’d have very few cases, if any.”
In his second term, the administration’s drive to suppress facts and figures deemed unfavorable has intensified, even leading to the removal of officials responsible for this information. For example, in August, the President dismissed the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, baselessly claiming that underwhelming jobs numbers were “rigged” and “phony.”
White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers, however, defended the administration’s approach, asserting that the president is dedicated to ensuring accuracy in government data.
Ms. Rogers stated via email that “Under President Trump’s leadership, agencies are refocusing on their core missions and shifting away from ideological activism.” She further added, “The Trump administration is committed to eliminating bias and producing Gold Standard Science research driven by verifiable data that informs Americans’ decision-making while keeping them safe.”
Turning to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Trump officials announced on Friday the termination of the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program. This program was previously the nation’s most thorough system for tracking dangerous, planet-warming greenhouse gases. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin characterized the program as “nothing more than bureaucratic red tape.”
For a decade and a half, this program diligently gathered data from approximately 8,000 industrial sites across the country, encompassing coal power plants, oil refineries, and steel mills. Research from 2023 by Sorabh Tomar, an assistant professor of accounting at Southern Methodist University, suggests that publicly sharing this data motivated many companies to reduce their emissions, likely spurred by a desire to outperform competitors in environmental responsibility.
Dr. Tomar likened this phenomenon to the “Orangetheory effect,” where seeing others’ performance motivates individuals to avoid being at the bottom of the rankings.
Critics on the conservative side, like Diana Furchtgott-Roth, director of the Center for Energy, Climate and Environment at the Heritage Foundation, argued that the EPA program imposed excessive reporting burdens, hindering American businesses.
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth claimed the program “discourages energy-intensive manufacturing in the United States and makes it go to other places where it’s done in a dirtier way, such as China and India.” It’s worth noting, however, that both China and India have their own requirements for large companies to disclose greenhouse gas emissions.
The administration’s efforts to halt emissions monitoring aren’t limited to Earth. They also aim to decommission, and potentially destroy, two NASA satellites launched at a cost exceeding $800 million. These satellites are crucial for providing highly precise measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide, a primary greenhouse gas.
Compounding the challenge, the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund recently lost contact with its MethaneSAT satellite, which had been monitoring methane emissions globally from oil and gas operations. Methane is an exceptionally potent greenhouse gas, approximately 80 times more effective at trapping heat than carbon dioxide over the short term.
Mark Brownstein, senior vice president of energy at the Environmental Defense Fund, confirmed that MethaneSAT had gathered nearly a year’s worth of data before its malfunction. The organization plans to analyze and release this valuable information in the near future.
Mr. Brownstein emphasized that “Any claim, whether it’s made by a government or industry, ultimately needs to be underpinned by good data.”
Back at NOAA, Trump officials announced in May that they would cease updating their critical list of U.S. weather disasters, each costing at least $1 billion. NOAA spokeswoman Kim Doster explained this decision as a result of “evolving priorities and staffing changes.”
Historically, this list of “billion-dollar disasters” showed a dramatic increase, from only a few annually in the 1980s to an average of 23 per year between 2020 and 2024. Experts have consistently linked this rise to both increased development in vulnerable areas and the accelerating impact of climate change, which intensifies events like hurricanes, wildfires, and droughts.
This NOAA database was a crucial resource for state and local governments, guiding decisions on infrastructure projects like elevating roads and bridges to guard against severe flooding. Insurance companies also leveraged this data in their advertising campaigns targeting property owners.
Jesse M. Keenan, an associate professor at Tulane University’s Center on Climate Change and Urbanism, noted, “There’s nothing better for an insurance commercial than seeing how many billions of dollars of losses we’ve had from disasters.”
At the CDC, approximately 170 employees at the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control were dismissed last month. This center is responsible for collecting data on a wide array of public health concerns, including car crashes, drownings, gun violence, and traumatic brain injuries. Further, the proposed House spending bill seeks to completely defund the center.
Sharon Gilmartin, executive director of the Safe States Alliance, warned that these layoffs and funding cuts threaten the National Violent Death Reporting System. This critical system tracks homicides, suicides, and violent deaths involving law enforcement officers, providing invaluable insights for prevention efforts.
Ms. Gilmartin highlighted the dataset’s utility for prevention specialists, stating, “it really tells the story of where to intervene.” She cited an instance where a surge in law enforcement suicides in specific states, revealed by these statistics, prompted the National Sheriffs’ Association to implement mental health counseling and support programs in those regions.
Andrew Nixon, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the CDC’s parent agency, confirmed that the database is currently operational.
In an email, Mr. Nixon asserted, “C.D.C. databases that track data on concussions, car crashes and suicides remain operational. Any such reporting otherwise is false. H.H.S. and C.D.C. remain committed to tracking public health data to inform policy decisions through evidence-based decision making.”
Amidst the diminishing availability of government data, various groups of ‘data nerds’ have launched efforts to safeguard extensive federal information. The Data Rescue Project, for instance, has successfully archived 1,244 datasets from 86 government offices, thanks to the dedication of over 500 volunteers.
Lena Bohman, a co-founder of the Data Rescue Project, highlighted the sheer volume of information, stating, “The U.S. government is one of the world’s largest data producers — the scale is massive.”
She emphasized that this information “is used all over the place in ways that people don’t always appreciate,” underscoring its broad, often unseen, impact.