The lawsuit claimed the USDA violated three federal laws: the Right to Information Act, Paperwork Reduction Act, and Administrative Procedure Act.
The USDA’s actions breached multiple federal statutes designed to ensure transparency and proper governmental procedure.
Lawyers from Earthjustice and the Knight First Amendment Institute represented the plaintiffs, who sought a court order to restore the removed information.
The removed content included climate-smart farming practices, federal loan opportunities, interactive climate maps, and the U.S. Forest Service’s “Climate Risk Viewer.”
Farmers lost access to resources needed for time-sensitive decisions and guidance on how to access billions in conservation funding.
Just days before a scheduled hearing on May 21, the USDA sent a letter to the federal district judge in New York announcing they would restore all climate-focused webpages.
This decision prevented a court injunction and required the agency to follow federal regulations for future publication decisions.
The USDA’s actions were part of a broader pattern across the Trump administration.
Since January 20, over 8,000 web pages have been removed from more than a dozen agencies, including resources on public health, disaster preparedness, and environmental justice.
For rural communities facing climate-related challenges, the information blackout created significant hardships.
Farmers couldn’t access technical guidance on reducing emissions or strengthening their farms’ resilience against extreme weather.
The information removal coincided with the Trump administration abandoning global climate commitments including withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and cancellation of funding for clean energy projects worldwide.
The USDA instructed employees to archive or unpublish various climate change-focused pages immediately following Trump’s inauguration.
The USDA has committed to a restoration process that will take approximately two weeks to complete, returning vital climate information to farmers and communities.
Environmental groups celebrated the USDA’s reversal as a major win for transparency and the public’s right to information.
The case may have implications for similar information removals at other federal agencies under the Trump administration.
References
- https://grist.org/food-and-agriculture/trump-usda-climate-data-information-website-lawsuit-farmers-settlement/
- https://earthjustice.org/press/2025/usda-reverses-course-commits-to-restore-purged-climate-webpages-in-response-to-farmers-lawsuit
- https://earthjustice.org/press/2025/trump-usda-sued-for-erasing-webpages-vital-to-farmers
- https://www.ehn.org/usda-will-bring-back-deleted-climate-content-following-lawsuit
- https://planetdetroit.org/2025/03/usda-climate-data-purge/
