EPA Open Data Plan Is Worth Putting Into Action

A PFAS mapping tool, an example of publicly available government data that Toolbox warns may not withstand changes to open data policies. Image: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Reporter’s Toolbox: EPA Open Data Plan Is Worth Putting Into Action

Analysis by Joseph A. Davis

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency just published its “Open Data Plan.” Good idea.

Environmental journalists have long wished for — and applauded — open data at the EPA. It has fueled and inspired great reporting projects like ProPublica’s “Sacrifice Zones” package in 2021.

And SEJournal has long encouraged journalists to make use of EPA data.

You can find the plan published here.

Actually, the EPA had to publish the plan, as it was strongly encouraged by the so-called Evidence Act of 2018 (Public Law 115-435); Title 2 of that law is named the Open Government Data Act.

 

The general idea was that

most federal agencies were

required to make their ‘public’

data available to the public.

 

The general idea was that most federal agencies were required to make their “public” data available to the public in machine-readable form, to catalogue all that data in standard form and to make it available through the federal megasite Data.gov.

That site, which currently leads to more than 340,000 datasets, is something every journalist should know about.

The Open Data Act also establishes the position of chief data officer at most federal agencies. Currently, the EPA’s is Richard Allen.

 

Long-time public data leadership … 

The EPA is to data as Saudi Arabia is to oil (there’s a lot of it in both cases).

Historically, as administrations have come and gone, the EPA has been a leader and pioneer in developing data systems and making them available to the public.

We point to the EPA’s pioneering Envirofacts warehouse, now somewhat long in the tooth, having undergone updating and overhaul over many years.

The EPA’s data riches come from its federalist structure — states collect data under many environmental laws and must report it to the agency.

The EPA’s Open Data Plan starts this way: “The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency values our commitment to providing easy access to the data assets we collect on behalf of the American public, making them broadly available to all. By providing liberal access to our data assets, we empower a diverse array of stakeholders. These include federal partners, state and municipal policymakers, industry leaders, community organizations, and researchers in diverse disciplines.”

Bravo and amen.

 

… Succumbs to Trump 2.0 policies

Toolbox is concerned, though, that not all of the EPA has gotten the word.

How, for example, do we explain the fact that this year, in the first six months of Trump 2.0, the EPA did not release the data in its annual Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks.

The EPA has been collecting and publishing this data since 1990. Doing so was a requirement of the treaties under the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Today, under Trump, the U.S. has dropped out of those treaties — virtually the only nation to do so. The Environmental Defense Fund pried the latest inventory loose with a Freedom of Information Act request and published it itself.

 

The EPA this year removed

from the web its long-standing

environmental justice data

mapping tool EJScreen.

 

Or look at another example: The EPA this year removed from the web its long-standing environmental justice data mapping tool EJScreen. Granted, the reason was not a general hostility to open data — it was a general hostility to environmental justice.

EJScreen was important. It was one foundation stone of ProPublica’s “Sacrifice Zones” project. The good news is that the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative and a team of data liberators saved it and republished it. Environmental groups have gone to court to reopen it.

One more: The National Climate Assessment is a quadrennial report that summarizes research by hundreds of expert authors on how climate change will affect people in the United States. Lots of federal data goes into it. Many agencies take part in it, not just the EPA. It’s also legally required to be published under the Global Change Research Act of 1990.

In May, news accounts revealed that the Trump 2.0 administration had dismissed hundreds of authors for the latest assessment — making any publication impossible. Climate scientists have declared plans to produce the report anyway.

The EPA’s Open Data Plan inevitably raises issues of credibility and hypocrisy. Journalists, of course, will want the EPA to live up to it. But it’s hard to take “open data” seriously at a time when the EPA is abolishing its scientific research office.

Joseph A. Davis is a freelance writer/editor in Washington, D.C. who has been writing about the environment since 1976. He writes SEJournal Online's TipSheet, Reporter's Toolbox and Issue Backgrounder, and curates SEJ's weekday news headlines service EJToday and @EJTodayNews. Davis also directs SEJ's Freedom of Information Project and writes the WatchDog opinion column.

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* From the weekly news magazine SEJournal Online, Vol. 10, No. 29. Content from each new issue of SEJournal Online is available to the public via the SEJournal Online main page. Subscribe to the e-newsletter here. And see past issues of the SEJournal archived here.