"As one of its first acts, the Trump administration removed the online data tool used to allocate money to environmental justice communities. In two days, a coalition of data scientists had restored it on an independent internet domain."

"One day after President Donald Trump’s inauguration, a digital mapping tool used by federal and state agencies to identify environmentally disadvantaged communities was taken offline. Within 48 hours, a coalition of data scientists known as the Public Environmental Data Project had resurrected a functional but unofficial copy of the tool on an independent domain.

The Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool (CEJST) is one of more than 200 federally maintained resources that the data scientists have flagged as both critical to environmental justice work and at risk of disappearing under the new Trump administration. The data’s removal so early in the administration has deepened their fears about disenfranchised communities suffering without publicly available environmental health information.

Developed in 2021 by the U.S. Digital Service and the Council on Environmental Quality, the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool was designed to uphold then-President Joe Biden’s early-term promise that 40 percent of federal investments in climate and clean energy initiatives would be directed toward underserved communities."

Anika Jane Beamer reports for Inside Climate News February 4, 2025. [2]