Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency published in the Federal Register its plan to stop expedited Freedom of Information Act request processing for marginalized communities most affected by environmental pollution. The move would ax one of the last vestiges of Biden-era efforts to encourage vulnerable groups to exercise the right to know.
The original provision was established in November 2023 to speed up public records requests dealing with “an environmental justice-related need” that could “inform an affected community.” The environmental agency also waived fees for those requests.
Now, in line with the Trump administration’s assault on all programs, services, and information pertaining to diversity, equity, and inclusion, the EPA’s proposal cancels what has been an important tool for low-income people and neighborhoods of color to access information about the environmental issues in their own backyards in a timely manner. Many of the most vulnerable groups live near industrial facilities and waste sites, and the expedited processing provision was one of the few ways these groups could meaningfully and efficiently access records like toxicity reports and and risk assessments. This move is also part of a larger pattern within the EPA to sever the link between the environment and impacts on human health.
News of EPA’s plan originally surfaced in October 2025. Since then, the conservative legal firm America First Legal Foundation—founded by Trump’s Senior Advisor Stephen Miller—filed a petition slamming the provision, stating that the Biden era rule “bent the rules to provide politically favored requesters with special treatment.”
The EPA notes that expedited processing will still be granted if the requester demonstrates a “compelling need” and that environmental-justice related requests will continue to be eligible for fee waivers.
The public comment period for this proposal will be open until February 26, 2025.
Documents Reveal Dubious Climate Working Group Operations
In a transparency win, the Environmental Defense Fund and the Union of Concerned Scientists won release of over 68,000 pages of records about the Trump administration’s Climate Working Group (CWG)—the controversial panel that published the Department of Energy report “A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate.”
The innerworkings of the CWG have been shrouded in secrecy since the panel’s inception. In early 2025, Energy Secretary Chris Wright handpicked five “experts”—all of whom have a history of questioning the scientific consensus of climate change risks—to write a review of greenhouse gas emissions and the connections to human health. Immediately following its publication, the report was denounced by climate scientists for downplaying peer-reviewed climate research, cherry picking data, and bypassing typical scientific review processes.
More outrage followed when EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin later cited the report to justify the EPA’s proposal to repeal the 2009 endangerment finding, the landmark determination that serves as the legal bedrock for the agency’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
EDF and UCS filed a lawsuit against the Energy Department, EPA, Wright, and Zeldin alleging that the agencies violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) by creating and operating an advisory committee in secret. Under the FACA, advisory committees are also required to have “balanced membership” and make materials accessible to the public. In December, a federal court ordered the Trump administration to release the CWG documents.
Now, key findings from the records released to the environmental coalition reveal the CWG understood its chief objective was to “call into question” the landmark endangerment finding. The documents also reveal that the panelists acknowledged the report’s shortcomings and knew “they hardly discussed…the overwhelming scientific evidence supporting the Endangerment Finding.”
Currently, EDF and UCS have released a portion of the documents on their websites and plan to house all 68,000+ released records on their sites by March.
In Other Secrecy News…
The administration’s federal data takedown continued this past week with the disappearance of the Special Inspector General of Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) website, according to Freedom of the Press Foundation’s Daniel Ellsberg Chair and National Security Archive alum Lauren Harper.
SIGAR, the watchdog oversight agency established by Congress in 2008 to track spending in Afghanistan amid corruption concerns, released its final report in December and officially shut its doors last week—but its website is nowhere to be found.
As reported by the Washington Times, the agency expected an archived version of SIGAR.mil would be housed on the federal CyberCemetery at the University of North Texas, which currently hosts the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction website. But SIGAR site is still not publicly accessible.
Harper points out that the disappearance of the website is a major blow for transparency and accountability: the hundreds of reports, audits, and oral histories that were previously available at SIGAR.mil were integral to the public’s understanding of the systemic list of problems that fueled one of America’s longest and most expensive wars.
The National Security Archive’s Digital National Security Archive (DNSA) collection “The Afghanistan War and the United States, 1998-2017” features over 400 SIGAR documents and sheds light on the Afghanistan reconstruction project and endemic corruption.
Separately, the U.S. government has officially withdrawn from the Open Government Partnership (OGP), the international initiative founded in 2011 by eight countries to “advance government transparency, participation, and accountability in partnership with civil society.”
In its official withdrawal letter, U.S. General Services Administration Administrator Edward Forst informed the OGP steering committee that its continued involvement in the group “has become at best ineffective and at worst determinantal to advancing” core American principles.
Despite critiques of contracting influence under Trump’s first administration and under Biden, the OGP saw major successes, including the establishment of the Access to Information Law in Brazil, the bolstering of FOIA in South Africa, and the establishment of U.S. agency annual open government plans. National Security Archive Director Tom Blanton served as a civil society member of the OGP Steering Committee from 2011-2013.
The OGP exit comes as President Trump withdraws the U.S. from 66 other international organizations, including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and is the latest move in the Trump administration’s disregard for transparency and accountability mechanisms.
UNREDACTED: The National Security Archive Blog 