Sierra Club v. EPA

Sierra Club and three other organizations filed a lawsuit in federal district court in the District of Columbia challenging five federal agencies’ removal of publicly accessible webpages that provided information about environmental justice and climate change. The websites that are the subject of the suit are EPA’s EJScreen; the Council on Environmental Quality’s Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool; the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Low-Income Energy Affordability Data (LEAD) Tool; DOE’s Community Benefits Plan Map; the Department of Transportation’s Equitable Transportation Community Explorer; and the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Future Risk Index. The plaintiffs alleged harms from the webpages’ removal, including impacts on their ability to disseminate accurate information and their ability to participate in regulatory processes. The plaintiffs asserted that removal of the webpages violated the Paperwork Reduction Act and the Administrative Procedure Act. They asked the court to order the agencies to restore the webpages.