Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York v. U.S. Department of Agriculture

The federal district court for the Southern District of New York so-ordered a stipulation and order of settlement and dismissal in a lawsuit brought in February 2025 against the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) challenging the removal of climate change-related information from the USDA website after President Trump’s inauguration. In May 2025, the parties notified the court that USDA would restore the content. In the February 2026 stipulation setting forth the terms of the dismissal of the case, USDA agreed to provide the plaintiffs with certain data sets used to generate the Forest Service Climate Risk Viewer and to provide certain records created since the publication in April 2023 of an initial inventory of mature and old-growth forests on lands managed by the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management pursuant to President Biden’s Executive Order 14072, “Strengthening the Nation’s Forests, Communities, and Local Economies.” The records USDA must provide include “records of continued work on the definitions of mature and old-growth forests, the Forest Inventory Growth Stage System methodology, the special resolution of the inventory, and the data enabling or supporting increased accuracy or a finer spatial resolution.” USDA also agreed to maintain public access to the Climate Risk Viewer until the release of records is completed.

In a lawsuit challenging the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s removal of climate change-related content from its website after President Trump’s inauguration, the parties notified the federal district court for the Southern District of New York on May 12, 2025 that USDA would restore the content, with substantial completion expected in approximately two weeks. USDA also committed to complying with applicable statutory requirements in connection with any future publication or posting decisions. The court directed the parties to submit a joint status report by June 11, 2025.

Three nonprofit organizations filed a lawsuit in the federal district court for the Southern District of New York alleging that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) had unlawfully directed the “purge” of climate change-focused webpages. The complaint alleged that the USDA Director of Digital Communications sent an email on January 30, 2025 ordering USDA staff to “identify and archive or unpublish any landing pages focused on climate change” by close of business on the following day and to identify and sort other webpages related to climate change. The complaint alleged that “scores of webpages” were removed without public notice or explanation, including webpages with “resources on which farmers relied to access financial and technical assistance for implementing conservation practices”; webpages that published or linked to “datasets and interactive tools on which farmers, landowners, researchers, and other members of the public relied to understand and combat climate-change-related risks and vulnerabilities, to search for federal funding opportunities, and to assess the efficacy of USDA programs”; landing pages that served as repositories of links to more specific pages about USDA climate-focused programs; and webpages with policies and interpretations for discharging USDA responsibilities. The plaintiffs alleged that USDA failed to comply with its obligations under the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA); took action that was arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or not in accordance with law in contravention of the Administrative Procedure Act; violated affirmative obligations under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to make certain materials available; and violated the FOIA mandate to “index” all records that must be affirmatively disclosed in an electronic format. The plaintiffs asked the court to order USDA to restore the unlawfully removed webpages, to enjoin USDA from further implementing the directive to archive or unpublish climate change-focused webpages, and to order USDA to comply with PRA duties to provide adequate notice before removing or substantially modifying other climate change-focused webpages and to ensure public access to USDA’s public information.