The federal district court for the District of Columbia denied a motion for a preliminary injunction requiring federal agencies to restore information and online tools concerning environmental justice, climate change, and other environmental issues to their websites. The court found that the plaintiffs—four nonprofit advocacy organizations—had not clearly established irreparable harm based on increased costs to find alternative data and tools. The court said the plaintiffs’ delay in seeking injunctive relief “bolstered” this conclusion, noting that the plaintiffs filed the lawsuit more than two months after most of the tools were removed and moved for a preliminary injunction over one month after filing the lawsuit. The deleted tools at issue in the case are EPA’s EJScreen, the Council on Environmental Quality’s Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool, the Department of Transportation’s Equitable Transportation Community Explorer, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Future Risk Index.

Challenge to five federal agencies’ removal of publicly accessible webpages that provided information about environmental justice and climate change.

Sierra Club v. EPA

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Federal Court Denied Request for Preliminary Injunction Requiring Agencies to Restore Environmental and Climate Information and Tools to Websites

Filed

United States of America

District of Columbia

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An aim to achieve a quantifiable outcome within a given time-frame, set by an institution such as a national government.

Policy instruments are techniques or tools used by governing authorities to promote certain policies in order to achieve predetermined goals. Put simply, instruments are how a government tries to achieve its goals, with this taxonomy being focused on national policy instruments.

Risk is the potential for adverse consequences resulting from the dynamic interplay between (climate-related) hazards, exposure, and vulnerability of affected human or ecological systems.

Groups  of people who are adversely affected by climate change or the response to it

A set of principles, processes, and practices that build economic and political power to shift from an extractive economy to a regenerative economy.

Justice is the ethical and political framework that addresses fairness, including issues of responsibility, rights, and structural inequity.

Renewable energy means all forms of energy produced from renewable sources in a sustainable manner.

Fossil fuel is a generic term for non-renewable energy sources such as coal, fossil gas, and oil (including crude oil, and petroleum products), that can be used for electricity and heat generation. Fossil fuels are hydrocarbons formed from pressurised and heated organic material buried over millions of years.

Molecules in the atmosphere that play a key role in the greenhouse effect by trapping heat radiating from Earth’s surface.

Area of the economy in which actors engage in identical or related activities.

In human systems, the process of adjustment to actual or expected climate change and its effects, in order to moderate harm, increase resilience or exploit beneficial opportunities. In natural systems, the process of adjustment to actual climate change and its effects; human intervention may facilitate adjustment to expected climate change and its effects.

The management and allocation of funds, assets and investments to meet various objectives

People who are less able to respond to the effects of climate change due to having limited financial or physical assets

Hot temperature extremes are daily maximum temperatures  that were exceeded on average once in a decade or once in 50 years, and includes heatwaves.

Extreme weather refers to events where a weather variable exceeds (or falls below) a threshold. Meaning it is significantly different from the average or usual weather pattern.

A drought is an extended period of unusually dry weather marked by a significant and sustained lack of precipitation, falling below a specific threshold over a large area for more than a month

Terrestrial means "of the earth" and relates to the risks to ecological system that includes all living organisms and their interactions within land-based environments, such as forests, grasslands, and deserts.

Oil is a combustible liquid fossil fuel composed mainly of hydrocarbons, occurring as crude oil and refined into petroleum products such as petrol, diesel and kerosene.

Fossil gas, commonly known as natural gas, is a fossil fuel consisting chiefly of methane with smaller amounts of other hydrocarbons and trace gases, found in underground deposits.

woman and genders outside of the gender binary

This sector involves activities to move goods and people, alongside the storage of products.

Activities that provide lodging, food, and entertainment services to guests, including hotels, restaurants, and resorts.

Activities that involve the cultivation of crops and raising of livestock for food, fibre, and other products essential for human life and industry.

Federal Court Denied Request for Preliminary Injunction Requiring Agencies to Restore Environmental and Climate Information and Tools to Websites

Risk

Impacted group

Fossil fuel

Economic sector