The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has instructed its employees to remove climate change-related content from agency websites, according to an internal email obtained by POLITICO. This directive, issued by USDA's Office of Communications, requires website managers to identify, archive, or unpublish landing pages focused on climate change and document all climate change-related web content for review.

The order could affect information across numerous USDA programs, including:

• Climate-smart agriculture initiatives
• USDA climate hubs
• Forest Service information on wildfires

ABC News reports that content is being categorized into three levels of urgency. Pages dedicated entirely to climate change are marked as "Tier 1," while those where a significant portion of the content relates to climate change are labeled "Tier 2." Pages where climate change is mentioned in passing but is not the main focus should be identified under "Tier 3."

The instruction comes at a critical time when:

• Funds for clean energy and agriculture programs are under review by the Office of Management and Budget.
• The administration is pushing to halt and reverse spending from the Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
• California is recovering from devastating wildfires, which scientists link to climate change.

According to Agri-Pulse, USDA kept its climate-related information online during the first Trump administration from 2017-2021. However, as of the directive's issuance, some climate-related pages remained active, such as USDA Climate Hubs, while others, like the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities page, appeared to have been removed.