The EPA Is Quietly Killing Its Web Archive

(motherjones.com)

201 points by robtherobber4 hours ago

13 comments

mike_bob2 hours ago
Take note Republicans (which I'm doubting many even care anymore), your party thinks short term profits for a few are more important than science and the environment for all.
- brightball2 hours ago
 EPA planned to do the same thing in 2022...<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20220124192618/https://archive.epa.gov/" rel="nofollow">https://web.archive.org/web/20220124192618/https://archive.e...</a>
 - nomel1 hour ago
 Relevant text from TFA:> This isn’t the first time the environmental agency has tried to shutter the online web archive. In late January 2022, the Biden administration EPA announced plans to discontinue the online repository, citing burdensome financial upkeep; through a Freedom of Information Act request, Gehrke was able to determine that the agency spent roughly $2 million a year to maintain it. A coalition of environmentalists, historians, and librarians swiftly condemned the decision, with groups like the EDGI and American Society for Environmental History calling the announcement “alarming” and cause for a “tremendous gap” in the historical record.> After five months of public backlash, the EPA acquiesced, in part by announcing it would delay the web archive’s retirement by one year to July 2023.
 - Grombobulous1 hour ago
 $2 million a year is wildly insignificant for the federal government.Less than one cent per year per person in federal taxes.
 - parineum49 minutes ago
 The epa doesn't have access to the federal budget
 Grombobulous12 minutes ago
 That’s not really the point, the point is that $2 million isn’t a lot of money for a service that is for the benefit of over 300 million people.
 - Ntrails53 minutes ago
 And yet the number of projects with similarly insignificant costs is large, and they do add up.The argument cannot be "this money doesn't matter", it has to be "this represents good value for money" (imo)
 Grombobulous11 minutes ago
 They literally don’t add up. Just look at a pie chart of the US government budget. The administrative state is a bargain.Departments like the EPA are so small that they have to be put in the “other” umbrella that makes up 1% of federal spending (go to the Agency tab):<a href="https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/" rel="nofollow">https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder...</a>
 - pfisch56 minutes ago
 Ok, but I could replicate this process and archive for under $20,000k per year(probably way under) and set it up in less than 1 day with claude...
 Grombobulous6 minutes ago
 I’ll come back in 3 days and you can share the link with your web archive. I’ll Venmo you $20 for your Claude pro subscription.
 fooqux36 minutes ago
 You've obviously never worked in government before. The technology is likely not the issue; the bureaucracy is.
- kfkickdcimdvisi2 hours ago
 [flagged]
 - SetTheorist2 hours ago
 Only one party is systematically attacking research and destroying irreplaceable archives.
 - Kodiack2 hours ago
 Why yes, 10-minute-old account with random letters for a name and one single comment, both sides are absolutely the same and people just shouldn’t feel encouraged to vote am I right?You’re not even remotely subtle smh
 - 9dev2 hours ago
 Don’t make this a Both-sides thing please. There’s a clear difference between those who are working hard to void any environmental protection we have, and those who oppose that.
baggachipz3 hours ago
Wouldn't want any of that pesky true climate-change-proving data available, now would we?
- amelius3 hours ago
  We have alternative facts now.
dannyobrien3 hours ago
I'm presuming this is all preserved in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_of_Term_Web_Archive" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_of_Term_Web_Archive</a> (though making that more easily available would be great -- another project for <a href="https://wayback-labs.sf.archive.org/" rel="nofollow">https://wayback-labs.sf.archive.org/</a> )
arjie2 hours ago
Has anyone scraped this already for offline use?
- gs171 hour ago
  I think Archive Team might have scraped it, but their site is down due to PHP-related reasons at the moment.
  - arjie1 hour ago
    Thank you. I'm going to scrape for now but I hope there's a bulk download available somewhere eventually.
- MadrasThorn2 hours ago
  [flagged]
toomuchtodo4 hours ago
<a href="https://web.archive.org/*/https://archive.epa.gov/" rel="nofollow">https://web.archive.org/*/https://archive.epa.gov/</a>Related:The EPA plans to sunset its online archive - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30795719">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30795719</a> - March 2022
- icantevenhold3 hours ago
 A “proper” mirror alongside archive.org would be good too
amclennon2 hours ago
I hate to say this because it's so overused, but this move is certainly veering into 1984 territory
rtuin2 hours ago
Wiping and rewriting history is straight from 1984 (novel). It's insane US let this happen.
dyauspitr3 hours ago
Everything bad is good for this administration.
Madmallard3 hours ago
Why are companies allowed to remove themselves from the web archive?They shouldn't be.
- jacquesm2 hours ago
 They're not. Someone on HN said that they just mark it as unavailable but they still keep it, I don't know what the expiry is on that though, or if they could be forced to actually delete something 'for real'. Nor do I know how you'd verify that beyond doubt.
vfclists2 hours ago
Where are r/archiveteam when you need them?
pstuart2 hours ago
If they weren't afraid of the data being public they wouldn't be removing it.The only saving grace of this administration is that their incompetence helps to slow down their evilness.
LW20263 hours ago
[flagged]
icantevenhold3 hours ago
The adverb “quietly” has become such an AI smell to me, even if it’s probably not one in this instance.
- paimapi3 hours ago
 Pangram v4 shows 100% human written: <a href="https://www.pangram.com/history/aa7e5cb1-0070-4bcc-8694-6180c2f187b3" rel="nofollow">https://www.pangram.com/history/aa7e5cb1-0070-4bcc-8694-6180...</a>Don't let AI tells ruin professional writing for you.
- Kapura3 hours ago
 well, they certainly aren't advertising it, are they?
- jimmiles3 hours ago
 I hate the click-bait smell of "quietly". For me it's in the same category as "eviscerated." The hyperbole factory rolls ever onward...
- mahboi1 hour ago
 Well, they didn't call the archive load-bearing