All Guides: Data Guide: Disappearing Data: Disappearing Government Data

What's Happening

Recent executive orders and federal agency actions have raised questions about the future of publicly available government data, what can and can’t be published, and how the future of government-funded research will play out.

So far, this has impacted some federal health data, USDA climate change information, Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) libraries, and more.

The extent of these changes is unclear, as are the future impacts of these moves. This guide has resources for finding data that's been removed from federal sites.

Archiving Projects & Organizations

These projects were initiated in response to the federal administration's recent moves. Data librarians, archivists, scientists, and others have moved to protect data sets and preserve access for the public. These are some of those projects.

Data Rescue Project
The Data Rescue Project is a coordinated effort among a group of data organizations, including IASSIST, RDAP, and members of the Data Curation Network.
End of Term Archive
The Internet Archive’s End of Term crawl and the Wayback Machine preserve government websites between terms. They’ve done so for the transitions in 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2020.
Public Environmental Data Project
This volunteer coalition from across organizations has already protected access to the CDC’s Social Vulnerability Index and Environmental Justice Index, the Council on Environmental Quality EJScorecard, the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool, and more, with other database replicas to come.

Staying Informed

2025 Administration Transition Information & Resources
Council on Governmental Relations (COGR) information on lawsuits, resources, and news.
Data Rescue Tracker
A collaborative tool built to catalog existing public data rescue efforts, provides a consolidated overview of who is downloading which dataset from which government websites.
GovTrack
Tracks the activities of the United States Congress. Publishes the status of federal legislation and voting records, information and statistics about representative and senators in Congress, and news and commentary about Congress.
Silencing Science Tracker
Tracks government attempts to restrict or prohibit scientific research, education or discussion, or the publication or use of scientific information, since the November 2016 election. Joint effort from the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law and the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund.
Climate Deregulation Tracker
Identifies steps taken by the Trump administration and Congress to scale back or wholly eliminate federal climate mitigation and adaptation measures.
STAT's overview of changes to CDC data
In addition to downloading and archiving all available files from data.cdc.gov, STAT has been monitoring and analyzing the changes in real time and communicating them in this STAT News article.

Finding Government Information during the 2025 Administration Transition
University of Minnesota - Resources that identify and track steps taken by the Trump administration and Congress to scale back or eliminate access to federal government information. Links to groups performing data and website rescue.
U.S. Government Information: Weekly Roundup
University of California San Diego - Guide to information resources by and about the federal government updated weekly.
Trump Trackers
University of California San Diego - List of tools that may be helpful in keeping track of the many changes being made by the Trump administration.
Archived Federal Data
University of Notre Dam - page created in response to recent and ongoing removal of federal datasets, websites, and other digital resources, updated as new archives and repositories surface.
GovSpeak Errors
University of California San Diego - tracks substantive changes to entries on the GovSpeak guide.

Macalester Open SEAS: Preserving Public Access to Government Datasets
Macalester College Library continues to support open, accessible information. In light of recent executive orders and federal agency actions, we're looking at how we can protect and support public access to high-quality, reliable datasets.
‘We’re losing our environmental history’: The future of government information under Trump
Jessica McKenzie, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Mar. 5, 2025
The Data Hoarders Resisting Trump’s Purge
Julian Lucas, The New Yorker, Mar. 14, 2025
Elon Musk’s Team Decimates Education Department Arm That Tracks National School Performance
Jodi S. Cohen and Jennifer Smith Richards, ProPublica, Feb. 11, 2025
Layoffs gut research agency that helped monitor US education: Assessment and evaluation capabilities vanish at Institute of Education Sciences
Jeffrey Mervis, Science, March 13, 2025
The public lost access to Census Bureau data for days after a Trump order
Hansi Lo Wang, NPR, February 12, 2025
These Words Are Disappearing in the New Trump Administration
Karen Yourish, Annie Daniel, Saurabh Datar, Isaac White and Lazaro Gamio, New York Times, March 7, 2025
Archivists Work to Identify and Save the Thousands of Datasets Disappearing From Data.gov
Jason Koebler, Jan. 30, 2025, 404 Media
‘Breathtakingly Irresponsible’: Former Workers Decry Decimation of Education Dept.’s Data Warehouse
Katherine Mangan, The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 24, 2025

Federal data is disappearing. Meet the teams working to rescue it and learn how you can help.
On February 13th, MuckRock hosted an event with organizations that are helping lead the efforts to preserve the public’s data.

Presenting were Mark Graham of the Internet Archive; Sarah Cohen of Big Local News; Jack Cushman of the Harvard Law School Library Innovation Lab; and Lynda Kellam, PhD, Secretary of IASSIST, a member organization of the Data Rescue Project.