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Government Politics Science

The EPA Won't Be Shutting Down Its Open Data Website After All (mashable.com) 43

An anonymous reader shares an article: Scientists and data experts are closely tracking the websites of federal agencies, noting changes to pages dealing with climate change and energy since President Donald Trump took office. On Monday, they noticed an alarming message posted to the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) open data website, indicating it would shut down on Friday, April 28. [...] By Monday afternoon, visitors to Open Data received a different pop-up notification, which clarifies that data on the site will still be available come Friday.
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The EPA Won't Be Shutting Down Its Open Data Website After All

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  • by R3d M3rcury ( 871886 ) on Monday April 24, 2017 @02:30PM (#54293553) Journal

    By Monday afternoon, visitors to Open Data received a different pop-up notification, which clarifies that data on the site will still be available come Friday.

    On Saturday, though, you're SOL...

  • Total Non-Story (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 24, 2017 @02:34PM (#54293585)

    The linked article says that EPA employees, in anticipation of a government shutdown, put that notice up on their own volition. Trump had nothing to do with it. Sorry, but there's ample history to show that not every screw-up in DC is caused by Donald Trump.

  • by mveloso ( 325617 )

    Wait, the sky didn't fall? Well, just wait until next week! I'm positive the sky will fall then! Or the next week! Or the next!

    • by hey! ( 33014 )

      They don't have enough positions filled to make the sky fall, which is why they're confused about things like which direction their carrier battle groups are going. It's all quite a bit more complicated than I believe they anticipated.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 24, 2017 @02:37PM (#54293613)

    The Trump administration doesn't lead. It simply blunders forward blindly attempting to fulfill the wishes of every well connected hack and fraud that manages to get the ear of the administration.

    Only when they accidentally step on an issue that garners enough public outcry do they react. This is bad policy for obvious reasons, because some of the worst things this administration will do will not be noticed until it's too late.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      >and fraud that pays the administration.

        FTFY

  • No doubt climate skeptics are facepalming everywhere to hear the climate alarmists suddenly very concerned about public accessibility for data that affects public policy. This comes of course after arguing for years that the likes of Michael Mann and Phil Jones didn't need to release the data and algorithms behind their papers, but should drive public policy anyway, because science!
  • by WillAffleckUW ( 858324 ) on Monday April 24, 2017 @02:54PM (#54293703) Homepage Journal

    Download, backup in a free country, then verify on Saturday.

  • Firemen first (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SlaveToTheGrind ( 546262 ) on Monday April 24, 2017 @06:12PM (#54295105)

    From TFA:

    Friday is the day the current federal stopgap funding bill expires. The EPA apparently worried that Congress wouldn't pass a new continuing resolution to fund the government, and preemptively planned to end the Open Data service, according to the contractor managing the site, 3 Round Stones in Arlington, Virginia.

    This sort of infantile behavior is the stock play we see over and over again from governmental agencies that are in danger of not getting as much money as they would prefer.

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      From TFA:

      Friday is the day the current federal stopgap funding bill expires. The EPA apparently worried that Congress wouldn't pass a new continuing resolution to fund the government, and preemptively planned to end the Open Data service, according to the contractor managing the site, 3 Round Stones in Arlington, Virginia.

      This sort of infantile behavior is the stock play we see over and over again from governmental agencies that are in danger of not getting as much money as they would prefer.

      In response to the infantile behaviour of the Republicans who shut down government in 2013 because they didn't et what they wanted, with nobody getting any money. The same Republicans who still can't get what they really, really want: to repeal Obamacare. Preparing for the hissy fits of childish Republicans is not childish.

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