A Year of Oversight & Accountability: Sierra Club FOIAs Have Uncovered Oil & Gas Handouts, Canceled Grants, Opposition to Whitewashing of History, & More - CleanTechnica

The Sierra Club’s Environmental Law Program has spent the first year of Donald Trump’s second term aggressively using Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to expose the Trump Administration’s close ties to the fossil fuel industry and its impact on environmental policy. Their efforts revealed that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) granted numerous exemptions to coal, steel, and chemical industries from Clean Air Act pollution controls. Additionally, the Department of the Interior cut thousands of critical jobs, including park rangers and science technicians, while also attempting to rewrite American history in national parks. The EPA also canceled grants aimed at helping lower-income communities cope with climate and environmental risks. In response to the administration’s frequent failure to comply with FOIA requests, the Sierra Club filed multiple lawsuits against various agencies, including the Department of the Interior, the Office of Management and Budget, and others, seeking records on funding freezes, external communications, and political appointees’ activities. These legal actions have resulted in the release of hundreds of emails,