Protecting the future of government information and the people’s right to know is a national issue, and two non-profit organizations developed web sites to track the removal of government information. The Sunlight Foundation established the Web Integrity Project (https://sunlightfoundation.com/web-integrity-project/monitoring-federal-websites/#efforts) and a new site, EDGI (Environmental Data & Governance Initiative: https://envirodatagov.org/website-monitoring/), was created after the EPA redesigned its website related to the Clean Water Act. EDGI’s goal is to hold accountable government and corporations as well as to foster civic engagement through collecting, documenting, and analyzing research related to science from government sites. Since the current administration is determined to question the basis of data on these scientific sites, the president through the use of presidential executive orders has removed vast amounts of data and an untold number of reports from agency websites. Unlike in previous administrations, this move was anticipated and much of the government data and reports were saved and archived.
This non-profit work is coupled with projects by librarians to save materials from administration to administration, and the arrival of H.R. 5305, The FDLP Modernization Act of 2018, revises the Federal Depository Act of 1962 and brings this program into the twenty-first century. This legislation will allow the GPO not only to continue to publish but to build and preserve a national collection of government information, something the GPO has not been authorized to do before. If passed, the GPO will move from printer, to publisher, to library and archive with the FDLP right alongside. Not bad for 158 years of Keeping America Informed.