The Public Environmental Data Partners (PEDP) is a member coalition of several environmental, justice and policy organizations, researchers, and archivists who rely on federal datasets and tools to support critical research, advocacy, policy, and litigation. OEDP staff members lead or co-lead the Advocacy, Fundraising, Governance, and Systems Administration working groups. PEDP has three key pillars of work.
Data and Tool Preservation: There is a continuing urgent need to archive what is still available and at risk. We have obtained significant cloud storage space, and are building out a public-facing project hub and data explorer. This work will likely continue throughout the current presidential term, or until all known at-risk data sources have been preserved. We will also maintain functioning copies of CEJST, EJScreen, and other tools in their current form for the diverse constituents who are required to use them. This involves recreating their data pipelines, aggregating data from state and federal agencies, and possibly becoming primary data collectors as well. These roles will be increasingly important as the integrity of persisting federal data sources, such as the Census, are undermined.
Building Better Tools: Our environmental data systems must become more interoperable, accessible, and justice-centered. We will fill the gap left by the federal government’s retreat, creating powerful, community-driven tools that enable people—inside and outside of government—to advance clean air, water, and climate protections. While our current efforts have focused on protecting federal environmental data, truly resilient infrastructure must also create opportunities to integrate and elevate state, local, community and NGO datasets. We will build tools and platforms that demonstrate how this can be done—helping agencies and civil society strengthen environmental data systems, making them less fragile, more transparent, and better equipped to support decision-making over time. We will connect people to information about their communities and to each other, building de facto mutual aid networks and support systems for responding to potential disasters and other threats.
Strengthening Data Governance, Advocacy & Public Engagement: This crisis is an opportunity to make the US environmental information system less fragile, and more resilient and responsive than it has been in the past. No one can replace the federal government, and all Americans need to fight to restore its role. But weaknesses in citizen engagement, a single-point-of-failure data infrastructure, and a lack of modern, interoperable APIs, all magnify the destructive impact of this government’s sudden policy reversal. We will advocate for durable, transparent governance that keeps data accessible, protected, and resistant to interference, while lifting up effective models to improve policy coordination and funding for environmental protections, and interoperable so that information is not siloed or duplicated across similar systems.
