Over 1,600 energy department webpages on utility bill savings removed as US temperatures soar

As millions of Americans prepare for another brutal heatwave, it’s now harder to find information about ways to stay cool while saving energy and keeping utility costs down.

At least 1,662 department of energy webpages offering guidance on protecting the electrical grid during heatwaves have gone dark as of 3 July, according to a Guardian analysis of a list of deleted URLs provided by researchers at the Internet Archive, a non-profit that hosts a repository of more than a trillion archived webpages.

These removals are just the latest example of a broader pattern: information that conflicts with the administration’s priorities – from data on queer and trans youth to online resources from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau – is being removed from federal websites and surveys.

The energy department deletions coincide with the Trump administration’s latest push to undermine federal climate regulations. At least 18 webpages were removed within days of the proposed rollback to energy efficiency regulations for home appliances like air conditioners and heaters.

If enacted, the proposed rollback would effectively undo decades of policies that have been proven to lower household utility bills and make it much harder for the energy department to update efficiency standards for new appliances under future administrations, advocates say.

“Having a functioning air conditioner is a health and safety issue for the elderly, for folks with health conditions, and for the very young,” said Andrew deLaski, executive director at the Appliance Standards Awareness Project, a coalition of environmental, consumer and utility industry groups that advocate for cost-effective efficiency standards.

“Ensuring that the standards are up to date helps to keep their energy consumption under control so that people can afford to operate these products,” deLaski said.

It’s unclear the exact day the webpages were deleted, but several news outlets have noted that the deletions seemed to come shortly after New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani, suggested New Yorkers set their air conditioners to 78 degrees to reduce strain on the city’s electrical grid.

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The Department of Energy did not respond to the Guardian’s questions about when and why the webpages were deleted and if they were related to the proposed rule to “Permanently End Green New Scam Appliance Mandates”.

For Itai Vardi, research manager at the Energy and Policy Institute, a non-profit fossil fuel and utility watchdog, the proposed rule and website deletions are “just absurd”.

“It’s ironic that the Trump administration and Republicans love to talk about consumer choice as a tenet of American freedom, but they’re actually taking that away,” Vardi said. “What they’re doing here is rolling back the rules on energy efficiency, but also trying to hide helpful tips and information for the public, and it’s going to cost people more money.”

The deleted webpages were filed under the department’s “energy saver” section and included a wide range of advice for energy and cost-saving measures, from ways to keep your home cool during the summer when energy bills and usage can spike to tips on how to “weatherstrip”, or seal air leaks, around the home.

More than 300 of the webpages had more than 160,000 pageviews in the last 30 days, according to a Guardian analysis of government web traffic data from the US General Services Administration.

A broader deregulatory campaign

Since the 1970s, the Department of Energy’s appliance and equipment standards program has required manufacturers to update appliances every few years to keep their products in line with the latest technological advances.

The program has been “a real success story”, said deLaski from the Appliance Standards Awareness Project. “The strain on our [electrical] grid is a lot lower than it would be, and people’s utility bills are a lot lower than they would be.”

An analysis from deLaski’s coalition found the next round of efficiency standard updates are estimated to save each household an average of $160 annually on utility bills and could significantly ease peak summer electricity demand, reducing pressure on an electrical grid already strained from AI datacenters and more frequent heatwaves.

This is not the first time the Trump administration has attempted to weaken energy efficiency standards. Last May, the energy department tried to repeal 47 regulations consisting mostly of energy efficiency standards for appliances. The administration also tried to end the popular Energy Star program, which certifies energy efficient appliances, but the effort was blocked by both congressional Democrats and Republicans earlier this year.

Critics say the webpage removals are one way the Trump administration is making the case for a broader campaign, outlined in Project 2025, to push through a slew of measures deregulating the fossil fuel industry and gutting the federal bureaucracy.

“It’s a senseless dedication to an anti-regulatory agenda driven by what I would say are anti-regulatory zealots,” deLaski said.

The Guardian’s Deleted data series explores how critical US government information is being deleted and what the consequences will be, and will preserve or recreate lost datasets. If you know about any datasets, webpages or government materials that have been deleted or altered in the past year, or are willing to share how those changes affect you, we’d love to hear from you. Please reach out at deleted-data@theguardian.com.

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