The Department of Energy has removed more than 1,600 pages from its Energy Saver section, eliminating practical advice on reducing household energy use. The changes occurred by July 3 amid a heat wave affecting parts of the country.
Resources that guided users on detecting air leaks, improving insulation, and replacing inefficient lightbulbs now lead to page-not-found errors. The site previously directed visitors to professional energy assessments for lowering utility costs and emissions.
The removals followed a July 2 announcement from the department proposing rules that would complicate future energy efficiency standards for appliances. Officials described the effort as ending certain mandates.
Izzy Pacenza of the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative noted the scale of the changes, stating that an entire domain had effectively disappeared. Andrew deLaski of the Appliance Standards Awareness Project confirmed that information on the Appliance and Equipment Standards Program itself remains available.
The department has not commented on the specific reasons for the deletions. Similar patterns of content removal have occurred with other federal climate-related sites in prior years.
