White House Deletes Thousands of Energy Conservation Pages Amid Heatwave

The US Department of Energy (DOE) has deleted approximately 6,000 web pages related to energy conservation as a historic heatwave grips the country. The deletions came suspiciously soon after New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani asked residents to set their air conditioners to 78 degrees Fahrenheit to reduce strain on the electrical grid. Republicans, including Ted Cruz, Nikki Haley, and Representative Nancy Mace, condemned the request as socialism and an act of war on menopausal women, even though the same advice has been official DOE policy and was previously echoed by Republican governors like Greg Abbott of Texas.

The Trump administration's purge is broad and indiscriminate. It removed not only pages that support Mamdani's thermostat recommendation but also content on water conservation, insulation types, and the solar decathlon challenge. The Internet Archive has preserved the lost pages.

New York City experienced four consecutive days of temperatures above 95 degrees, including two days over 100 degrees. Such heat puts significant pressure on the electrical grid, especially during holiday weekends when more people are at home. Setting thermostats to 78 degrees can help prevent blackouts that would leave residents without air conditioning and vulnerable to heat-related illnesses. According to CDC and NOAA data, extreme heat is responsible for more deaths in the US on average than floods, tornadoes, and hurricanes combined.