On February 11, PAA and APC joined more than 230 national, state, and local organizations and 2,600 individuals representing data users from the private, public, non-profit, and scientific sectors nationwide to urge Congress to order the restoration of taxpayer financed data removed from federal agency websites.
In a letter to Congress, three organizations, Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics, American Statistical Association, and Population Association of America, organized the letter in response to recent incidents that began on January 27, 2025, in which public data began disappearing, without notice, from federal websites including the U.S. Census Bureau, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Justice Programs, Office of Scientific and Technical Information and many other agencies. While some federal data have since been restored, it is not clear why the data were removed in the first place or how these haphazard changes in data release are consistent with longstanding policies of the Office of Management and Budget that govern statistical releases.