After facing a lawsuit over the removal of all content related to climate change from its websites, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has announced it will restore the once-deleted material.

In January, following President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the USDA instructed staff to immediately identify, archive or unpublish any landing pages focused on climate change.

Within hours, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University reports that "the agency purged its websites of pages relating to climate-smart agriculture, forest conservation, climate change adaptation, and investment in clean energy projects."

The lawsuit against the motion was filed on behalf of the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Environmental Working Group in February.

The suit sought to stop the Department of Agriculture from removing climate-related policies, guides, datasets, and resources from its websites, violating the Paperwork Reduction Act, the Administrative Procedure Act, and FOIA’s affirmative-disclosure provision.

In a letter announcing the reinstatement of the webpages, the USDA said the process to restore all removed content is already underway and that the agency expects to complete the restoration process in approximately two weeks.