White House – About 6,000 web pages tied to energy conservation were deleted by the Trump administration during a historic heatwave, drawing outrage from Republicans who had criticized a New York City mayor’s thermostat request. The pages also included topics beyond cooling
For four straight days, New York City baked under temperatures that topped 95 degrees—two of them above 100. In that kind of heat, the math gets simple fast: more people at home, more air conditioning running, and a grid that feels the pressure.
That’s the backdrop for a separate fight unfolding online. About 6,000 web pages related to energy conservation were deleted by the Trump administration, according to the report. The timing didn’t go unnoticed. The deletions came right after Republican outrage over New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani asking residents to help reduce strain on the electrical grid by setting their AC to 78 degrees.
Republicans led the backlash. quickly framing the thermostat request as socialism and an “act of war on women in menopause. ” a line shaped by the Republican Party’s long-running focus on women’s health. The criticism also named figures who jumped into the moment: Ted Cruz. Nikki Haley. and Representative Nancy Mace from South Carolina. The dispute didn’t stay abstract—Cruz’s personal history with fleeing severe weather in his home state was part of the attack.
The policy being challenged wasn’t unusual. The official stance of the Department of Energy was that Americans should set their thermostats between 75 and 78 degrees. Republican governors in deep red states have issued similar advice before, including current Texas governor Greg Abbott.
But what happened online went beyond one thermostat argument. The deletions were described as broad and indiscriminate. Pages that would support Mamdani’s request to lower thermostats were removed. So were pages on water conservation, types of insulation, and the Department of Energy’s solar decathlon challenge. Some of the deleted pages did not disappear entirely: the Internet Archive preserved the pages that have been lost.
The heat didn’t wait for the politics. Temperatures above 95 degrees for multiple days put “significant strain on the electrical grid. ” especially when more people are home during a holiday weekend. Setting thermostats to 78 degrees was presented as a practical step to help prevent blackouts—blackouts that would leave people without air conditioning and more exposed to the heat.
There is a grim reason the guidance is treated as more than comfort. On average, extreme heat is responsible for more deaths in the US than floods, tornadoes, and hurricanes combined, according to data from the CDC and NOAA.
Taken together. the sequence is hard to ignore: a heatwave demanding conservation. a thermostat request at the center of partisan outrage. and then thousands of conservation-related pages removed in a sweeping fashion—leaving behind gaps that were later preserved by the Internet Archive. Even as the temperatures stayed punishing through the holiday stretch. the fight over what Americans should be told to do played out on the web.
White House Trump administration Department of Energy energy conservation heatwave New York City Zohran Mamdani AC 78 degrees Ted Cruz Nikki Haley Nancy Mace Greg Abbott electrical grid blackouts Internet Archive water conservation insulation solar decathlon CDC NOAA