WASHINGTON — Newly released emails show Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt personally monitored efforts last year to remove much of the information about climate change from the agency’s website, especially President Barack Obama’s signature effort to reduce planet-warming carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants.

The internal EPA messages from April 2017 were released this week following a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the advocacy group Environmental Defense Fund. They show then-newly arrived political appointees in the agency’s press office directing career staffers to make a list of changes to epa.gov. The emails show Pruitt wanted the updates to appear as soon as possible and had specific changes he wanted made.

John Konkus, a former Republican campaign operative hired as EPA’s deputy associate administrator for Public Affairs, emailed staffers on the evening of Saturday, April 1.

“We need to start building an updated page for the clean power plan ASAP with the goal of having it go live sometime on Monday,” Konkus wrote. “Is there any way we can get a little time put in on this project over the weekend so that we’re off on the right foot on Monday morning?”

Four days before the email, President Trump signed an executive order on energy independence that included a directive to start the process of rescinding the Clean Power Plan and other environmental regulations that “potentially burden” the domestic production of fossil fuels.

Konkus’ message triggered a flurry of emails over the following days about extensive changes to the agency’s web pages, including some edits ordered directly by Pruitt. Among the changes were stripping away data about climate change and modifying search results for “Clean Power Plan” to show a page touting Trump’s executive order featuring a photo of the president posing with smiling coal miners, Pruitt and other members of his cabinet.

EPA began its formal repeal of the Clean Power Plan in October. Trump also announced last summer he intends to withdraw from the Paris climate accord signed by Obama in 2015, potentially making the United States the only nation in the world that is no longer committed to reducing carbon emissions under the landmark international agreement.

The changes made to epa.gov last year sparked widespread concern from scientists, environmentalists and others worried a key public repository of information and data about climate change was being lost. A coalition of scientific and academic groups rushed to make copies of the government webpages before they disappeared.

Michael Biesecker is an Associated Press writer.