This article was originally published by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
The second Trump administration is taking its hostility to climate science to new levels. In addition to its rhetoric dismissing climate change as a con or scam, recently released government documents show how the administration is seeking to replace scientific facts with propaganda and disinformation.
The Environmental Defense Fund and the Union of Concerned Scientists recently won a court case against the administration which forced it to release of a trove of government documents related to a secretive “Climate Working Group” illegally convened by Energy Secretary Chris Wright. These documents show that the Trump administration secretly enlisted a handpicked group of climate contrarians to write a biased climate report specifically designed to undermine the EPA’s Endangerment Finding. This science-based finding establishes the known harms to human health and well-being from global warming pollution, facts that were clear in 2009 and even more so today, as affirmed by a recent National Academies report.
The EPA finalized the rule overturning the Endangerment Finding last month. Although the EPA claimed not to rely on the enormously flawed Climate Working Group report, key aspects of the final action continue to reflect a serious and unlawful disregard of foundational science. The recently released documents also reveal that the administration discussed enlisting those same climate contrarians to produce the next National Climate Assessment.
These actions are not just attacks on science; they also put people across the nation in danger. As the deadly and costly impacts of climate change worsen, we need policymakers to rely on the best available science to help inform policies to limit climate change and protect communities. The Trump administration is instead intent on boosting fossil fuels and trying to corrupt scientific evidence to justify their actions.
Last August, the Environmental Defense Fund and the Union of Concerned Scientists filed a case against the Trump administration for violating the Federal Advisory Committee Act by forming the Climate Working Group in secret and keeping its work hidden from the public.
The Act was passed in 1972, in the wake of inappropriate industry influence on government, and has a clear and important goal: When presidents or federal agencies rely on external experts to provide policy recommendations, they must do so in an open and transparent manner to protect against undue influence that is not in the public interest. The law’s provisions include ensuring that federal advisory committees have balanced membership in terms of viewpoints, that they establish a formal charter for their work, that all their meetings are open to the public, and that any materials related to their work be made publicly available.
The Climate Working Group violated this law in several ways: It was formed in secret and was neither open nor transparent. And the members of the group—John Christy, Judith Curry, Steven Koonin, Ross McKitrick, and Roy Spencer—are all known climate contrarians with fringe views on climate science, so it was hardly a balanced committee.
On January 30, Judge William G. Young of the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts issued a ruling that found the Trump administration had indeed violated the law. The Trump administration did not even contest that it violated the law (although it did disband the working group after the lawsuit was filed and tried unsuccessfully to claim the lawsuit was moot). The court’s judgment states that the “violations are now established as a matter of law” with regard to the Energy Department, Secretary Wright, and the Climate Working Group pursuant to the Federal Advisory Committee Act.
The judge also ordered the government to release all its documents related to the formation of the Climate Working Group and its work. The Environmental Defense Fund and the Union of Concerned Scientists have now released all 100,000+ documents in full to the public. Unfortunately, the debunked and illegally drafted Climate Working Group report remains available on government websites which risks its continued use to inform policymaking, a grave disservice to the public interest.
One major new revelation in the documents is the Trump administration’s explicit effort to subvert the process of drafting a credible, transparent, scientifically-sound National Climate Assessment. Emails show that the members of the Climate Working Group were being drafted into a process to critique the Fifth National Climate Assessment and come up with a proposal to “reform” the NCA process. Throughout these documents, it is clear that the intent is to weaken and misrepresent the latest science, and interfere with trusted, credible scientific processes, in an attempt to erode the factual basis for taking action to address climate change.
The National Climate Assessment, overseen by the US Global Change Research Program, is a Congressionally mandated climate science report that has been regularly produced across multiple US administrations since 2000. It is a requirement set in law by the 1990 Global Change Research Act, which established the interagency US Global Change Research Program and calls for a periodic report that “analyzes the effects of global change on the natural environment, agriculture, energy production and use, land and water resources, transportation, human health and welfare, human social systems, and biological diversity.” It is not a policy-prescriptive document. The information in these assessments is crucial for state and local governments, communities, and private sector decisionmakers, among others, who must contend with climate risks and rely on this science to make decisions.
The most recent report, NCA5, was released in 2023. It was prepared by hundreds of scientific experts, relying on thousands of research articles, and underwent a rigorous, multi-step peer review process. It was reviewed by multiple federal agency scientists and the National Academies, as well as opened for public comment, in line with the process for previous assessments. Yet, in these recently released documents, government officials and Climate Working Group members make baseless, cherry-picked attacks against it and seek to overemphasize uncertainties as a means to deny the realities of climate change and its impact on people and the economy.
Last April, the Trump administration disbanded the author team for the Sixth National Climate Assessment and fired the Global Change Research Program staff. It also took down the program’s website, along with all the previous NCAs. It has yet to announce how it intends to comply with the law, but in these government records we see ominous signs of yet another effort to rig the science. In one email exchange last May, Travis Fisher, a Department of Energy political appointee who acted as a liaison between the administration and the Climate Working Group members, writes: “Finally, start thinking about whether you want to be involved in the next NCA. If I had to bet on it, I’d say each of you will be asked to help, if not join, the USGCRP and contribute to NCA 6.”
Calling on the same climate contrarians to work on the National Climate Assessment will only lead to equally poor outcomes as the Climate Working Group report, which was roundly rejected by scientists for being rife with inaccuracies, cherry-picking data, misrepresenting scientific findings, and echoing the long-standing disinformation tactics of the fossil fuel industry.
Propaganda and disinformation about climate science are now the official position of the US government. Meanwhile, scientists confirm that the world is on the verge of overshooting 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming within the next few years. Costly and deadly climate impacts—extreme heatwaves, record-breaking floods, intensified storms, catastrophic wildfires—are worsening, and the risks of irreversible, multi-century harms are growing. And yet this deeply anti-science administration continues to prop up fossil fuel interests rather than protecting people’s safety and the health of the planet.
The successful Federal Advisory Committee Act lawsuit has resulted in some crucial wins, including shining a light on the Trump administration’s deceptive tactics to undermine climate science. And the administration’s harmful actions will continue to be challenged in court. The Union of Concerned Scientists and the Environmental Defense Fund, together with many other groups, have recently joined a lawsuit challenging the unlawful repeal of the endangerment finding. Try as it might, this administration cannot bury the evidence of climate harms so readily apparent to communities across the nation. The American people deserve genuine solutions to the climate crisis, not more self-serving lies.