Trump admin faces new lawsuit

[Joshua Wilburn]

By: MEGA

Environmental groups are suing the Trump administration over a new climate report issued by the Department of Energy (DOE), arguing that it misrepresents scientific evidence to undermine established climate protections. The controversy comes as the president moves to roll back a key regulatory finding that identifies greenhouse gases as a threat to public health.

Trump lawsuit​

By: MEGA

The lawsuit, filed by environmental advocates, alleges that the administration is attempting to rewrite climate science itself. Critics say the DOE’s recently released review, A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate, was designed to support the Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts to revoke the Endangerment Finding. This 2009 scientific determination allows greenhouse gases to be regulated under the Clean Air Act. The review was developed this spring by the 2025 Climate Working Group, a panel of five independent scientists selected by Energy Secretary Chris Wright. According to the department, the panel was chosen for its “rigor, honesty and willingness to elevate the debate.” However, environmental organizations and independent experts claim the process lacked transparency and was driven by ideology rather than science. “The secret report was produced by a set of known climate contrarians who were commissioned to write this report that’s full of inaccuracies,” said Rachel Cleetus, senior policy director of climate and energy programs at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “It’s clearly geared towards trying to give the EPA a way to evade its legal responsibility to address the health harms of heat-trapping emissions and climate change.”

The Trump administration​

By: MEGA

The report was commissioned by the Trump administration in March and delivered by May 28, a remarkably short timeframe for a scientific review of its scope. In the preface, the authors acknowledged the limitations, writing, “The short timeline and the technical nature of the material meant that we could not comprehensively review all topics.” Its conclusions diverge sharply from mainstream climate science. The review argues that carbon-driven warming may be less economically damaging than widely believed, contends U.S. climate policy would have little effect on global climate, and attributes some warming to natural cycles or solar changes rather than fossil fuels. It also asserts that sea level rise has not been accelerating and highlights possible benefits of higher carbon dioxide levels for plant growth. Many experts reject these claims.

Experts speak out​

By: MEGA

“I would say that it presents an incomplete and misleading picture of how climate change is affecting the United States,” said Phil Duffy, chief scientist at Spark Climate Solutions and a former White House science policy adviser. Independent analyses by scientists and advocacy groups have flagged more than 100 false or misleading statements in the DOE report. Ben Santer, a veteran climate researcher and Union of Concerned Scientists board member, accused the authors of misrepresenting his own work. “This DOE report is in service of a political goal, it’s not credible science,” he said. The report, Santer added, “fundamentally twist the work of many researchers to reach conclusions that will be used for a political purpose.”

The Department of Energy​

By: MEGA

Vickie Patton, general counsel at the Environmental Defense Fund, criticized the makeup of the DOE panel. “The people that were handpicked by the Trump administration’s energy secretary are this very small group of people who are known to disagree with that mountain of [scientific] evidence,” she said. “Some of them have connections to the fossil fuel industry.” For environmental advocates, the report represents not only an assault on scientific integrity but also a direct threat to public health protections tied to climate change policy.

The post Trump admin faces new lawsuit appeared first on Knewz.

Continue reading...

 

Join 𝕋𝕄𝕋 on Telegram
Channel PREVIEW: