The disputed climate guidance was removed after Republican attorneys general alleged it favored one scientific viewpoint.
President Donald Trump has ordered federal officials to review conduct related to climate guidance included in a scientific reference manual for federal judges, which he described as politically biased and based on discredited science.
“These Manuals have been totally discredited,” Trump said in a June 19 post on Truth Social.
He was referring to a February decision by the U.S. federal judiciary to withdraw the climate science chapter of the newest edition of its “Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence.”
The manual is published by the judiciary’s research arm, the Federal Judicial Center, in cooperation with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, which includes the National Academy of Sciences. The National Academy of Sciences is an independent nonprofit organization chartered by Congress in 1863 that receives federal funding to provide scientific advice to the government.
The manual, in its fourth edition, was released in December.
Judges rely on the manual “in identifying issues commonly in dispute and to help judges reach an informed and reasoned assessment of those issues based on expert evidence that is faithful to the law and within the boundaries of scientifically sound knowledge,” according to the Federal Judicial Center’s website.
The guidance is not binding but can help federal judges and others in handling complex scientific and technical evidence.
“Our Nation’s Federal Judges deserve Facts and Science, not Political Fraud and False Science on Climate,” Trump wrote. “Our Taxpayers should not be funding Climate Fraud, and Judges should never have relied upon it.”
The president said the manual would be reviewed by federal suspension and agency debarment officials for political bias.
Political Bias
The decision to withdraw the chapter titled “Reference Guide on Climate Science” was in response to complaints by 27 Republican state attorneys general, who argued the guidance was not “independent” or “impartial” as it declared that “only one preferred view is ‘within the boundaries of scientifically sound knowledge.’”
In their Jan. 29 letter, the attorneys general—led by West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey—argued the chapter “places the judiciary firmly on one side of some of the most hotly disputed questions in current litigation: climate-related science and ‘attribution.’”
They said the authors, Jessica Wentz and Radley Horton, limited their expert consultations to those who aligned with their conception of consensus, citing experts from the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) but not experts from the U.S. Department of Energy.
“By predetermining scientific underpinnings, the Manual effectively prejudges federalism questions that should be resolved through litigation. That sounds nothing like a ‘dispassionate guide,’” they said.
“If the Center can predetermine scientific questions in climate cases, what prevents it from doing the same for pharmaceutical liability, election disputes, or Second Amendment cases? The precedent is dangerous regardless of one’s views on climate change.”
They also said that the section was “rife with methodology issues,” that the authors and Columbia University were supportive of climate-related litigation, and that the chapter ”seems intended to ensure that the judiciary will continue to accept their views uncritically.”
Trump said in his post that the manuals “were used by Judges to decide massive ‘Climate Change’ Cases, and have created huge losses across our Country.”
By Melanie Sun
