Trump Demands Review of ‘Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence’ Used by Federal Judges
Meanwhile, the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology investigates the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) over its stewardship of this nation’s scientific efforts.
Back in March of this year, I reported that a coalition of 24 state attorneys general, spearheaded by Montana’s Republican Attorney General Austin Knudsen, urged the Trump Administration to scrutinize every dollar of federal funding flowing to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM).
The attorneys general cite what they describe as pervasive left-wing bias masquerading as “independent” scientific expertise.
Specifically, this letter focuses on the climate science section of the Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence (created to help both lawyers and judges understand and manage complex scientific and technical evidence in court cases). It asserts that “The Chapter” was created to sway judges in high-stakes climate lawsuits. The states’ AGs argue that its preparation was funded by groups that support climate-related litigation, written by scholars who reportedly lack strong expertise in climate science and have connections to advocacy groups involved in such cases, and was influenced by a lawyer representing climate plaintiffs.
Now President Donald Trump has called for a review of the “Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence”.
Alluding to recent changes to the manual’s section on climate change, the president argued the government-backed handbook was “totally discredited” and claimed it had been used to improperly inform recent rulings on environmental issues.
Writing in a post on his social media platform Truth Social on Sunday evening, Trump said he had ordered “federal suspension and debarment officials” to review the National Academy of Sciences’ “Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence,” a decades-old publication produced in partnership with the Federal Judicial Center and aimed at assisting federal judges on issues of science and technology.
The president claimed the National Academy was “run by Radical Left” Democrats and that the nonprofit organization “published fraudulent, biased and misleading manuals on climate change.”
…[I] in February, the Federal Judicial Center, the government’s education and research agency serving federal courts, said it had removed the climate science chapter from its version of the reference manual. The move came just days after a group of Republican state attorneys general penned a letter to Congress arguing the handbook presented a “highly biased, agenda-driven view” of climate change targeting oil and gas companies.
The National Academies receives more than $200M annually in federal funding.@POTUS has ordered a comprehensive review of NASEM’s conduct.
Why should an institution that attempts to undermine the independence of the judiciary continue to receive millions in taxpayer dollars? pic.twitter.com/PB1qE6tsgh
— Carrie Severino (@JCNSeverino) July 20, 2026
There are potential ramifications for the Supreme Court, as Justice Kagan wrote the foreword to the manual.
Dozens of American state and local governments, mostly in Democratic-led municipalities, have sued oil companies over their role in climate change, but those cases all remain in preliminary stages. None have gotten close to trial yet.
The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments over a legal question in one of the cases, brought by the city and county of Boulder, Colo., in its next term. The issue is whether federal law blocks the case from proceeding, and the decision could have major ramifications for the entire batch of litigation.
Conservative groups have argued that Justice Elena Kagan should recuse herself from the Boulder case because she wrote the foreword to the judges’ manual.
Meanwhile, the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology has been investigating NASEM over its “administration of federally supported activities, including its stewardship of taxpayer resources, scientific advisory processes, and compliance with applicable federal requirements.” The committee recently accused NASEM of withholding information requested by the Committee as part of its ongoing oversight of the organization’s federally supported activities.
Apparently, NASEM officials are claiming that this information is “privileged”.
The Committee is concerned by NASEM’s decision to withhold responsive information based on broad assertions of privilege. While the Committee recognizes that certain interests may warrant protection in limited circumstances, generalized or categorical assertions of privilege do not excuse noncompliance with congressional oversight requests.
Privilege claims are to be asserted narrowly, substantiated on a document-by-document basis, and asserted only where legally appropriate.
As the Supreme Court has recognized, Congress possesses broad investigatory authority that is inherent in its legislative function. The Committee’s request seeks information necessary to evaluate existing law, assess the effectiveness of federal programs, and determine whether legislative reforms are warranted. Assertions of privilege should therefore be evaluated in light of Congress’s constitutional oversight responsibilities.
It is genuinely refreshing to see long-overdue scrutiny applied to institutions that have too often cloaked their narratives in the garb of “consensus” science while demanding that their “research” be funded with American tax dollars.
When taxpayer dollars fund studies and guidance that may shape litigation, regulation, and national policy, transparency is not optional but essential, and Congress has every right to demand full visibility into how that money is used.
The Constitution is quite clear: Congress controls the purse, and it cannot fulfill that duty if gatekeepers of “expertise” decide accountability is somehow beneath them.
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Comments
No damn wonder why homes in Northern Virginia are so expensive, why Fairfax County is one of the wealthiest counties in America, and the demographic is pure blue. When taxpayer funds are dished out to these nondescript groups, at levels of $200 million yearly and are ongoing, the government in effect uses taxpayer funds as seed money to capitalize NGOs to keep Democrats in office. Nice gig if you can get it, right.
Absent national security implications, nothing paid for by tax dollars should be considered privileged.
Even if it’s communication between a lawyer and client?! Such as between NASEM and its lawyers?
Has Congress asked to see the National Academies’ correspondence with their lawyers?
fwiw and with the caveat that I havent explored the issue in sufficient detail. Inviting all the judges in a certain judicial district to a conference on how to analysis scientific experts, and in which said district is one that you intent to file a suit in, would be somewhat akin to “pre – ex-parte”
We’re paying for NASEM, and we’re paying for their lawyers. Since we’re paying, we are included in ‘privilege’.
Further, we’re also paying the prosecution. Of both the case against NASEM and all the cases NASEM wants to inform.
EVERYONE involved in this is being paid by US –so we get ALL access.
That is NOT AT ALL how attorney-client privileged works The privilege exists between the client an the attorney. The person making the payment is NOT always the client. The client is the entity for whom the attorney’s beneficial relationship or mandatory obligation to follow direction exists.
I have seen this most often in the criminal and CPS contexts. Lets say for example, a child is removed from their parents and placed in a foster care setting. The child is 10 years old, verbal, mature, and has a good grasp of what is going on. The child (client) tells you in no uncertain terms that they want to be returned to live with their parents immediately. As the Attorney representing that child, it is your DUTY to follow that child’s (the client’s) direction and to advocate for that immediate return of the child to parents.
That is why in such cases, there is also a mandatory Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) that is put in place to advise the Court as to the “Best Interests” of the child client.
So, short answer “NO.” The party putting up the money is not necessarily the client, and is not specifically, or even generaly entitled to access to privileged materials.
Twit.
The client is the entity for whom the attorney’s beneficial relationship or mandatory obligation to follow direction exists.
And who does NASEM insist all their idiot suits are benefitting?
The general public.
And you have no idea how the foster parent system works. As a foster and adoptive parent, however, I do.
Children, not being able to hire attorneys, generally only get state appointed representation and that representation acts in the best interests of the state.
Regardless of what they claim.
And your example, poorly and inaccurately stated as it was, has absolutely nothing to do with the idea of attorney/client privilege in the sense of, as the payor and purported beneficiary, the American public has every right to all communications on all sides in cases like this.
Climate science stuff peer-reviewed by climate scientists just repeats the mistakes that define membership in the field. You’d have to have climate science reviewed by experts in the tools that they use, e.g. a physicist, not a climate scientist.
Judges aren’t necessarily experts at analysis of scientific and engineering data, many so-called guidance documents are purposely biased to support that the climate is changing, all supposedly attributed to the use of carbon based fuels.
What are “Federal Suspension and Debarment Officials” ?
“their narratives in the garb of “consensus” science ”
*****
One of the key tip offs that Climate and COVID “narrative” science was Bullsh*t was the phrase “Settled Science”. One the the defining characteristics of “Science” is falsifiability; if the assertion is considered “settled” it’s not science.,
“Falsifiability (also known as refutability or testability) is the criterion in the philosophy of science that a hypothesis, theory, or statement is considered scientific only if it is logically possible to prove it false through observation or experiment.”
Failure of predictions made by one’s “science” is one way claims can be falsified. None of the climate crowd’s earlier predictions proved accurate, and they have learned from this mistake, which is why all their later predictions are for events that might (or might not) happen 100 years hence.
“Science…requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science, consensus is irrelevant. What are relevant are reproducible results.”
Dr. Michael Crichton
Speaking at the California Institute of Technology, 2023
“It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.”
Richard Feynman
If government enacts a tax or a fee that will harm me in the future, the courts will not allow me to bring suit until I am actually harmed. In that regard, why are the prognostications of “climate scientists” treated as present harm? I think the courts should review a manual on law instead.
I want to know why the “clean hands” doctrine does not bar them from bringing their complaints. Every single plaintiff in these suits benefits from the energy produced by fossil fuels. Their clothing, their food, the materials used to build their homes and apartments, all the tech that runs on electricity that make modern life what it is, our very standard of living – all rely on energy for their raw materials, production, shipping, operation, and so on, with much of this energy being generated by the burning of fossil fuels.
How are they able to claim these fuels are causing harms? How are they able to claim these fuels are causing harm that isn’t already offset by the benefits they all enjoy from them?
For well over 200 years, science was contested in the courts between experts, hired by the contending parties. Why a “guide” for judges now, and on the subject of “climate change” and “fossil fuel”? Because in a contest of experts, “climate change” scientists can be blown out of the water. So it is necessary to bias judges in favor of the climate change advocates, and against their opponents.
I found the suit by Boulder, CO interesting. It is one of the centers of climate change advocacy in the world, and has been for decades. My cousin spent his entire 40+ years career at NOAA there doing climate research. Besides NOAA, it has elements of NCAR, NREL, NBS, etc there. Plus, of course, CU Boulder. I got into a debate with my daughter, who got her PhD in MechE there, about the Greenhouse affect. To show her supposed credentials, she pointed at the Environmental Chemistry class that she was taking. Which skipped over most of the debate on feedback – which should have been a glaring red flag for candidates in Mechanical Engineering, But, of course, wasn’t. Climate Change is really a religion there.