The US Energy Department’s secret panel, made up of five climate change skeptics, was tasked with writing a sweeping report criticizing the consensus on global warming. The Trump administration used that report as the basis to propose a repeal of the landmark Endangerement Finding, a scientific determination that provides the legal basis for climate pollution regulations in the US.
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The Trump administration violated federal law when it secretly formed a climate science advisory group to work on a contencious global warming report, a court has ruled.
The Department of Energy did not publicly disclose that the Climate Working Group, comprised of five climate change skeptics, was behind a report released in July which downplayed the risks of global warming. The report contends that mainstream climate science is exaggerated and overlooks the positive effects of climate change. It wrongly claimed, for example, that sea level rise is not accelerating, and that increased carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere will be beneficial for plant growth.
The Trump administration used the report as the basis of its proposal to overturn the Endangerment Finding. Issued by the Environmental Protection Agency in 2009, the finding determined that six greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, threaten public health and welfare for current and future generations. This science-based determination served as the legal basis for regulating greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act.
The finding’s repeal is currently under final review at the White House.
On Friday, the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts said the Energy Department violated federal law by secretely convening the group, which “not merely ‘assembled to exchange facts or information,’ but rather provided substantive policy ‘advice and recommendations’ to the Department of Energy.”
The 1972 Federal Advisory Committee Act prohibits federal agencies form recruiting or relying on secret groups to formulate policy.
“The federal court’s ruling is absolutely clear – the Trump Administration violated federal law by secretly convening a group tasked with developing a dangerously slanted report to use as the basis for attacking the Endangerment Finding, the long-standing determination that climate pollution endangers our health and our lives and requires commonsense action,” said Erin Murphy, Senior Attorney at the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). The EDF and the Union of Concerned Scientists sued the Energy Department last year.
“The Trump EPA must immediately withdraw its fundamentally unlawful and forever tainted proposal to repeal the Endangerment Finding, which would impose high costs on the American people who are already experiencing the impacts of pollution-fueled fires, flooding, higher insurance costs, and rising energy costs.”
Featured image: Gage Skidmore.
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