U.S. climate scientists gird for a second Trump administration
Science | Paul Voosen | December 13, 2024
Last week, at a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) facility here, more than 100 climate scientists, many of them federal employees, gathered for a forum on tracking and reporting greenhouse gases. The mood was undeniably anxious. President Joe Biden’s administration had elevated their work, creating the U.S. Greenhouse Gas Center last year as part of a new national strategy. But would that put them in the crosshairs of the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump?
…This time around efforts to interfere with science may be more likely to run afoul of the courts, says Lauren Kurtz, executive director of the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund. The Biden administration has strengthened many agencies’ scientific integrity policies, which prevent interference in science activities, such as reviewing grants. The policies have been clarified to state that they apply to political appointees and not just civil servants. If Trump officials want to rewrite them, they will have to go through a regulatory process, which means these changes can be challenged in court. And with the Supreme Court’s decision in the Chevron case, which overturned decades of deference to agency judgment, courts may decide that any policy changes are groundless. “There will be a number of judges who are not sympathetic to these efforts,” she says.