ClimateWire | A former Trump official, who was wary of scientists a few years ago, returned to the White House in a role that is expected to have a major impact on the next version of his assessment when he tried to interfere with the congressional mandatory climate report.
Stuart Revenbach was tapped by management officials last month as Associate Director of Natural Resources, Energy, Science and Water in the Management and Budget Office.
Before President Donald Trump was in the White House, Revenbach tried to adjust the summary conclusions of the National Climate Assessment. Hundreds of researchers contributed We assess how global warming is changing the United States.
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Scientists say Levenbach tried to downplay climate risks in the fourth installment of the report. In that edition, Levenbach was particularly interested in the assumption of higher greenhouse gas emissions that sought to soften the language of report summaries, which the report relied on in part, scientists say.
“He was the one who tried to slow it down to the point where he didn’t leave,” said Don Ubbulls, a climate scientist at the University of Illinois who has worked on all five previous national climate assessments.
Levenbach’s delay tactics ultimately failed, with the fourth installment of the report being released in 2018 The day after Thanksgiving.
In response to questions from Politico’s E&E News, Trump administration officials from the Management and Budget Office described scientists’ concerns as “fake news.”
Levenbach is joining OMB when its director, Russ Vought, wants to curb climate science across the federal government. Increases Trump White House surveillance In the next article on the National Climate Assessment scheduled for 2026 or 2027.
Vought, the architect of the conservative policy playbook known as Project 2025, specifically targeted the national climate assessment in a chapter he wrote about expanding presidential rights. Vought stated the report Need to be more closely controlled By the White House to reduce the impact on litigation and ham its ability to support federal regulations.
Vought explained the rating as a The threat to the presidential forces.
The US Global Change Research Program “generates strategic plans and research (e.g., national climate assessments) that reduce the scope of legally appropriate options in presidential decision-making and agency rulemaking and arbitration,” he wrote.
During the first Trump administration, Revenbach served as Chief of Staff for the National Maritime and Atmospheric Administration, before being appointed Senior Advisor to the White House Council on Environmental Quality and the National Economic Council. When he was at NOAA, the release of the national climate rating surprised the administration.
Wuebbles of the University of Illinois said Levenbach was one of several Trump administration officials who tried to force the scientists who worked on the report.
He said Lebenbach questioned the scientific conclusions of the report and subsequently requested that they see a study that supports the original findings, despite being cited in the report. It seemed to be a deliberate attempt to create a set of obstacles designed to block the release of reports, he said.
“The whole idea was to slow this down and not come out,” Wuebbles said.
At the time, Levenbach’s role in NOAA weighed more than usual as the agency operated without permanent managers, and did so throughout the first Trump presidency.
In response to comment, OMB spokeswoman Rachel Courley did not deny that Levenbach attempted to modify the report, but she criticized how it was framed.
“The reviews were plagued by the worst-case scenario, and the authors weren’t transparent about it,” she said in a statement.
Levenbach declined to comment.
National climate ratings are based on a variety of emissions scenarios, including scenarios that are not the worst-case scenarios. Fourth version of the report The country concluded that it is not going well to reduce its carbon footprint at a pace to avoid the worst outcome of climate change.
“While mitigation and adaptation efforts have expanded significantly over the past four years, they are not yet close to what they believe to be necessary to avoid substantial damage to the economy, the environment and human health over the next few decades,” the researchers concluded.
During Trump’s first term, White House officials discussed withholding the report. Someone suggested firing the scientist who worked on it, Politico’s E&E News previously reported.
Federal researchers who resisted the pressure of Trump officials to change the findings of the report were removed from their work and reassigned to fewer roles.
This includes Virginia Burkett, who was chairman of the US Global Change Research Program, which produces the report. Burkett said he rejected attempts to undermine the scientific conclusions of Levenbach’s report, claiming that due to that stance, she was removed and demoted as chairman of the US Global Change Research Program.
In July 2024, Burkett submitted Whistleblower’s complaints With an inspector from the Ministry of Home Affairs. She noted that “several retaliation actions have been taken against me” because she blocked the change to the national climate assessment.
“I have successfully made interagency efforts to prevent last-minute changes to the findings of political appointees’ summary reports in the National Maritime and Atmospheric Administration,” she said in a statement. “These proposed changes would have significantly misrepresented the work of more than 300 federal and academic scientists through large-scale peer, public and national academy reviews.”
The complaint is still open and is under investigation, according to the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund, which is working with Burkett.
Craig McLean, the top NOAA scientist under Trump, said Revenbach and other NOAA officials “supported” the national climate assessment, saying the report could never have been released without Burkett’s defense.
“It was a dead end until Virginia stepped up, and then suddenly, “Yeah, it’s okay, we’re going to have to let it go,” McLean said. “It was being lifted. NOAA won’t approve it.”
Finally, the fourth National Climate Assessment was announced, but the administration tried to fill it up by putting it on Black Friday. However, the plan backfired and the report produced important media coverage.
Trump later said he “doesn’t believe” the report.
After Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election, Revenbach worked for energy technology company Baker Hughes on “using sustainable energy sources around the world.” He holds a PhD in Marine Ecology.
Levenbach’s appointment to the role of the powerful White House, overlooking the country’s scientific efforts, comes when there is administration Prepare the possibility of challenges to discover dangersa bedrock ruling that views greenhouse gases as a risk to public health and is the basis for climate control.
To him Link-in ProfileLevenbach noted that his new role at OMB is to “ensure the agency as well as the president’s priorities.”
Trump and his team say their priorities include immigration restrictions, reducing the size of the federal government and strengthening the US fossil fuel industry.
Reprinted from E&E News With permission from Politico, LLC. Copyright 2025. E&E News provides essential news to energy and environmental experts.
