Why did Trump do the bedrock US climate program?
The disconnection of the US Global Change Research Program was outlined in Project 2025 as a way to boost climate change “benefits” when fighting regulations in courts.
US President Donald Trump listens to questions when he visited a furniture store that suffered during Hurricane Helen on September 30, 2024 in Bardosta, Georgia.
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
ClimateWire | The Trump administration is dismantling 35-year-old efforts to track global climate change used to shape government-wide regulations and policies.
A federal employee of the US Global Change Research Program was removed from its position Tuesday, and a government contract with ICF International, which has been supporting national climate assessments for many years, has been cut off, according to two former officials who were allowed anonymous to avoid retaliation.
The move has become an important step by the administration to undermine federal climate research in repeating environmental regulations and promoting additional fossil fuel production.
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The program was established by Congress in 1990 and was signed to law by President George H.W. Bush. In addition to climate science, it focuses on land productivity, water resources, fisheries, ecosystems and the atmosphere. Its most visible product was the National Climate Assessment, a parliamentary mandatory report released every four years and used to help shape environmental rules, legislation and infrastructure projects.
Decades ago, the program identified the depleted ozone layer hurting Americans and led to regulations to address the issue.
The next version of the National Climate Assessment is scheduled for later next year or early 2027.
change Please reflect Las Vote’s writingsDirector of the White House Management and Budget Office. They want to eliminate the program, so they will not be able to use that work to tighten federal climate regulations in court battles.
Vought wrote a chapter for Project 2025. This is a closely-held conservative blueprint of President Donald Trump, which outlined “how to reconstruct the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) and associated climate change research programmes.”
This chapter explains how the programme will make it difficult to establish industrial policies and fight court battles challenging environmental regulations. The USGCRP is “confined to a more limited advisory role,” he wrote.
“USGCRP actions can irritate successful litigation defenses, as they should not be allowed to control career bureaucracy,” the chapter says.
Under Vought’s proposal, the OMB will help select researchers to question humanity’s contributions to climate change and create a national climate assessment that relies on a small pool of scientists who will give equal weight to research produced in the industry.
An OMB spokesman did not respond to requests for comment. There was no contractor ICF International, which supported the climate assessment.
Vought was supported by David Legatez, who briefly served as head of the USGCRP on the first waning day of the Trump administration. That’s what Legates was Deleted from his post After he tried to publish a research paper questioning basic climate science.
“Let’s take a look as the US Global Change Research Program needs to be closed, rocked, stocked and barreled,” Legates said in a podcast hosted by Heartland Institute, a conservative advocacy group that spreads climate misinformation.
Legates also said in a podcast that Elon Musk’s government efficiency was “warned” about the need to eliminate the program.
White House officials have it I’ve considered creating a version National Climate Assessment, or another type of science report, highlighting the “benefits” of global warming. It could be part of an effort to challenge the discovery of dangers in 2009. Legates proposes creating a second body in alternative climate studies that shows that “carbon dioxide is not an evil gas.”
The National Climate Assessment is considered the gold standard for climate science by both Republican and Democrat administrations, said Texas Tech climate scientist Katherine Hayhoe has served as the lead author in multiple versions of the report.
“If you care about transportation, energy, food, health, community, rural and indigenous tribal nations, even if that bothers you, there’s a chapter,” she said.
“We need information to really take into account decisions that will help us build a better, more resilient future,” she added.
Closing the global change research programme would “having a major impact on society in the long run,” said Don Webbulls, professor emeritus of atmospheric science at the University of Illinois, who worked on all five previous national climate assessments.
He pointed to current floods in Kentucky as an example of extreme weather where assessments can help plan. The program warned the public that a warmer atmosphere retains more water vapor. Infrastructure can be built to withstand such risks, he said.
“Because we’re adapted and resilient, we’ve saved a lot of money, billions of dollars, so they’re going to end a lot of lives,” Wuebbles said.
Reprinted from E&E News With permission from Politico, LLC. Copyright 2025. E&E News provides essential news to energy and environmental experts.
