A nonpartisan government watchdog group has filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Commerce, requesting an investigation into possibly unethical and unscientific practices at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The watchdog is specifically concerned with NOAA's Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters tracking project, also know as the Billions Project, which has kept track of weather-related disasters since 1980. As the name would suggest, the project focuses on disasters that supposedly result in losses of $1 billion or more.

According to Protect the Public's Trust, those behind the Billions Project may be responsible for "scientific integrity violations" as well as "misleading and inaccurate claims about the Project's dataset."

This is especially troubling because the Billions Project is greatly impactful. It has been cited by the U.S. Global Change Research Program as a "climate change indicator"; its data was referenced last year as evidence that "extreme events are becoming more frequent and severe" in the same federal program's "Fifth National Climate Assessment"; and its results have reportedly been cited in nearly 1,000 articles.