Back in March of this year, I reported that a coalition of 24 state attorneys general, spearheaded by Montana’s Republican Attorney General Austin Knudsen, urged the Trump Administration to scrutinize every dollar of federal funding flowing to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM).
The attorneys general cite what they describe as pervasive left-wing bias masquerading as “independent” scientific expertise.
Specifically, this letter focuses on the climate science section of the Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence (created to help both lawyers and judges understand and manage complex scientific and technical evidence in court cases). It asserts that “The Chapter” was created to sway judges in high-stakes climate lawsuits. The states’ AGs argue that its preparation was funded by groups that support climate-related litigation, written by scholars who reportedly lack strong expertise in climate science and have connections to advocacy groups involved in such cases, and was influenced by a lawyer representing climate plaintiffs.
Now President Donald Trump has called for a review of the “Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence”.
Alluding to recent changes to the manual’s section on climate change, the president argued the government-backed handbook was “totally discredited” and claimed it had been used to improperly inform recent rulings on environmental issues.
Writing in a post on his social media platform Truth Social on Sunday evening, Trump said he had ordered “federal suspension and debarment officials” to review the National Academy of Sciences’ “Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence,” a decades-old publication produced in partnership with the Federal Judicial Center and aimed at assisting federal judges on issues of science and technology.
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