The National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) released its report on how greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) endanger public health on Wednesday, which several energy sector experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation was thrown together with the aim of undermining the Trump administration.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it is moving to roll back the 2009 Endangerment Finding, which determined that GHGs including carbon dioxide can be regulated as they pose a danger to human health and the environment. In response, NASEM put together a review which argues that GHG emissions are building up in the atmosphere, which contributes to climate change, though energy policy experts have previously explained to the DCNF that the Endangerment Finding was not founded on sound evidence and that it has since been used to impose crippling regulations and limit consumer choice.
“Today’s fast-track review is political theater. The National Academy of Sciences are using internal funds to rush out a report in an attempt to influence the EPA, even though no federal agency requested it,” Jason Isaac, CEO of the American Energy Institute, told the DCNF. “This is not independent science; it is advocacy in a lab coat.”
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The NASEM report argues that recent scientific literature supports EPA’s 2009 conclusion that climate change is expected to worsen ozone pollution and increase risks of respiratory illness. The report also states that air pollution has been linked to increased “mood and psychotic disorders” like schizophrenia and suicide.
“The committee concludes that the evidence for current and future harm to human health and welfare created by human-caused GHGs is beyond scientific dispute. Much of the understanding of climate change that was uncertain or tentative in 2009 is now resolved and new threats have been identified,” the report states.
Congress established the National Academy of Sciences [NAS] in 1863 to “investigate, examine, experiment, and report upon any subject of science or art” when asked by the government, according to the Smithsonian. Notably, NASEM did not conduct a study on COVID-19 origins — despite the government often calling on the Academies for such reviews — but noted its GHG report serves as a public comment to the EPA.
The report was “self-funded” through NASEM funds and endowments, according to the organization’s website.
Several energy sector experts told the DCNF that the NASEM report was rushed, potentially politically motivated and signals that the Trump administration should cut ties with the organization.
“It is just more evidence of a rigged process that the National Academy of Sciences can produce a report on the EPA’s proposed rescission of the endangerment finding a mere five weeks after announcing,” Steve Milloy, senior fellow at the Energy & Environment Legal Institute, told the DCNF. Milloy has also pointed out several areas of the report he believes are inaccurate, misleading or rely on cherry-picked data. “The committee was comprised exclusively of climate alarmists and no atmospheric science experts participated. While NAS committee reports usually take on average 21 months to be completed, this report has been rushed to release in a little more than one month. The NAS has unfortunately become an activist vs. a scientific advisory group that the federal government provides two-thirds of its funding. President Trump should zero out that funding unless and until the NAS ceases its gross partisanship.”
The review was spearheaded by molecular biologist Shirley M. Tilghman who also serves as an external science advisor to Science Philanthropy Alliance, which has been linked to the major progressive consulting network known as Arabella Advisors through the New Venture Fund, Fox first reported.
The EPA announced its intent to rescind the Obama-era Endangerment Finding on July 29, which EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said would amount to the biggest deregulatory move in the history of the United States if the EPA has its way. Zeldin noted on numerous occasions that the Trump EPA is seeking to both safeguard human health and the environment while also paving the way for economic flourishing.
“The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is perverting science with Leftwing activism. Its greenhouse gas ‘report’ includes the same biased conclusions used to justify the Green New Scam, which the American people are no longer buying,” Mandy Gunasekara, former Trump EPA chief of staff, told the DCNF. “Their timeline alone is suspect going from announcement to publication in just over a month — this is not the work of serious people.”
The EPA has also maintained that it is bound to laws established by Congress, which never explicitly gave the agency authority to regulate greenhouse gas regulations for cars and trucks.
“The Endangerment Finding has been used by the Obama and Biden Administrations to justify trillions of dollars of greenhouse gas regulations covering new motor vehicles and new motor vehicle engines. As we saw in the 16 intervening years since the Endangerment Finding was made, many of the extremely pessimistic predictions and assumptions EPA relied upon have not materialized as expected,” an EPA spokesperson told the DCNF. “EPA welcomes all public comments on the proposal through September 22, 2025, and the agency looks forward to responding to a diverse array of perspectives on this issue.”
The Department of Energy (DOE) released a report on climate change on the same day the EPA made its Endangerment Finding announcement, which argued that “CO2-induced warming might be less damaging economically than commonly believed.” Energy Secretary Chris Wright has repeatedly stated that climate change is an issue, though he frames energy poverty as a more imminent threat.
Energy experts that spoke to the DCNF maintain that the NASEM report is stained by a left-leaning bias that seeks to undercut President Donald Trump’s deregulatory goals.
“Objective scientists do not rush to ‘fast track’ studies based upon perceived political outcomes,” president of the Heartland Institute James Taylor told the DCNF. “The National Academies has long stopped being a scientific organization and is now merely bureaucratic leftist deep-staters who view themselves as part of The Resistance.”
Notably, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman James Comer is investigating NASEM for this review for potential “partisan aims” and requested that NASEM President Marcia McNutt turn over all communications related to the proposed Endangerment Finding rule change, along with details on the organization’s funding sources, to the committee.
“The Endangerment Finding review by the National Academies produced a pre-determined outcome that is not a surprise to anyone who has paid the least bit of attention,” Michael Chamberlain, director of watchdog group Protect the Public’s Trust. “The alarmism of the green movement was fed by a massive influx of the other type of green to well-connected NGOs, individuals, and organizations such as the National Academies. In addition to producing apocalypticism that has created eco-anxiety among a generation of youth, this financial boon is at the core of the hydra-headed intersectional progressive movement that has fed much of the unrest and extremism we have unfortunately witnessed far too much of.”
NASEM and Tilghman did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
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