The National Academy of Sciences just released its so-called review of the Trump EPA’s proposal to rescind the endangerment finding for greenhouse gases. It is every bit the rigged and predetermined outcome predicted.
Not only does the report conclude that the EPA’s 2009 endangerment finding was correct, it claims that the evidence now for greenhouse gas emissions causing harm is greater than it was in 2009. But what was the process by which the NAS committee reached this conclusion?
The Trump EPA formally proposed to rescind the endangerment finding on Aug. 1. The NAS announced that it would launch its own review six days later on Aug. 7. This was a surprise since the NAS generally only offers scientific advice to the federal government upon request of the federal government. But don’t take my word for it. Here’s what NAS president Marcia McNutt had to say about that in April 2020 when people urged the NAS to tackle the COVID crisis: “Y’all have it backwards. The charter states that the government calls on the Academies to conduct studies, not the other way around.”
In its Aug. 7 announcement, the NAS set a deadline of Aug. 27 for the public to submit information to the committee and, perplexingly, a Sept. 11 deadline for comments on the composition of the proposed committee.
Yet in a stunningly disingenuous move, the NAS committee began meeting secretly weeks before the public comment deadline to flag any problems with the committee’s composition. Its first meeting occurred on Aug. 20. There were more meetings on Aug. 25-26, a third set of meetings that began on Sept.1-5 and a fourth set on Sept. 8-9. Again, all these secret meetings occurred before the Sept. 11 deadline. The committee met for a final time on Sept. 12.
So while the climate science watchdog group, the CO2 Coalition, flagged that all 15 of the committee’s members subscribed to climate alarmism – and submitted their objections before the Sept.11 deadline – the committee was already secretly off and running.
Although the CO2 Coalition’s membership includes several NAS members, their comments and other public objections to the committee composition were apparently ignored. A mere six days after the comment deadline, the final report by the originally proposed committee was issued.
And what a report it is.
The committee met secretly for a total of 10 days from Aug. 20 to Sept. 12. Per committee chairman Shirley Tilghman, the committee reviewed all the science published since the 2009 endangerment finding was made. This claim is astoundingly false.
There have been tens of thousands of climate studies published since 2009. But the 137-page report cites only 573 of them. On the one hand, the 573 studies represent just a sliver of the climate science literature. On the other hand, 573 studies is an immense number of studies for a committee of 15 – none of whom are atmospheric scientists – to review in only 10 working days.
The overall nature and quality of the report can be assessed from the first few sentences in the report’s preface: “As the committee undertook this project, it was hard not to think about recent climate-related disasters: the heavy rainfall of Hurricane Helene that destroyed homes and roads in the mountains of North Carolina, the fast-moving wildfires that displaced thousands in Los Angeles and affected air quality for miles around, and the rapid flooding of the Guadalupe River in central Texas that led to at least 135 fatalities.”
But none of those weather events are attributable to emissions or to “global warming.” The heavy rains that hit and flooded Asheville, NC in 2024, had happened twice before in 1916 and 1940. The exact conditions that led to the recent Los Angeles wildfires were fretted about by local media in 1875. The tragic Guadalupe River flooding that struck on July 4 had occurred before in 1869 and 1987.
There is not enough room in this column for a comprehensive critique of the NAS report, but here is just one other egregious example. Citing an EPA graph, the report asserts that heat waves have increased since the 1960s. But the report studiously avoids another more complete EPA graph showing that heatwaves have dramatically decreased since the 1930s.
From process to substance, the NAS report is a travesty. Its purpose is to thwart the Trump energy agenda. While this particular report only applies to the fossil fuel part of the Trump energy agenda, you can bet that the NAS will be equally disingenuous when it comes to the Trump nuclear power agenda. It has a history of this.
Two-thirds of the NAS funding comes from the federal government. President Trump should terminate that funding and make the NAS decide between sound science and junk science.
Steve Milloy is a biostatistician and lawyer, publishes JunkScience.com and is on X @JunkScience.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
(Featured Image Media Credit: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Photo: mccready/Flickr)
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact [email protected].
