National Academy Of Sciences President Acknowledges Climate Guide Authors’ Ties To Plaintiffs

The president of the National Academy of Sciences claimed that the authors behind a climate science guide for federal judges had significantly more ties to plaintiffs than to defendants in litigation involving climate issues.

National Academy of Sciences (NAS) President Neil Shubin made the claim during an interview with Science magazine Editor-in-Chief Holden Thorp published Thursday, nearly a month after the Academy removed a climate science section from its website and announced an independent review of the process used to produce it.

“Neil Shubin just admitted that the National Academies’ climate chapter in the ‘Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence, Fourth Edition,’ was never impartial science,” American Energy Institute CEO and founder Jason Isaac, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

“It was litigation strategy dressed up in a lab coat. In his own words, the authors were ‘associated more with the plaintiffs’ side than with the defense side,’ and the chapter skipped the conflict-of-interest review NASEM [National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine] claims makes its work credible in the first place,” Isaac continued.

Shubin defended the decision to conduct another examination during his interview with Science while acknowledging criticism that the Academy was yielding to political pressure.

The perception surrounding the climate chapter warranted a new examination and that the Academy needed to take a “new fresh look” at the process behind it, Shubin said during the interview.

The National Academy of Sciences did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

The Oversight Project, a conservative watchdog organization, published an April report alleging that portions of the chapter closely resembled a 2020 climate attribution paper co-authored by Columbia Law professor Michael Burger. The group claimed that approximately 33% of the chapter matched previously published material; Burger’s 2020 paper alone appeared to account for approximately 23%.

The climate chapter’s acknowledgments also credited Burger with providing “insights and helpful feedback,” according to the Oversight Project.

Burger serves as executive director of Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law and as counsel at Sher Edling, a law firm representing state and local governments in climate litigation against major energy companies. Burger and other Sher Edling attorneys in August filed an amicus brief in Suncor Energy v. Boulder County, a climate liability case currently before the Supreme Court.

Notably, Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan had written the foreward to the fourth edition of the manual, prompting calls to recuse from hearing the Suncor Energy v. Boulder County climate litigation with the rest of the high court. The Judicial Crisis Network called on Kagan in July to recuse herself from the case, arguing that her foreword to the manual raised questions about her impartiality.

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The comments provide more detail than the Academy offered when it announced the review in August. “The chapter has received considerable scrutiny, and the FJC [Federal Judicial Center] has removed it,” the Academy wrote. “The NAS has determined that questions about the processes used to develop the chapter warrant an independent review, and the chapter will not appear on our website while that review is underway.”

The review would examine whether its procedures were adequate to maintain objectivity and manage potential bias and conflicts of interest, the Academy said in a press release. At the same time, it stressesd that the investigation involves the process behind the chapter rather than the validity of climate science.

Shubin’s remarks appear to acknowledge at least part of the concern raised by critics about whether the backgrounds of people involved in producing the chapter created the appearance that one side of climate litigation received greater representation. He told Science magazine that, “for some,” the perception existed “for good reason.”

“That admission only came after a presidential rebuke and pressure from 25 state attorneys general calling on federal agencies to suspend or debar NASEM, which tells you this was never about scientific integrity until the funding was at risk,” Isaac told the DCNF.

“Agencies and courts should take the lesson seriously: if NASEM can’t say who wrote a chapter or why for eight months, it has no business being cited in federal rulemakings or handed to judges as neutral reference material,” Isaac continued.

Neil Shubin, the president of the National Academy of Sciences, admits that the controversial climate chapter didn’t follow the normal review process for conflicts of interest and that “the authors were associated more with the plaintiffs’ side than with the defense side.” pic.twitter.com/scoPZyXPWG

— Fmr. Rep. Jason Isaac (@ISAACforEnergy) September 3, 2026

The manual itself states it is intended to help judges understand scientific evidence rather than dictate particular outcomes, describing the “Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence” as a resource for federal judges confronting technical questions in litigation.

The conflict, however, began months before the Academy removed the chapter, following criticism from state attorneys general, advocacy organizations, and President Donald Trump.

The Federal Judicial Center previously removed a chapter from its version of the manual following objections to the chapter, while the Academy initially continued publishing it.

The Oversight Project subsequently pressed the Academy over the chapter’s treatment of attribution science and the backgrounds of people involved in producing and reviewing it.

President Trump also criticized the chapter before the Academy removed it, arguing that the material was biased and should not receive taxpayer support, according to Courthouse News Service.

“It’s time to pull the entire manual permanently, and every agency still funding NASEM should ask what else in its portfolio was written by activists posing as scientists,” Isaac concluded.