Every few years, the federal government publishes a comprehensive report that chronicles how climate change is transforming the United States and devastating the country with more extreme storms, wildfires and droughts.
But the next installment of the National Climate Assessment — due out in 2026 or 2027 — could dial back the usual scientific rigor in favor of an approach that would both elevate the viewpoint of climate science denialists and jettison all contributions from the Biden administration.
Scientists and climate policy experts say the proposed changes — which are being pushed by aides to President-elect Donald Trump — run the risk of undermining a foundational reference for government officials. And they say it could make it harder to craft future U.S. policies to address global warming.
The goal of the next administration “is to undermine any policies aimed at accelerating the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy,” said Michael Mann, a climate scientist and director of the Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media at the University of Pennsylvania.
The drive to reshape the National Climate Assessment is being led by one man: Russell Vought, a conservative warrior whom Trump wants to lead his Office of Management and Budget.
Vought, who ran OMB during Trump’s first term, has long sought to bury or weaken the National Climate Assessment. More recently, Vought has called for greater White House influence over the process, such as giving OMB the power to vet the scientists who will work on the next assessment.
During the first Trump administration, Vought was part of a meeting in the White House situation room where officials discussed firing the scientists who worked on the fourth edition, according to two Trump White House officials who were present.
Vought also is a chief architect of Project 2025, the conservative policy playbook that outlined how a second Trump administration could shift the federal government to the right.
Vought wrote an entire chapter that focused on how Trump could increase his power while diminishing that of Congress. It included a passage on ways to remake the U.S. Global Change Research Program, which produces the National Climate Assessment.
“The great challenge confronting a conservative President is the existential need for aggressive use of the vast powers of the executive branch to return power … to the American people,” Vought wrote.
The Global Change Research Program was established by Congress in 1990 to coordinate federal research to better understand how climate change affects the country. One of its early successes was to reveal how a depleted ozone layer harmed Americans, which led to regulations that addressed the issue.
Nowadays, hundreds of scientists contribute to the production of the National Climate Assessment, which serves as a clearinghouse for U.S. research into global warming.
But the wealth of scientific data provided by the National Climate Assessment is one reason Vought wants to target the report. Its findings show the country will increasingly suffer as the Earth warms, and the consequences will grow in severity unless the United States joins the world in slashing greenhouse gas emissions.
Vought, however, is worried the report could limit Trump’s authority.
He warned in the Project 2025 playbook that climate research could constrain the incoming administration and “reduce the scope of legally proper options in presidential decision-making and in agency rulemakings and adjudications.”
In addition, he said that “since much environmental policymaking must run the gauntlet of judicial review, USGCRP actions can frustrate successful litigation defense in ways that the career bureaucracy should not be permitted to control.”
To overcome these obstacles, Vought suggested the Trump administration “critically analyze and, if required, refuse to accept any USGCRP assessment prepared under the Biden Administration.”
The Trump transition did not respond to comment, nor did Vought. The Biden administration declined to comment.
According to the Project 2025 playbook, Vought wants to produce a version of the climate report that includes more “diverse viewpoints.” That phrase often has been used by opponents of climate regulation to describe researchers who are known to cast doubt on peer-reviewed science and often are affiliated with industry or conservative think tanks.
Vought’s proposal would also increase his own power to shape the report and pick the researchers who are working on it.
OMB and the Office of Science and Technology Policy would jointly “assess the independence of the contractors used to conduct much of this outsourced government research that serves as the basis for policymaking,” he wrote in the Project 2025 report.
‘Clowns’ and ‘nonsense’
Vought’s recommendations have come under fire from climate scientists — especially his desire to seek perspectives outside mainstream climate science.
Don Wuebbles, an emeritus professor of atmospheric science at the University of Illinois who worked on all five of the previous National Climate Assessments, said Vought’s push to include more diverse voices was in fact cover to bring in “more biased” ones.
“It will make the U.S. look like clowns to the rest of the world,” he said. “They’re going to try to basically say, ‘We don’t know enough to do anything about the climate,’ which is nonsense.”
Weakening or attacking the assessment and producing a volume of the report that is centered on debunked fossil fuel industry claims also could have a chilling effect on climate policy that is challenged in court, said Michael Gerrard, faculty director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University.
The Trump version of the report, for example, could be referenced for years in industry attacks on future regulations — rather than as a defense of them.
“You very rarely see in court cases challenges to climate science because it’s almost indisputable, but it is used in support of actions that the government has taken on climate change,” he said.
Vought does appear to value the perspective of at least one scientist: David Legates, Trump’s former deputy assistant Commerce secretary for observation and prediction.
In his Project 2025 chapter, he cited Legates as a source.
Legates is a geologist from the University of Delaware and an affiliate of the Heartland Institute who denies basic climate change science.
During Trump’s first term, Legates was brought in as executive director of the U.S. Global Change Research Program in the final months of the administration. But he was later removed from his post after he attempted to publish cherry-picked and incomplete claims about global warming as official government documents.
Legates refers to climate scientists as “alarmists” and says they are participating in a scheme “to change the economy to redistribute our wealth.”
He has denied that increasing carbon dioxide has any effect on sea-level rise and has said that rising emissions would lead instead to “enhanced plant growth and hence more abundant and affordable food.”
Legates did not respond to a request for comment.
For now, it’s expected that Vought in the next administration would try to weaken the National Climate Assessment rather than kill it.
But six years ago, there was a real debate among Trump aides over whether to torpedo the report.
In 2018, upon learning that work on the assessment by climate scientists had continued during the first Trump administration, a group of officials gathered in the situation room and plotted how to kill it, said Olivia Troye, a former Trump White House homeland security adviser.
Vought was among those in attendance.
Someone suggested they refuse to release the report. It also was suggested that the administration fire all the scientists who worked on the assessment, Troye recalled. Another idea was to produce their own version.
“That was one of the meetings where I was like, ‘Holy shit, what the hell have I done?’” she said. “Hearing it firsthand and being like, ‘Oh my God, they’re actually going to get rid of scientists who are just simply operating on facts.’”
The meeting was chaired by John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser. Bolton did not agree with firing the climate scientists and reminded those gathered in the room that the report was congressionally mandated and thus had to be released. Vought was among those who didn’t want the report released.
“That sounds like Russell, and you know, if you don’t like congressional mandates, get the statute repealed, but it’s just a matter of practical legislative affairs management, that when you ignore a mandate like that, you’re going to have to do it eventually and just kind of cost you more,” Bolton said in an interview. “So screw your teeth and do it.”
In the end, the decision was made to release the report the day after Thanksgiving, at a time when it was presumed few people were paying attention. Instead, the unusual release date received extensive press coverage.
