Trump Administration Hardens Its Attack on Climate Science

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WASHINGTON President Trump has rolled back environmental regulations, , brushed aside dire predictions about the effects of climate change, and turned the term global warming into a punch line rather than a prognosis. Now, after two years spent unraveling the policies of his predecessors, Mr. Trump and his political appointees are launching a new assault. In the next few months, the White House will complete the rollback of the most significant federal effort to curb greenhouse-gas emissions, initiated during the Obama administration. It will expand its efforts to impose Mr. Trumps hard-line views on other nations, building on his retreat from the Paris accord and to protect the rapidly melting Arctic region unless it was stripped of any references to climate change. And, in what could be Mr. Trumps most consequential action yet, his administration will seek to undermine the very science on which climate change policy rests. Mr. Trump is less an ideologue than an armchair naysayer about climate change, according to people who know him. He came into office viewing agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency as bastions of what he calls the deep state, and his contempt for their past work on the issue is an animating factor in trying to force them to abandon key aspects of the methodology they use to try to understand the causes and consequences of a dangerously warming planet. As a result, parts of the federal government will no longer fulfill what scientists say is one of the most urgent jobs of climate science studies: reporting on the future effects of a rapidly warming planet and presenting a picture of what the earth could look like by the end of the century if the global economy continues to emit heat-trapping carbon dioxide pollution from burning fossil fuels. The attack on science is underway throughout the government. In the most recent example, the White House-appointed director of the , James Reilly, a former astronaut and petroleum geologist, has ordered that scientific assessments produced by that office use only computer-generated climate models that project the impact of climate change through 2040, rather than through the end of the century, as had been done previously. Scientists say that would give a misleading picture because the biggest effects of current emissions will be felt after 2040. Models show that the planet will most likely warm at about the same rate through about 2050. From that point until the end of the century, however, the rate of warming differs significantly with an increase or decrease in carbon emissions. The administrations prime target has been the , produced by an interagency task force roughly every four years since 2000. Government scientists used computer-generated models in their most recent report to project that if fossil fuel emissions continue unchecked, the earths atmosphere could warm by as much as eight degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century. That would lead to drastically higher sea levels, more devastating storms and droughts, crop failures, food losses and severe health consequences. Work on the next report, which is expected to be released in 2021 or 2022, has already begun. But from now on, officials said, such worst-case scenario projections will not automatically be included in the National Climate Assessment or in some other scientific reports produced by the government. What we have here is a pretty blatant attempt to politicize the science to push the science in a direction thats consistent with their politics, said Philip B. Duffy, the president of the Woods Hole Research Center, who served on a National Academy of Sciences panel that reviewed the governments most recent National Climate Assessment. It reminds me of the Soviet Union. In an email, James Hewitt, a spokesman for the Environmental Protection Agency, defended the proposed changes. The previous use of inaccurate modeling that focuses on worst-case emissions scenarios, that does not reflect real-world conditions, needs to be thoroughly re-examined and tested if such information is going to serve as the scientific foundation of nationwide decision-making now and in the future, Mr. Hewitt said. However, the goal of political appointees in the Trump administration is not just to change the climate assessments methodology, which has broad scientific consensus, but also to question its conclusions by creating a new climate review panel. That effort is led by a 79-year-old physicist who had a respected career at Princeton but has become better known in recent years for attacking the science of man-made climate change and for defending the virtues of carbon dioxide sometimes to an awkward degree. The demonization of carbon dioxide is just like the demonization of the poor Jews under Hitler, the physicist, , who serves on the National Security Council as the presidents deputy assistant for emerging technologies, . Mr. Happers proposed panel is backed by John R. Bolton, the presidents national security adviser, who brought Mr. Happer into the N.S.C. after an earlier effort to recruit him during the transition. Mr. Happer and Mr. Bolton are both beneficiaries of Robert and Rebekah Mercer, the far-right billionaire and his daughter who have funded efforts to debunk climate science. The Mercers gave money to a super PAC affiliated with Mr. Bolton before he entered government and to an advocacy group headed by Mr. Happer. Climate scientists are dismissive of Mr. Happer; his former colleagues at Princeton are chagrined. And several White House officials including Larry Kudlow, the presidents chief economic adviser have urged Mr. Trump not to adopt Mr. Happers proposal, on the grounds that it would be perceived as a White House attack on science. Even Stephen K. Bannon, the former White House strategist who views Mr. Happer as the climate hustlers worst nightmare a world-class physicist from the nations leading institution of advanced learning, who does not suffer fools gladly, is apprehensive about what Mr. Happer is trying to do. The very idea will start a holy war on cable before 2020, he said. Better to win now and introduce the study in the second inaugural address. But at a White House meeting on May 1, at which the skeptical advisers made their case, Mr. Trump appeared unpersuaded, people familiar with the meeting said. Mr. Happer, they said, is optimistic that the panel will go forward. The concept is not new. Mr. Trump has pushed to resurrect the idea of a series of military-style exercises, , on the validity of climate science first promoted by Scott Pruitt, the E.P.A. administrator who . At the time, , then the White House chief of staff. But since Mr. Kellys departure, Mr. Trump has talked about using Mr. Happers proposed panel as a forum for it. For Mr. Trump, climate change is often the subject of mockery. Wouldnt be bad to have a little of that good old fashioned Global Warming right now! when a snowstorm was freezing much of the country. His views are influenced mainly by friends and donors like Carl Icahn, the New York investor who owns oil refineries, and the oil-and-gas billionaire Harold Hamm both of whom pushed Mr. Trump to deregulate the energy industry. transcript From The New York Times, Im Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today, from the start, the Trump administration has tried to dismantle regulations aimed at curbing climate change. Now, in its latest attack, the administration is trying to dismantle climate science. Its Wednesday, May 29. Coral, tell me about what happened in November of last year. In November of 2018, the federal government put out whats known as the National Climate Assessment. This is a huge, sweeping comprehensive assessment of the impact of climate change on the U.S. Its over 1,000 pages long. Its prepared by 13 federal agencies. It takes about four years to prepare. Its a huge deal every time one of these comes out, because it is absolutely considered the most up to date, comprehensive, authoritative understanding of the impact of climate change on the U.S. And its a big deal when it comes out in the U.S. Its a big deal around the world, because its also considered one of the most authoritative climate science documents in the world. So this is kind of like the Bible of U.S. climate science? Yes, exactly. Coral Davenport covers environmental policy for The Times. And so what the Trump administration decided to do with this is essentially to bury it. They are mandated by law to put it out. Theres a law that says the agencies have to put it out every four years. But they decided to put it online at about 2:00 or 3:00 PM on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. So at a moment when just about everybody is either literally on vacation or on some vacation of the mind? Yes. The people who were not on vacation were climate journalists. When most Americans are tucking into turkey leftovers and waiting in line for Black Friday sales, the government has released a huge report on the impact of climate change. The strategy of trying to bury it didnt work at all. The report wasnt expected to be made public until next month, leading some to wonder if Fridays release was an attempt to bury the story. Mainly because it had such kind of stunning and deeply researched conclusions. A dire new forecast, more frequent and more devastating weather crises on the horizon. For the southeast, stronger hurricanes and more frequent flooding. The Midwest, agricultural catastrophe, extreme heat destroying crops. And in the west, increased fire danger. That predicts hotter temperatures will kill more people. Crop yields will decline dramatically. And ocean acidification will cause millions of dollars in losses to the seafood industry. According to those findings, rising sea levels will threaten public infrastructure and real estate along U.S. coasts. And the impacts of that could be devastating specifically to the United States economy. The report states if greenhouse gases continue to rise, the country will see labor-related losses of $150 billion a year by 2090. Damage to coastal property due to the rise in sea levels and storm surges could reach nearly $120 billion a year. And the report actually found that these impacts could knock as much as 10 percent off the U.S. G.D.P. by the end of the century, which is a huge economic hit. And I think that was the kind of thing that really sort of stunned the administration. Essentially, the conclusions of this report totally undermine the policy agenda, the regulatory agenda of this administration. This administrations policy agenda, very specifically, is about, literally, emitting more greenhouse gas emissions. Were eliminating unnecessary regulations so we can create more jobs and wealth right here in America. Ive ended the Obama administrations war on coal. And were putting our wonderful coal miners back to work, producing beautiful clean coal. Under President Trump, we have seen the rollback of a couple of key greenhouse gas emissions regulations that were put in place in the Obama administration. One is a major E.P.A. regulation on greenhouse gas pollution from vehicles. Regulations put in place by the Obama administration call for new vehicles to get 36 miles per gallon by 2025. The Trump administration says thats too high. Theres another major E.P.A. regulation from the Obama administration that would have drastically reduced greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants, leading to shutdown of power plants, freezing construction of future power plants. The Trump administration is rolling that back. Presidents move ends a moratorium on coal mining on federal land and eases restrictions on coal-fired power plants. And the interior department is rolling back protections on public lands and federal waters in order to not just allow but aggressively promote the exploration and extraction of more fossil fuels, more oil, more gas, more coal, with the specific intent of driving the consumption and the burning of more fossil fuels, producing more greenhouse gases. I mean, this is a very explicit policy agenda. And this report says the results of this policy agenda are going to devastate the U.S. economy. I mean, these two sets of facts are in total conflict. So not only does this report make the case that these policies will worsen carbon emissions and therefore be bad for the environment, but this report is suggesting that these policies that are meant to strengthen the U.S. economy will, because of the environmental damage that they will inflict, actually hurt it. Precisely. So what happens after this, for the Trump administration, pretty embarrassing report comes out? Well, at first, the White House and the president slammed it. I dont believe it. You dont believe it? No, no. I dont believe it. And then kind of tried to move on from it. And that was kind of what happened with the public face at the White House. In the background, its important to remember that this is kind of a moment where there was a transition happening among top Trump environmental officials. Previously, we had seen top officials like Scott Pruitt, who was the first head of the E.P.A. under Trump who had spent his tenure pretty much constantly fighting off accusations of scandal and corruption. Or Ryan Zinke, the former Secretary of the Interior, same thing, was forced to resign after multiple allegations of scandal as well. These guys had been these big, high-profile, very politically flashy officials. They had left. And their replacements were these two senior officials who were much less flashy, much less scandal-plagued, much less in the headlines, not public figures, but really, really smart at the inside Washington game. The new head of the E.P.A. is Andrew Wheeler, who is a former coal lobbyist who has also worked as a senior official on the Hill, also worked in the E.P.A. in the George W. Bush administration. David Bernhardt is the new Secretary of the Interior. He used to be an oil lobbyist. Used to work at the Interior Department under the George W. Bush administration. These are guys who arent trying to pursue political careers in a big way. They do know how to pull the levers and get policy done. These guys and some of the other top officials look at this report and say, theres a bigger problem here. This is not just embarrassing. This is not just a couple of bad headlines for us. And this is why. Lawyers looking to fight these Trump regulatory rollbacks can use this document in court, in the Supreme Court, essentially saying, look, if your own administration says adding more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere hurts the U.S. economy, how can you make the legal justification to put more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The law says you cant do these regulatory changes if theyre going to substantially hurt the economy. Theres a very clear legal argument to be made. And so these guys are kind of realizing this is a big problem for us, the fact that this thing is out there and exists, and were trying to do this policy agenda. This is more than just embarrassing. So in other words, theyre seeing this report as a potential legal blueprint for their opponents to challenge their policies in court. Opponents of these policies have already said explicitly that once these regulatory rollbacks are done and they go to court, they absolutely intend to use this report to challenge them all the way up to the Supreme Court. Hmm. So they will take this giant climate report, the one that the Trump administration doesnt like but know by law it has to put out. And they will introduce this as evidence that these regulatory rollbacks should be invalidated? Exactly. So what do these officials in the Trump administration do once they realize that this legal exposure exists? Well, they cant do anything about the current report. Thats out there. Thats done. But they start thinking, all right, well, work on the next report, which is coming out in four years, has just started. And they can change the outcome, they think, of the next scientific report. Well, how exactly does that work? Because you cant exactly change climate science. Right. And theyre not saying were going to fundamentally change the methods by which we do climate science, because, keep in mind, its not just the National Climate Assessment. Thats the major report thats put out by the federal government. But the federal government does climate science reports across the agencies. So they are having a discussion that asks the question, how much information can we leave out. How much does the public really need to know? Well be right back. So Coral, what does the Trump administration decide to do to limit what makes it into these official government reports on climate science? Theres a couple of different ways that this is happening. In one agency, the U.S. Geological Survey, all they do is scientific reports. Theyre inside the Interior Department. There is a new policy in place already happening that all of that climate science and all their reports have to include some element of how climate change impacts public lands and waters and the different things that they do. Theres a new policy that climate projections cant go past the year 2040. Whats significant about that? If you look at a climate science model, a projection, whats going to be the impact of the warming planet. If you look at those, the worst impacts, the biggest difference all happen past 2050. After 2050, thats when you start to see the really dramatic bad impacts of a lot more greenhouse gases. So this policy of saying, our climate science is not going to include any projections after 2040 creates, essentially, scientists say, a falsely optimistic, falsely positive idea. It doesnt show you the bad stuff that happens if we keep polluting. So the worst this, the worst impacts of the emissions policies that are currently being pursued by the Trump administration would make themselves apparent in projections after 2040. And what this proposal would do is just keep those projections before 2040 and therefore keep the worst, most dire predictions out of these reports? Precisely. And this isnt a proposal. This is already happening at the U.S. Geological Survey, which is a scientific agency inside the Interior Department. O.K., so what else is the administration doing to limit the publics exposure to this information in these reports? So theres another major proposal, and this is more of a proposal. This hasnt happened yet. Specifically focused on the National Climate Assessment. In these big climate science reports, theres usually a range of options based on how much greenhouse pollution goes into the atmosphere. Theres a worst case scenario, things get really hot, things get really bad. And then theres a best case scenario, we keep the worst of it under control, we just warm up a little bit, things arent so bad. And then theres usually a couple of middle scenarios. So the proposal is essentially: dont include the worst case scenario. Just lop it off? Lop it off. With the goal, once again, of shielding people from the worst case scenarios of what these policies might do? Precisely. And whats really remarkable about this proposal is that the scenario that theyre proposing to lop off is the most likely scenario, given that this administration is putting in place policies that will specifically lead to the business as usual, higher greenhouse gas emissions outcome. So the administration is figuring out a way to make the science obscure the long-term realities of climate change? Yes. Ive been reporting on climate policy for over 10 years. And a story that weve written a lot is, despite the fact that President Trump has mocked climate science, withdrew from the Paris Accord, wants to roll back these regulations, weve actually written a lot of stories that say, you know what, they havent messed with the science. And we wrote that story when they put out the National Climate Assessment last fall. They tried to bury it. They made fun of it. But they didnt mess with the science. And so this is something really new. And I talked with a scientist who had worked on the National Climate Assessment who said, what is really concerning here is that the numbers put out by the U.S. government should be absolutely reliable, whether theyre about the economy, whether theyre scientific reports. They should be so reliable as to almost be boring. And what this scientists said to me is, in totalitarian regimes, in the Soviet Union, when governments put out reports and numbers, people kind of laugh at them, because they know theyre just sort of cooked up to support a political agenda. And he said, I see the very, very beginnings of that here in a way that we have not seen before. So Coral, how openly is the Trump administration pursuing this strategy? Because trying to hide science doesnt seem like something that any government agency would do very publicly. And yet, Michael, surprisingly, theyre pretty open about it. Trump administration officials have publicly criticized these climate models. Theyve called the worst case scenarios highly unreliable and inaccurate. So they are sort of standing up for what theyre doing and saying, no, this will lead to more accurate, more careful, more thoughtful climate science reports, even though these are statements highly at odds with a vast consensus by the actual climate science community. But interestingly, theyre pretty open about it. They dont seem to be running away from it. Coral, what are the implications of the changes that youve just laid out, to shift the way we present science and, I suppose, even collect it? So the first is that, if these reports start to come out this way, with big blocks of information that have been cut out, the reports will present a falsely optimistic picture of what the future will look like, despite the increase of planet warming greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Thats the first step. The second step though, is that they will be so at odds with the rest of climate science being produced in academia and around the world that we will start to see U.S. science discredited. But what about the whole reason this strategy exists, which is an attempt by the Trump administration to limit the legal exposure that you describe, to make it harder for people to challenge their policies by putting out less climate science data? Michael, that absolutely is the strategy. Im not sure how well it will work. And the reason is if they put out reports that present a picture that is misleading, that is falsely optimistic, and it is totally at odds with the vast majority of other climate science being produced around the country and the world and that is not considered valid, Im not sure how good of a legal weapon these new reports will be. It is very much the thinking that this will be their defense. But I dont know how far you get when youre messing with science. I feel like beyond the legal implications, this presents a number of interesting questions. For example, if the U.S. government stops reporting certain pieces of climate science, does that mean that it stops collecting it? Does that mean that it gets harder and harder to create objective comparisons over time, because what was in the report four years ago isnt in the next one? And does it just create greater skepticism of climate science if the government is no longer considered the great authority on this? I think, yes, it will create greater skepticism of climate science. The U.S. government is one of the greatest research bodies in the world. And so if the U.S. government is not doing this research, its not that it wont get done. It will continue to be done by universities. It will be continued to be done by other governments around the world. But this is some of the best and most authoritative research. Reports like the National Climate Assessment are used and evaluated by scientific agencies and governments all around the world. If the U.S. government is not creating these scenarios, is not collecting climate data, then, yes, there will start to be much bigger holes in our understanding. It will just mean we wont have this data. I wonder then, is it possible, Coral, that the point of this is just kind of dead simple, that the Trump administration is trying to make this problem of climate change seem not so bad so that it can push its policy agenda through without much opposition from the public. I think thats right, Michael. I mean, yes, the idea is these are big reports that get a lot of attention and heighten this intense sense of urgency. And when the last Climate Assessment report came out last fall, it absolutely fueled climate activism. And I think the thinking is, well, when we put out the next one, lets have it not do that. I mean, in some ways, it is very simple. If theres not as much of a problem, then what were doing is fine. Even if it fundamentally changes our ability to understand the actual science of climate change? I think that this is not an issue that senior officials in the Trump administration are losing any sleep over. And in fact, thats exactly what the Secretary of the Interior department David Bernhardt said when he was recently asked in congressional testimony about his agencys role in dealing with climate change. He told members of Congress, Im not really losing any sleep over it. I was reading the newspaper this week. And it hit the headlines two days ago that carbon dioxide levels hit 415 parts per million, which is the highest in human history, the highest in 800,000 years. And that was, of course, when there were no humans, the last time it hit that kind of level. And so my question for you is, on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the most concerned, whats your number for how concerned you are about us hitting 415 parts per million of carbon dioxide? I havent lost any sleep over it. Coral, thank you very much. Michael, thank you so much. Heres what else you need to know today. On Tuesday, in a closely watched case, the Supreme Court chose not to rule on the constitutionality of an Indiana law that restricts abortion. The law, which prohibited abortions based on sex, race and disabilities like Down syndrome, was passed when Vice President Mike Pence was Indianas governor and was later struck down by lower courts. The case would have given the Supreme Court its first chance since the confirmation of justice Brett Kavanaugh to determine the legality of state laws limiting abortion. Thats it for The Daily. Im Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow. Mr. Trumps daughter Ivanka made a well-publicized effort . But after being vanquished by officials including Mr. Bannon, Mr. Pruitt, former Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the former White House counsel Donald F. McGahn II, there is little evidence she has resisted his approach since then. The presidents advisers amplify his disregard. At the meeting of the eight-nation Arctic Council this month, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo dismayed fellow diplomats by because of its untapped reserves of oil, gas, uranium, gold, fish and rare-earth minerals. The melting sea ice, he said, was opening up new shipping routes. That is one of the most crude messages one could deliver, said R. Nicholas Burns, who served as the NATO ambassador under George W. Bush. At the National Security Council, under Mr. Bolton, officials said they had been instructed to strip references to global warming from speeches and other formal statements. But such political edicts pale in significance to the changes in the methodology of scientific reports. Mr. Reilly, the head of the Geological Survey, who does not have a background in climate change science, characterized the changes as an attempt to prepare more careful, accurate reports. Were looking for answers with our partners and to get statistical significance from what we understand, he said. Yet scientists said that by eliminating the projected effects of increased carbon dioxide pollution after 2040, the Geological Survey reports would present an incomplete and falsely optimistic picture of the impact of continuing to burn unlimited amounts of coal, oil and gasoline. The scenarios in these reports that show different outcomes are like going to the doctor, who tells you, If you dont change your bad eating habits, and you dont start to exercise, youll need a quadruple bypass, but if you do change your lifestyle, youll have a different outcome, said Katharine Hayhoe, the director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University and an author of the National Climate Assessment. Not all government science agencies are planning such changes. A spokesman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, asked if its scientists would limit the use of climate models, wrote in an email, No changes are being considered at this time. The push to alter the results of at least some climate science reports, several officials said, came after Novembers release of the second volume of the National Climate Assessment. While the Trump administration did not try to rewrite the scientific conclusions of the report, officials sought to play it down and discredit it, with a White House statement calling it largely based on the most extreme scenario. Still, the report could create legal problems for Mr. Trumps agenda of abolishing regulations. This summer, the E.P.A. is expected to finalize the legal rollback of two of President Barack Obamas most consequential policies: federal regulations to curb planet-warming pollution from and . Opponents say that when they challenge the moves in court, they intend to point to the climate assessment, asking how the government can justify the reversals when its own agencies have concluded that the pollution will be so harmful. That is why officials are now discussing how to influence the conclusions of the next National Climate Assessment. Theyve started talking about how they can produce a report that doesnt lead to some silly alarmist predictions about the future, said Myron Ebell, who heads the energy program at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, an industry-funded research organization, and who led the administrations transition at the E.P.A. A key change, he said, would be to emphasize historic temperatures rather than models of future atmospheric temperatures, and to eliminate the worst-case scenarios of the effect of increased carbon dioxide pollution sometimes referred to as business as usual scenarios because they imply no efforts to curb emissions. Scientists said that eliminating the worst-case scenario would give a falsely optimistic picture. Nobody in the world does climate science like that, said Michael Oppenheimer, a professor of geosciences and international affairs at Princeton. It would be like designing cars without seatbelts or airbags. Outside the United States, climate scientists had long given up on the White House being anything but on outlier in policy. But they worry about the loss of the government as a source for reliable climate research. It is very unfortunate and potentially even quite damaging that the Trump administration behaves this way, said Johan Rockstrom, the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany. There is this arrogance and disrespect for scientific advancement this very demoralizing lack of respect for your own experts and agencies.