The National Academies Surprises No One with Climate Review

The Endangerment Finding review by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine is the latest desperate attempts to maintain the climate alarmist status quo.

The National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine have released their review of the Trump EPA’s decision to reverse the Endangerment Finding. With that 2009 finding, the agency gave itself authority to regulate CO₂ in the name of fighting climate change.

To absolutely nobody’s surprise, the Academies panned the move, parroting the climate lobby’s doom and gloom and resisting the administration’s restoration of gold standard science as the basis for policy. The Academies ignore the conflicting and overstated predictions of climate models based on flawed, outdated, and misleading data, and science’s reproducibility crisis, in which identifying politicized research has become a cottage industry. The Academies also appear to bounce back and forth between saying they require the government to request their input to get involved and saying they can proactively offer advice, depending on which suits their agenda at the time.

Federal watchdog Protect the Public’s Trust (PPT) has documented just how politicized public science has become. From the falsehoods of the public health bureaucracy during the pandemic to unfounded pronouncements about “gender affirming care” for gender dysphoric children to the FDA’s capture by special interests.

And the Endangerment Finding wasn’t just based on bad science, but bad civics. The Clean Air Act gave the EPA the authority to regulate pollutants. CO₂ is an integral element, necessary to all life on the planet. Recent public records revealed the Obama administration may have violated the Administrative Procedures Act by predetermining the Endangerment Finding.

Championed by special interests, the Endangerment Finding altered the American economy to the benefit of green nonprofits, consultants, and well-connected individuals. Like the rest of the climate change industry, the Academies depend on climate funding and fear an end to the green gravy train.

“We at PPT know that what we are protecting is a very fragile thing,” said PPT Director Michael Chamberlain “Public trust is easily shattered and self-interested pronouncements from institutions like the National Academies further grind the shards. That’s why the House Oversight# Committee is investigating the Academies. Far from providing reliable scientific advice, the Academies have too often sacrificed their credibility on the altar of progressive policy priorities.”

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