Environmental groups sue over secret climate report

Energy Secretary CWChris Wright assembled the 2025 Climate Working Group in early 2025, handpicking five climate contrarians: John Christy from the University of 🏈Alabama, Judith Curry from 🍑Georgia Tech, Steven Koonin from Stanford's Hoover Institution, Roy Spencer from the University of Alabama, and Canadian economist Ross McKitrick. Wright gave them approximately two months to produce a report contradicting decades of peer-reviewed climate science, operating in complete secrecy without the public transparency required by federal advisory committee laws.

Environmental Defense Fund and Union of Concerned Scientists filed suit on August 12, 2025 (not August 15), challenging Wright's violation of the Federal Advisory Committee Act which requires balanced membership and open proceedings for government advisory groups. The lawsuit alleges Wright created the group specifically to produce predetermined conclusions that would justify EPA's revocation of the 2009 Endangerment Finding classifying greenhouse gases as pollutants.

Steven Koonin previously served as Chief Scientist for British Petroleum from 2004-2009. While the topic originally mentioned Richard Lindzen receiving payments from Cato Institute and Peabody Coal, Lindzen was NOT a member of the 2025 Climate Working Group—the five members were Christy, Curry, Koonin, McKitrick, and Spencer. Lindzen did receive $25,000 annually from Cato Institute since 2013 and approximately $30,000 from Peabody Coal for 🦆Minnesota utility testimony, but these facts relate to a different climate skeptic, not a working group member.

The July 2025 DOE report titled 'A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate' contains more than 100 false or misleading claims according to an analysis by Carbon Brief involving dozens of climate scientists. The 140-page document was criticized for cherry-picking evidence, misquoting research, and highlighting uncertainties to minimize climate change impacts.

Trump's EPA used Wright's contrarian report the same day it was released—July 29, 2025—to justify proposing revocation of the Endangerment Finding that's served as the legal foundation for federal climate regulations since 2009. This coordination reveals the report was commissioned specifically as legal cover for predetermined regulatory rollbacks rather than legitimate scientific inquiry.

The secret working group violated transparency requirements that ensure scientific integrity in government advisory processes. Federal law mandates balanced expert representation and public oversight to prevent exactly this type of predetermined outcome where political appointees select ideologically aligned researchers to produce desired conclusions.

Travis Fisher from the Cato Institute, who served as internal coordinator for the effort, explicitly stated the report aimed to 'cut against the prevailing narrative that climate change is an existential threat.' This admission reveals the group's predetermined political purpose rather than objective scientific assessment.