Trump Picks Climate Denier To Run Climate Change Office

The office, which Trump gutted last year, is responsible for the National Climate Assessment, a report that shows the impact of climate change on Americans 

Washington, DC – Just one year after the Trump administration gutted a governmentwide program that tracks the impacts of climate change on everything from farming, to flooding, to infrastructure, Trump has now appointed a climate denier to run a revamped version. Matthew Wielicki, a geochemist and climate skeptic, is now leading the U.S. Global Change Research Program, which produces the National Climate Assessment — a congressionally mandated report that tracks how Americans are impacted by climate change. This report is frequently cited in litigation as a legal basis for environmental protections. Last year, the Trump administration dismissed all researchers working on the National Climate Assessment, and previous reports were hidden from federal websites. 

This is just the latest move in Trump’s full-scale attacks on climate science. The Trump administration has also deleted climate content from government websites, closed weather data collection offices, and cut funding for climate research. Last summer, the Department of Energy released a report denying climate science written by five researchers handpicked by Energy Secretary Chris Wright. 

Climate Power Communications Director Alex Glass issued the following statement: “Trump calls climate change a ‘hoax,’ and now he’s filling his administration with more climate deniers who put politics over science. Every day, families across the country experience the devastating impacts of climate denial — from more frequent, dangerous extreme weather events to higher costs on electricity bills, groceries, and home insurance. The National Climate Assessment kept revealing evidence that the climate crisis is real and hurting American families — so instead of listening to its warnings, they’re replacing it. That’s not climate policy. It’s damage control. Trump would rather cozy up to corporate polluters and gut climate science than protect Americans. With this move, Trump wants to make it easier for his billionaire buddies to pollute freely.”

From his first days in office, Trump has gutted climate science: 

• The Department of Energy released a report that denied basic tenets of climate science. The report was written by researchers, handpicked by Secretary Chris Wright, who questioned climate science. 
• Trump pulled the U.S. out of a key working group of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, including staff at the U.S. Global Change Research Program and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
• Trump signed an executive order withdrawing the U.S. from the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.
• Under Trump, four of the six U.S. Regional Climate Centers shut down because of a lapse in federal funding.
• The National Science Foundation said it would begin dismantling its deep-ocean observation system, which conducted research on climate change.
• The Forest Service announced it would close 57 of its 77 research facilities that worked on issues including the impacts of wildfires and climate change on forests.
• Trump’s Commerce Department indefinitely suspended work on a NOAA tool that predicted the impact of rising temperatures on the frequency of extreme rainfall.
• The Trump administration cut $4 million in funding for Princeton University’s climate research because the administration determined that the research exposed students to “climate anxiety.”
• The Trump administration deleted climate content from government agency websites.
• The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) erased references to human-caused climate change from its website.
• The EPA delayed greenhouse gas reporting requirements for about 8,200 large polluters until October 2026.