25 GOP AGs Demand Federal Grants Be Suspended Over National Academies’ Climate Activism

A coalition of 25 Republican state attorneys general is urging the Trump administration and Congress to suspend federal grants to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), accusing the influential science organization of using taxpayer money to advance left-wing climate activism.

In a letter sent Thursday to several Trump cabinet secretaries and congressional committees, the AGs detailed a series of actions by NASEM that they say demonstrate bias and a lack of scientific objectivity. The letter, reported by the Capital Research Center, highlights two recent instances that the AGs argue warrant suspension or debarment of the organization from receiving federal funding.

Controversial Climate Chapter

The first issue involves NASEM’s role in producing the fourth edition of the Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence, a joint project with the taxpayer-funded Federal Judicial Center (FJC) meant to provide judges with neutral guidance on complex scientific topics. The manual’s “Reference Guide on Climate Science” came under fire for being saturated with citations to left-wing climate activists and advocates, leading the FJC to retract the chapter in February after a wave of backlash.

NASEM, however, kept the guide online until earlier this month, when it announced it would temporarily remove the climate section while conducting an “independent review” of the process used to create it. That announcement followed President Trump’s order for federal suspension and debarment officials to “review” the matter.

But the attorneys general are skeptical of NASEM’s review, calling it “a sham” in their letter. They argue that a genuine independent review would involve an external panel, exclude activists and litigants, publish its process and findings, and directly address the criticisms leveled at the chapter.

“Critics have demonstrated that the Chapter materially misquotes the [UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change], directly contradicts the manual’s statistics chapter, was apparently substantially ghost-written by climate plaintiffs’ attorney Michael Burger, and had funders, authors, and reviewers that included climate funders, activists, and litigation participants,” the AGs wrote.

They added that NASEM’s “destruction of its own credibility” and its response to criticism “warrant debarment or suspension by federal agencies.”

July Report Tied to Supreme Court Case

The AGs also took aim at a July NASEM report titled “Attribution of Extreme Weather and Climate Events and Their Impacts 2026.” They allege the report was “funded, led,” and influenced by “climate-litigation supporters” and was released to give a boost to plaintiffs in an upcoming Supreme Court case, Suncor Energy v. County Commissioners of Boulder County, which involves lawsuits against fossil fuel companies.

According to the letter, NASEM timed the report’s release so that the plaintiffs in Suncor could cite it in their Supreme Court briefs, while the defendants’ filing deadline had already passed. The AGs point to a “convenient coincidence”: one amicus group supporting the plaintiffs bragged about the timing, cited the report on ten pages of its brief, and received $100 million from the Bezos Earth Fund—which also funded NASEM’s report.

“Agencies may wish to look further into the nature of this convenient coincidence,” the letter reads.

Call for New Adviser

The AGs argue that taxpayer dollars should not be subsidizing NASEM’s “biased actions” and urge federal agencies to consider suspension or debarment. They also call on Congress to identify an alternative entity for “objective analysis” and to consider revoking NASEM’s charter as the federal government’s designated adviser.

The case at the center of the controversy, Suncor v. Boulder, is scheduled to be argued before the Supreme Court on Oct. 5.

Source: thefederalist.com — https://thefederalist.com/2026/08/28/after-climate-activism-scandal-25-state-ags-push-feds-to-suspend-grants-to-national-science-org/