Republican attorneys general are warning that taxpayer-funded science may already be helping climate activists rig billion-dollar cases against American energy companies.
A coalition of Republican attorneys general, led by Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, is urging the Trump administration to suspend federal funding to the National Academies of Sciences, arguing that activists behind the climate suits helped shape the scientific materials judges rely on.
Courts are supposed to weigh evidence, not absorb activist spin dressed up as neutral science. But the attorneys general say scientific guidance carrying the National Academies’ stamp is being used in cases that could cost energy producers billions.
If that line has been crossed, this is not just another climate fight. It is a warning that activists who could not win through Congress may be trying to bend the courts instead.
“Allowing advocacy driven science to shape materials relied upon by courts threatens the expectation of impartial evidence in the judicial process,” the attorneys general wrote while requesting a review of federal funding tied to the National Academies.
Left-wing states and cities have spent years trying to use the courts to make oil and gas companies pay not just financially, but morally, for climate change.
These are not marginal cases. They go straight at the American energy sector, and the money at stake could run into the billions.
To make those cases work, plaintiffs need judges to buy sweeping scientific claims about who caused what, and who should pay for it. That means courts are being asked to sort through expert arguments that most ordinary people, and many judges, are not equipped to untangle on their own.
Judges are not climate scientists. When complex technical disputes land in court, they are forced to rely on outside institutions to help interpret the science.
When judges need help reading complicated science, they turn to outside institutions that are supposed to be neutral. The attorneys general say some of those institutions may not be as clean as they appear.
The National Academies has produced workshops and materials meant to help courts sort through scientific disputes. One workshop summary makes clear how often judges now face cases built around complicated scientific claims.
“Judges increasingly confront scientific and technical evidence in emerging fields that require careful interpretation,” the workshop summary explains while describing the growing challenge courts face.
That kind of authority carries weight. Judges may not treat it as gospel, but they are expected to treat it as credible, sober, and above the political fight.
That is exactly why the attorneys general are drawing a hard line here. These institutions are supposed to help courts sort fact from spin. They are not supposed to smuggle one side’s assumptions into the rulebook and call it science.
The concern gets sharper when you look at the broader push behind these cases. The Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University has been deeply involved in tracking and supporting climate lawsuits in the United States and abroad.
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This is not random. It is organized and sustained, and it aims to use the courts to force outcomes that activists have struggled to win from elected lawmakers.
If the same activists pushing these cases are also helping shape the scientific material courts are told to trust, the problem is not just bias.
The problem is capture.
A recent editorial described the strategy as an effort to drive climate policy through the courts instead of through elected lawmakers.
“Climate activists increasingly seek to impose energy policy through the courts rather than through the legislative process,” the editorial wrote while examining the rise of climate cases against energy companies.
The attorneys general say taxpayer-funded research should never become a weapon in that effort.
“Federal funds should not support efforts that could influence ongoing litigation or shape scientific evidence presented to courts,” the attorneys general wrote in requesting a review of federal funding relationships.
Their request asks federal agencies to examine whether public funds support research that overlaps with climate cases now moving through the courts.
Whether the administration acts is one question.
The bigger one is whether the damage is already underway.
If the attorneys general are right, this is no longer just a fight over climate policy. It is a fight over whether activist science is being slipped into American courtrooms under the label of neutrality.
If that is happening, the courts are not refereeing the climate fight. They are becoming another battlefield.
Editor's Note: Unelected federal judges are hijacking President Trump's agenda and insulting the will of the people.
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