The Trump administration has cut funding and staffing for a program that oversees the highest federal report on how global warming is affecting the country, raising concerns among scientists that assessments are currently at risk.
Congress requires the federal government to prepare a report formally known as the National Climate Assessment every four years. It analyzes the effects of rising temperatures on human health, agriculture, energy production, water resources, transportation, and other aspects of the US economy. The final evaluation was published in 2023 and is being used by state and city governments and private companies in preparation for global warming.
The climate assessment is overseen by the Global Change Research Program, a federal group founded by Congress in 1990, and is supported by NASA, and coordinates efforts between 14 federal agencies, the Smithsonian agency, and hundreds of external scientists to produce reports.
On Tuesday, NASA issued stopwork orders in two separate agreements with ICF International, a consulting company that supplied most of the technical support and staffing for the Global Change Research Program. ICF originally signed a five-year contract worth more than $33 million in 2021, providing about 20 staff members who worked on the program along with detailed federal employees from other agencies.
Scientists say it is unclear how the assessment could advance without ICF support.
“The University of Illinois has been involved in past climate assessments,” said Donald Wibbulls, professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Illinois. However, he added that “it is still mandatory by the Congress.”
In a statement, a NASA spokesperson said the agency is “rationalizing contracts that provide technical, analytical and programmatic support for the US Global Change Research Program.” She added that NASA is planning to work with the White House to understand “the best way to support Congress-mandated programs and how to increase the efficiency of the 14 institutions and advisory committees supporting this effort.”
The cancellation of the contract came just after conservative news website DailyWire reported on the central role of ICF in helping to create a national climate assessment in an article entitled “Government Consultants Gathered to Propagate Millions of Climate.”
The ICF did not respond to requests for comment. The cancellation was first reported by Politico.
Many climate scientists have already expected that the next national climate assessment scheduled for 2027 or 2028 would be very likely to be in trouble.
Trump has long dismissed climate change as a hoax. And Russell Vought, the current director of the Office of Business and Budget, wrote before the election that the next president should “restructure” the global change research program, as scientific reports on climate change were often used as the basis for environmental litigation that constrained federal government actions.
During Trump's first term, his administration failed to attempt to derail the nation's climate assessment. When the 2018 report was released and concluded that global warming had posed an imminent and disastrous threat, the administration released it the day after Thanksgiving to minimize gratitude.
“We were totally expecting this,” said Jesse Keenan, an associate professor at the Tulane School of Architecture, author of the National Climate Assessment chapter on how climate change affects human structure. “Things were already in a very suspicious state,” he said.
Climate assessments are usually compiled by scientists across the country who volunteer to write reports. It then passes several reviews and public comments by 13 federal agencies. The government does not pay the scientists themselves, but they do pay for the adjustment work.
In February, scientists submitted a detailed summary of the following assessment to the White House for initial review: However, that review has been put on hold and the agency's comment period has been postponed.
Rud Keith, an associate professor at the University of Arizona, specializing in extreme thermal governance and urban planning, helped write the chapter for the Southwest of the United States. He said that while outside scientists could do their own research, much of the value of the report came from federal involvement.
“The strength of the National Climate Assessment is that we are experiencing this in-depth review by all federal agencies and the public,” Dr. Keith said. “That's not like a lot of scholars coming together and reporting. There's already a lot.”
Catherine Hayho, a climate scientist at Texas Institute of Technology, said the assessment is essential to understanding how climate change affects everyday life in the United States.
“It takes that global issue and brings it closer to us,” Dr. Hayho said. “If you care about food, water, transportation, insurance or my health, this is what climate change means if I live in the southwest or the Great Plains. That's the value.”
Austyn Gaffney and Lisa Friedman contributed the report.
