The Trump administration has reduced funds and staff in the program that supervises the main report of the federal government on how global warming is affecting the country, which raises concerns among scientists that the evaluation is now in danger.
Congress requires the federal government to produce the report, formally known as the national climate evaluation, every four years. Analyzes the effects of the increase in temperatures in human health, agriculture, energy production, water resources, transport and other aspects of the United States economy. The last evaluation came out in 2023 and is used by state and municipal governments, as well as private companies, to prepare for global warming.
The climatic evaluation is supervised by the global change research program, a federal group established by Congress in 1990 that has the support of NASA and coordinates efforts between 14 federal agencies, the Smithsonian institution and hundreds of external scientists to produce the report.
On Tuesday, NASA issued stop orders in two separate contracts with ICF International, a consulting firm that had been providing most of the technical support and staff for the global change research program. ICF had originally signed a five -year contract in 2021 for a value of more than $ 33 million and provided around two dozen staff members who worked in the program with detailed federal employees from other agencies.
Without ICF’s support, scientists said, it is not clear how the evaluation can advance.
“It is difficult to see how they will publish a national climatic evaluation now,” said Donald Wuebbles, a professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences of the University of Illinois that has participated in past climatic evaluations. But, he added, “it is still mandatory for Congress.”
In a statement, a NASA spokeswoman said the agency was “to the rationalization of its contract by providing technical, analytical and programmatic support for the United States global change research program” to align with the executive orders of President Trump. He added that NASA planned to work with the White House to discover “the best way to support the mandatory program with Congress while increasing the efficiencies in the 14 agencies and the advisory committee that supports this effort.”
The cancellation of the contract occurred one day after Daily Wire, a conservative news website, reported on the central role of ICF in helping to produce national climatic evaluation in an article entitled “Know the government consultants in millions to spread climate fatality.”
ICF did not respond to a request for comments. The cancellation was first reported by political.
Many climatic scientists already expected that the next national climatic evaluation, due in 2027 or 2028, was probably in trouble.
Trump has long ruled out climate change as a hoax. And Russell Vought, the current director of the Office of Management and Budget, wrote before the elections that the next president should “remodel” the global change research program, since his scientific reports on climate change were often used as the basis for the environmental demands that limited the actions of the federal government.
During Mr. Trump’s first mandate, his administration tried, but did not fail, derail the evaluation of the national climate. When the 2018 report came out, concluding that global warming raised an imminent and serious threat, the administration made it public after the Thanksgiving day in an apparent attempt to minimize attention.
“We completely anticipate this,” said Jesse Keenan, an associate professor at the Tulane School of Architecture, which was the author of the National Climate Evaluation on how climate change affects the structures made by humans. “Things were already in a very doubtful state,” he said.
Climate evaluation is usually compiled by scientists from all over the country that are offered as volunteers to write the report. Then it goes through several revision rounds by 13 federal agencies, as well as public comments. The government does not pay the scientists themselves, but it does pay for coordination work.
In February, scientists had presented a detailed scheme of the next evaluation to the White House for an initial review. But that review has been waiting, and the agency’s comments period has been postponed.
Ladd Keith, an associated professor at Arizona University specialized in extreme heat governance and urban planning, had been helping to write the chapter in the southwest of the United States. He said that while external scientists were able to conduct research on their own, much of the value of the report came from the participation of the federal government.
“The strength of the evaluation of the national climate is that goes through this detailed review of all federal agencies and the public,” said Dr. Keith. “That is what makes it different from just a group of academics gather and make a report. There are already many of those.”
Katharine Hayhoe, a climatic scientist at the Texas Technological University, said the evaluation was essential to understand how climate change would affect daily life in the United States.
“This global problem is needed and brings us closer to us,” said Dr. Hayhoe. “If I care about food, water or transport or insurance or my health, this is what climate change means to me if I live in the southwest or large plains. That is the value.”
Austyn Gaffney and Lisa Friedman Contributed reports.
