In July, the Energy Department released a report challenging many of the mainstream narratives surrounding climate change. The report, which was authored by the Climate Working Group (CWG)—a team of five climate scientists and economists—was drafted to “encourage a more thoughtful and science-based conversation about climate change and energy,” according to Energy Secretary Chris Wright.
“To correct course, we need open, respectful, and informed debate. That’s why I’m inviting public comment on this report,” the energy secretary wrote in the report’s foreword. The publication has indeed opened up debate, garnering nearly 60,000 comments in the Federal Register. But it has also introduced a series of legal challenges against the agency and the CWG.
On Thursday, the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts heard arguments in a lawsuit filed by two environmental groups—the Environmental Defense Fund and Union of Concerned Scientists—against the Energy Department, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the CWG.
The lawsuit argues that when forming the CWG, Wright and the Energy Department violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), which requires federal advisory groups to provide meeting notices and meeting notes to the public, create an approved charter of the group’s mission, and “have a balanced membership in terms of ‘the points of view represented and the functions to be performed by the advisory committee,'” according to the the Congressional Research Service.
Much of the lawsuit focuses on the viewpoint balance of the CWG, with the plaintiffs arguing that “all five authors are well known for holding ‘contrarian views on climate science that are out of step with the mainstream'” and “none of the members represents the consensus view among climate scientists that human activities…have unequivocally caused global warming.” To remedy the lawsuit, the environmental groups are demanding that the working group be disbanded, the report be vacated, and CWG members be prohibited from advising federal agencies until the defendants “comply with all requirements for the group to operate legally as an advisory committee.”
The Energy Department has refuted claims that it violated the FACA, arguing that the CWG is not an advisory group under the law because it was created to “exchange facts or information” with the Energy Department, not to “make recommendations on an identified governmental policy for which specified advice was being sought.” Additionally, the CWG was disbanded on September 3, in a letter sent from Wright to the group’s members, rendering “most of Plaintiffs’ claims…moot due to the CWG’s dissolution.” Even with the CWG officially being shut down, its members will continue to collaborate (outside of the federal government’s scope) and update the report, according to Bloomberg.
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