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union of concerned scientists
1,000+ Experts Rip EPA for 'Reckless Dismissal of Established Climate Science'
Repealing the endangerment finding, they wrote, "is contrary to science and the public interest."
Sep 16, 2025
More than 1,000 scientists and other experts on Tuesday sent a letter to US Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin explaining why they "strenuously object" to his effort to repeal the EPA's 2009 "endangerment finding," which has enabled federal climate regulations over the past 15 years.
Amid mounting fears that he would take such action, Zeldin in late July unveiled the rule to rescind the landmark legal opinion that greenhouse gases endanger public health and the welfare of the American people—part of Republican President Donald Trump's broader pro-polluter agenda.
"As climate scientists, public health experts, and economists, we can attest to the indisputable scientific evidence of human-caused climate change, its harmful impacts on people’s health and well-being, and the devastating costs it is imposing on communities across the nation and around the world," states the new letter, organized by the Union of Concerned Scientists. "This explicit attempt to undermine or weaken these findings, as well as the critical regulations linked to them, is contrary to science and the public interest."
"We also strongly oppose the EPA’s reckless dismissal of established climate science as part of its proposal to repeal the endangerment finding, including the agency’s heavy reliance on an unscientific study commissioned by the Department of Energy. This report is rife with inaccuracies, deliberately cherry-picks and mischaracterizes data, and has not undergone a rigorous scientific review process," the letter continues, echoing an expert review of the government report from earlier this month.
🚨NEW: Scientists from nearly every state, DC, and Puerto Rico are calling out Trump's Environmental Protection Agency for failing to fulfill their core duties: protect the environment and public health.
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— Union of Concerned Scientists (@ucs.org) September 16, 2025 at 11:17 AM
Citing major US and global analyses, along with thousands of independent, peer-reviewed scientific studies, the letter stresses that "the scientific evidence on human-caused climate change and its consequences was unequivocal in 2009 and, since that time, has become even more dire and compelling."
It says that "based on the best available science," scientists know:
- Climate change poses severe harms to human health and well-being;
- Climate change is clearly increasing the likelihood of extreme events; and
- The economic toll of climate change is rising.
Harms to human health and well-being include higher rates of heat-related deaths, increased spread of some infectious diseases, and decreased food and water safety due to climate-fueled extreme weather events, the letter says. It also highlights that, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), "billion-dollar disasters in the United States are on the rise, driven by a combination of climate factors and increased development in disaster-prone areas."
Despite such findings, the Trump administration is making various moves to boost the planet-wrecking fossil fuel industry and the president withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreement—again—when he returned to office in January. Parties to the 2015 climate agreement aim to limit global temperature rise this century to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels.
🌎🧪Over 1,000+ scientists joined together to defend the EPA's Endangerment Finding, and you have SIX DAYS to make your voice heard too.
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— Union of Concerned Scientists (@ucs.org) September 16, 2025 at 11:17 AM
"The world stands on the cusp of breaching the 1.5°C (2.7°F) mark on a long-term basis, the global average temperature increase above preindustrial levels that scientists have long warned about," the experts noted Tuesday. "Communities across the nation are already dealing with devastating and costly climate impacts, that are set to worsen as global warming accelerates. Humanity's window to act to stave off some of the worst impacts of climate change is fast closing; any further delay is harmful and costly."
"We urge you to stop dismantling critical climate regulations and evading EPA's responsibility by pushing disinformation about climate science and impacts," they concluded. "Instead, we call on you to act with urgency to help address this pressing challenge by limiting heat-trapping emissions. People across the nation are relying on the EPA to fulfill its mission to protect public health and the environment."
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'Dumbest People in History': Critics Shred Trump Energy Department Comments on Wind, Solar
"That such an obviously false and, frankly, asinine tweet was just issued by a federal government account is an insult to the American people," said one critic.
Sep 08, 2025
Critics over the weekend heaped scorn on the US Department of Energy after it made demonstrably false claims about renewable energy.
In a post on X late last week, the Department of Energy (DOE) argued that "wind and solar energy infrastructure is essentially worthless when it is dark outside, and the wind is not blowing," even though batteries allow the storage of energy from both sources that can be used long after its initial generation.
The post drew immediate ridicule from social media users who expressed astonishment that the people running America's energy policy seem to be woefully ignorant about renewable energy storage.
"We are governed by some of the dumbest people in the history of this country, proudly, unashamedly, openly moronic and ignorant, and I am genuinely not sure how the US ever recovers from this," commented Zeteo editor-in-chief Medhi Hassan. "These people make George W. Bush and Sarah Palin look like savants."
The press office for California Gov. Gavin Newsom sarcastically tried to educate the president's team about how energy storage works.
"We're excited for the Trump administration to learn about BATTERIES (we have them here in California, and they've helped the Golden State shift to green, clean energy AND keep the lights on)," they wrote.
Alex Stapp, the cofounder of the Institute for Progress, also touted California's embrace of renewable energy, and he pointed out that batteries on a given day provide more than a quarter of all energy in the state at peak hours.
Fossil fuel industry watchdog Oil PAC Tracker argued that this kind of ignorant rhetoric about renewable energy was part of a pattern from US Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who is the former CEO of onshore oilfield services company Liberty Energy.
"Secretary Wright should be fired for lying to American people," they wrote. "He profits off this kind of misinformation because he is a fossil fuel executive. Killing clean energy deployment also hurts our economy, makes electricity expensive and increases our power sector emissions."
Meteorologist Matthew Cappucci also leveled the administration for pushing misinformation about renewable energy.
"The fact that such an obviously false and, frankly, asinine tweet was just issued by a federal government account is an insult to the American people," he argued. "Renewables could make up the majority of our energy in a multi-layered system with better energy storage if we actually tried."
The DOE's post came at a time when the Trump administration is shutting down wind and solar power projects across the country and when American's energy bills are rising due in part to increased demands being placed on the electric grid by artificial intelligence data centers.
A report released earlier this month by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis declared that Trump's energy agenda "will fail... unless the White House stops issuing stop-work orders for offshore wind."
The report further added that "renewable energy and dispatchable storage are the only option for adding significant amounts of new generation capacity to the US grid for at least the next five years," while also detailing that there are simply no short-term alternatives for rapidly building up capacity.
Susan Muller, a senior energy analyst, similarly took aim late last month at the administration's order to stop work on the Revolution Wind project off the coast of New England, which she argued would have provided fast relief to people in the region struggling to pay their utility bills.
"This stop-work order from the Trump administration is a lose-lose for pretty much everyone except fossil gas corporations," she said. "Stopping the project could not only cost thousands of jobs and ratepayers real money but have life or death consequences if we lose power in the middle of a cold snap. New England needs homegrown offshore wind energy to keep the lights on and our electricity affordable."
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Report Details 400+ Attacks on Science in First 6 Months of Trump 2.0
"People are already paying the price of these attacks on science: children unnecessarily exposed to lead, families denied clean air, and lives needlessly lost in preventable disease outbreaks," said Union of Concerned Scientists.
Jul 21, 2025
A report published Monday by the Union of Concerned Scientists details how U.S. President Donald Trump "has led a systemic and coordinated attack on science" during the first six months of his second administration as "part of a larger strategy to strip public protections, consolidate power, and remove scientific evidence from policymaking."
The UCS analysis states that the second Trump administration has carried out 402 attacks on science, defined as "an action, statement, or decision that originates from an elected official or political appointee in a federal agency that results in the censoring, manipulation, forging, or misinforming of scientific data, results, or conclusions conducted within the government or with federal funds."
The 402 attacks are nearly double the 207 UCS said that Trump oversaw during his first full term, and over four times the number committed during eight years of George W. Bush's presidency. UCS said the Obama administration carried out 19 attacks on science, while former President Joe Biden oversaw just two attacks.
"This is an illegal power grab—a wholesale attack on the democratic systems upon which this nation was built."
UCS accused the Trump administration of gutting scientific expertise, halting science and innovation, ignoring public input, eliminating independent expertise, and censoring and suppressing scientific information.
"The first six months of President Trump's second term have been characterized by destruction of democratic processes, divisive and vindictive actions, and chaos in federal government agencies," UCS said in a summary of the report. "The Trump administration's actions are not normal. This is an illegal power grab—a wholesale attack on the democratic systems upon which this nation was built."
In the past six months, the Trump administration has systematically and recklessly undermined federal science. Read our new report here: act.ucsusa.org/Trump6Months
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— Union of Concerned Scientists (@ucs.org) July 21, 2025 at 7:26 AM
"People are already paying the price of these attacks on science: children unnecessarily exposed to lead, families denied clean air, and lives needlessly lost in preventable disease outbreaks," UCS noted. "Dismantling science harms every member of the U.S. public—but especially Black, Brown, Indigenous, rural, and low- and-moderate-income communities."
The report offers recommendations "to protect science and the public good," including:
- Passing the Scientific Integrity Act—introduced in February by Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.)—which would require federal agencies to uphold evidence-based policymaking free from political interference;
- Opposing the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act, a bid by Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) to give Congress veto power over regulations based on expert consensus;
- Passing the EXPERTS Act (formerly the Stop Corporate Capture Act), legislation proposed by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) to limit industry influence on science-based rulemaking;
- Strengthening whistleblower protections for federal scientists;
- Restoring diverse, independent, and empowered federal advisory committees; and
- Reinstating and strengthening public participation in rulemaking and other government decision-making processes while restoring public access to censored scientific data.
Darya Minovi, the report's lead author, said that "the pace and severity of the administration's attacks on science is extremely alarming."
"These attacks are about power," she continued. "By silencing science that does not align with its agenda to line the pockets of polluters and billionaires, the Trump administration is stripping the public of its right to information, participation, and protection."
"Science is a cornerstone of democracy," Minovi added. "When science is sidelined, people get hurt. Lawmakers and agency leaders must act with urgency to defend the institutions and people who safeguard our health, environment. and future."
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