Key Points:
- The U.S. Federal Judicial Center completely omitted the controversial “Reference Guide on Climate Science” from its official manual for judges.
- The National Academies of Sciences (NASEM) defiantly refused to remove the chapter from its own copyrighted online version of the manual.
- Investigative disclosures revealed that the climate chapter was co-authored by advocates linked to active fossil fuel lawsuits.
- A coalition of 27 state attorneys general has demanded a federal investigation into NASEM’s funding over severe conflicts of interest.
A major ethical and political storm has erupted in Washington over the scientific integrity of the reference materials that federal judges use to evaluate complex lawsuits. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) faces severe backlash for allowing litigation partisans to co-opt a key chapter in its highly influential legal manual. This National Academies of Sciences Controversy has raised deep concerns regarding the weaponization of scientific institutions to predetermine legal outcomes, threatening the constitutional guarantee of an independent and impartial judiciary in high-stakes climate liability cases.
The dispute centers on the Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence, a massive, peer-reviewed guide jointly co-published by NASEM and the Federal Judicial Center (FJC), the research and education arm of the federal courts. For more than thirty years, federal judges and law clerks have relied on this manual as a neutral, dispassionate guide to help them sift through complex scientific evidence and expert testimony in their courtrooms. However, the release of the manual’s fourth edition in late December 2025 introduced a highly controversial, 90-page “Reference Guide on Climate Science” that immediately drew intense scrutiny.
Investigative disclosures revealed that the newly added climate chapter was not written by neutral, objective scientists, but rather by individuals directly tied to the plaintiffs’ bar. The authors of the chapter, Jessica Wentz and Radley Horton, are active fellows at Columbia Law School’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, an advocacy group whose stated mission is to develop legal techniques to combat the climate crisis. The chapter also featured extensive, sometimes unattributed contributions from Michael Burger, the Sabin Center’s executive director who simultaneously works as “of counsel” at a private law firm currently litigating dozens of multi-billion-dollar climate lawsuits against energy companies.
The primary goal of this coordinated text insertion was to establish highly controversial, litigation-driven theories as settled science. The chapter actively instructed federal judges that “attribution studies” aimed at linking specific weather events—such as hurricanes, floods, and heatwaves—to the emissions of specific fossil fuel companies rely on well-established and reliable scientific models. By presenting this highly contested “attribution science” as an undisputed consensus, the authors sought to build a legal blueprint that would make it significantly easier for activist plaintiffs to win massive damage payouts in federal courts.
The discovery of this blatant conflict of interest triggered a swift and powerful backlash from lawmakers and state attorneys general. A coalition of 27 state attorneys general, led by West Virginia Attorney General John McCuskey, sent an urgent letter to the FJC demanding the immediate withdrawal of the chapter. Simultaneously, members of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, led by Chairman Frank Lucas, launched a formal congressional investigation, warning that the manual appeared to have the underlying goal of predisposing federal judges in favor of plaintiffs.
Under intense political and legal pressure, the research arm of the federal courts moved quickly to protect its own institutional credibility. On February 6, FJC Director Judge Robin Rosenberg wrote to state attorneys general confirming that the Federal Judicial Center had completely omitted the controversial climate science chapter from its official online version of the manual. While the FJC did not provide a detailed public explanation for the omission, the rapid removal validated concerns that the chapter crossed the line from neutral explanation into one-sided policy advocacy.
However, NASEM has taken a defiant stance, refusing to implement similar corrective measures despite the FJC’s decisive removal. NASEM President Marcia McNutt has adamantly resisted calls to withdraw the chapter from the organization’s own copyrighted online version of the manual. In a public letter, McNutt defended the chapter’s rigorous peer-review process and insisted that the guide would remain available on NASEM’s digital platforms, creating an unprecedented split between the co-publishers of the manual and leaving judges with two conflicting versions of the same official guide.
The dispute escalated further recently as state attorneys general began targeting NASEM’s federal funding sources. A separate coalition of attorneys general, led by Montana Attorney General Austin Knudson, sent a detailed letter to the Secretaries of Transportation, Defense, and Energy. The letter argues that NASEM’s conflicts of interest and refusal to remove the tainted chapter violate the terms of federal grants. State prosecutors are calling for a formal investigation and a potential cutoff of federal funding or even federal debarment, which would prevent NASEM from receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in federal research contracts.
The ongoing standoff has inflicted severe, lasting damage on NASEM’s reputation as an independent, non-partisan advisory body. Established by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863 to advise the federal government on issues of national importance, the National Academy of Sciences has historically commanded unmatched public trust. By allowing its flagship reference manual to be co-opted by litigation partisans and subsequently receiving funding from partisan climate groups, the academy has compromised its integrity, leading critics to warn that its scientific recommendations must now be read with deep skepticism.
Ultimately, the battle over the judicial science manual highlights the growing danger of activist capture within the nation’s most respected scientific institutions. By allowing a small group of partisan advocates to write a guide designed to influence federal judges, NASEM has undermined the fundamental principle of judicial impartiality. As congressional investigations deepen and the threat of federal funding cuts looms, the academy’s ability to successfully reform its conflict-of-interest policies and restore its scientific neutrality will determine whether it can remain a trusted advisor to the nation or be permanently dismissed as a vehicle for political litigation.
