PRESS

Lauren Kurtz, executive director of the New York-based Climate Science Legal Defense Fund, is not directly involved in Helmig's case, but said the circumstances sound familiar.

Along with the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund, the Sabin Center has been tracking the erosion of climate science under Trump using their “Silencing Science Tracker.”

Kate Marvel, an associate research scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, recommended... the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund, which combats “the war on science.”

The nonprofit Climate Science Legal Defense Fund (CSLDF) was created eight years ago to help climate scientists fight back against politically-motivated and industry-funded harassment.

Lauren Kurtz, executive director of the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund, told Eos in a statement that the group supports the bill “because scientific integrity at federal agencies is a critical issue and presently, federal scientific integrity policies are piecemeal at best."

"Prohibiting people from speaking out about climate change, pressuring people not to study climate change, or terminating programs on climate—it's been a very holistic approach to silencing science," said Lauren Kurtz, executive director of the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund.

Lauren Kurtz, executive director of the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund in New York City, said what is happening at the CDC is part of a larger trend of Trump officials telling scientists and nonscientists that they shouldn’t refer to climate change.

Lauren Kurtz – who is tracking evidence of censorship for a database by the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law and Climate Science Legal Defense Fund – said it extends beyond the climate crisis, to pesticide safety and reproductive health.

The nonprofit Climate Science Legal Defense Fund was created seven years ago to help climate scientists fight back against politically-motivated and industry-funded harassment, and has been heavily involved in the Arizona open records case.

“You can imagine if you handed out 38,000 of your emails to people who openly disputed the validity of your work, they might be able to find a phrase or two that they could use to make you look bad, so there were some real concerns about doing that,” says Lauren Kurtz, executive director of the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund, referring to Michael Mann’s experience.

The Scientific Integrity Act is an important step forward for safeguarding scientific integrity at federal agencies, and it improves the legal options available for federal scientists who are facing increasing levels of censorship, research hindrances, and misrepresentation of established facts.

It is essential that Congress exercise their immense powers to protect scientific research by supporting scientists and challenging anti-science efforts by the Trump administration.