Can US courts save the Earth?

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists | Jessica McKenzie | April 23, 2025

Since President Trump was inaugurated in January, he has unleashed a barrage of attacks on federal institutions, employees, laws, and regulations. Agencies that deal with climate, energy, and environmental policy have been on the receiving end of many of these attacks, more than a few of which are of dubious legality and go far beyond anything Trump attempted in his first term…

… As of late March, more than 120,000 federal employees had been fired from federal agencies, including 1,800 from the Department of Energy, 3,400 from the Forest Service, 800 from NOAA, 1,000 from the National Park Service, and 200 from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Many of these employees have been fired twice now, after a judge ruled that the initial firings were illegal, but that agencies could proceed to re-fire employees.

“Their efforts are focused on removing as many federal employees as possible, not in any organized, strategic way, like a controlled demolition or surgery,” Kurtz said. “Just a really sloppy arson job.”

Some of the scientists who have reached out the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund are filing for unemployment and figuring out what comes next, or even contemplating moving abroad. Many of them are younger scientists who only recently entered the workforce and were targeted because, as new hires, they were considered “probationary” and have fewer legal protections.

Kurtz has been referring fired scientists to employment lawyers working on class action lawsuits, training scientists about their First Amendment rights and ways to protect themselves, and connecting scientists whose grants have been frozen or rescinded with legal support.

Read the full story at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.