Trump official who tried to downplay major climate report now will oversee it
E&E News by Politico | March 3, 2025 | Scott Waldman
A former Trump official who alarmed scientists years ago when he attempted to meddle with a congressionally mandated climate report has returned to the White House in a role that’s expected to heavily influence the next version of the assessment.
Stuart Levenbach was tapped last month by administration officials to serve as associate director for natural resources, energy, science, and water in the Office of Management and Budget.
The previous time President Donald Trump was in the White House, Levenbach attempted to tone down the summary conclusions of the National Climate Assessment, a wide-ranging report that relies on the contributions of hundreds of researchers to assess how global warming is transforming the United States….
… During Trump’s first term, White House officials discussed withholding the report. Someone suggested firing the scientists who worked on it, POLITICO’S E&E News previously has reported.
Federal researchers who resisted the pressure of Trump officials to alter the report’s findings were removed from their jobs and reassigned to lesser roles.
That included Virginia Burkett, who was chair of the U.S. Global Change Research Program, which produces the report. Burkett said she refused Levenbach’s attempts to weaken the report’s scientific conclusions, and she has claimed that because of that stance she was removed as chair of the U.S. Global Change Research Program and demoted.
In July 2024, Burkett filed a whistleblower complaint with the Inspector General of the Department of the Interior. She noted that “several retaliatory actions were taken against me” for blocking the change to the National Climate Assessment.
“I led a successful interagency effort to prevent last minute alterations to the report’s Summary Findings by political appointees at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,” she said in a statement. “These proposed changes would have drastically misrepresented the work of more than 300 federal and academic scientists in a report that had been through extensive peer, public and National Academies review.”
That complaint is still open and under investigation, according to the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund, which is working with Burkett.