What a recent court win reveals about the Trump administration’s unlawful attacks on climate science

Bulletin, By Rachel Cleetus | Opinion | March 18, 2026

The second Trump administration is taking its hostility to climate science to new levels. In addition to its rhetoric dismissing climate change as a con or scam, recently released government documents show how the administration is seeking to replace scientific facts with propaganda and disinformation.

The Environmental Defense Fund and the Union of Concerned Scientists recently won a court case against the administration which forced it to release of a trove of government documents related to a secretive “Climate Working Group” illegally convened by Energy Secretary Chris Wright. These documents show that the Trump administration secretly enlisted a handpicked group of climate contrarians to write a biased climate report specifically designed to undermine the EPA’s Endangerment Finding. This science-based finding establishes the known harms to human health and well-being from global warming pollution, facts that were clear in 2009 and even more so today, as affirmed by a recent National Academies report……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Propaganda and disinformation about climate science are now the official position of the US government. Meanwhile, scientists confirm that the world is on the verge of overshooting 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming within the next few years. Costly and deadly climate impacts—extreme heatwaves, record-breaking floods, intensified storms, catastrophic wildfires—are worsening, and the risks of irreversible, multi-century harms are growing. And yet this deeply anti-science administration continues to prop up fossil fuel interests rather than protecting people’s safety and the health of the planet.

The successful Federal Advisory Committee Act lawsuit has resulted in some crucial wins, including shining a light on the Trump administration’s deceptive tactics to undermine climate science. . And the administration’s harmful actions will continue to be challenged in court. The Union of Concerned Scientists and the Environmental Defense Fund, together with many other groups, have recently joined a lawsuit challenging the unlawful repeal of the endangerment finding. Try as it might, this administration cannot bury the evidence of climate harms so readily apparent to communities across the nation. The American people deserve genuine solutions to the climate crisis, not more self-serving lies.https://thebulletin.org/2026/03/what-a-recent-court-win-reveals-about-the-trump-administrations-unlawful-attacks-on-climate-science/