Overview
- On Sunday President Trump directed federal suspension and debarment officials to review conduct tied to a judiciary-facing scientific manual and accused the National Academies of publishing 'discredited' climate guidance.
- The Federal Judicial Center’s climate chapter was removed from its Reference Manual for Scientific Evidence earlier this year after Republican state attorneys general said the text was biased; the chapter was authored in part by Jessica Wentz and Radley Horton of Columbia Law School.
- Suspension and debarment is a legal tool agencies use to pause or ban organizations from receiving federal contracts or grants while investigators probe misconduct, and a debarment could bar the academies from government work for years.
- Conservative officials argue the manual was written to influence multi‑billion‑dollar climate lawsuits and have pushed cutting funding, while defenders say the chapter was neutral guidance to help judges weigh expert testimony.
- What to watch next: which agencies open formal proceedings, whether the academies or the Federal Judicial Center face funding or contract limits, and how any review might affect major pending climate cases headed toward the Supreme Court.