Trump administration wants to exclude information about worst impacts of climate change from next National Climate Assessment

Washington (May 29, 2019) – Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), chair of the Senate Climate Change Task Force and member of the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, today sent a letter to the White House office responsible for overseeing preparation of the Congressionally-mandated National Climate Assessment, the authoritative assessment by the federal government of the impacts of climate change on the United States. In response to recent reporting in the New York Times that officials in the Trump administration are considering excluding the high-emissions scenarios that would detail the worst impacts of climate change, Senator Markey is asking the White House to explain why it is interfering with the climate science activities of the federal agencies. The most recent National Climate Assessment, released in November 2108, outlined that in the worst case scenarios climate change could cause up to nine degrees of warming globally and eleven feet of sea rise in the northeastern United States.  

“Political interference cannot be permitted to stifle the work in climate change by our scientists,” writes Senator Markey in his letter to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. “Any political interference into the climate science that underpins this report could have a chilling effect on the scientific research going forward and could potentially put American lives and property at increased risk by understating the urgency of climate action.”

A copy of Senator Markey’s letter can be found HERE.

###