The attorney general requested responses by March 2, including a set of key questions, such as, “Why did the National Academies include a chapter on climate science that is not based on balanced or solid science?” and “What procedures will the National Academies establish to prevent similar advocacy-based chapters in future editions?” Since then, Ars has been contacting both the NAS and the Montana Attorney General’s Office (which published the letter) to try to find out whether a response was provided.
We finally learned yesterday that the response was issued two days before the deadline (it’s the last page of this PDF). Consisting of only two sentences, NAS says it used the same processes to prepare the climate chapter as it did for every other chapter, processes that were developed jointly with the Federal Judicial Center. “The manual, including the chapter on climate science, will remain available on the Academy’s website,” the response concludes.
The response leaves no clear next steps for the attorney general. Their letter states that the NAS is heavily dependent on funding from the federal government to produce its expert reports, and so producing a report that would anger Republicans could be risky, but they have no ability to directly influence that funding.
Meanwhile, a second reaction to political interference in the report came from several authors of other chapters of the reference manual, who published an open letter condemning political interference. In addition to noting the importance of reference manuals and rigorous peer review of all chapters, the authors highlight the dangers posed by the Attorney General’s actions:
If political actors can determine which areas of established science are adversarial and outside the bounds of judicial education, then every scientific discipline dealing with complex litigation becomes vulnerable to the same strategy. The integrity of the process by which judges evaluate scientific evidence should not be subject to political interference or veto.
The real danger is long-term. If chapters continue to be removed at any time due to current political winds, it will become more challenging to engage the best scientists and legal scholars to contribute to the manual or its peer review. Over time, the quality of the material will diminish, leaving judges less prepared to face cases with a heavy scientific component. Society as a whole would ultimately be the loser.
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