Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen is leading a coalition of 25 state attorneys general urging Trump administration officials to investigate and cancel federal grants to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, arguing the organization used taxpayer money to produce a biased report aimed at influencing climate-related litigation.
In a letter sent Thursday to seven cabinet officials, Knudsen raised concerns about a NASEM report titled “Attribution of Extreme Weather and Climate Events and Their Impacts 2026.” Knudsen’s office alleges the report relies on research from individuals who have been involved in climate advocacy and litigation rather than on independent scientific findings, and that it was produced to support plaintiffs in pending climate litigation before the U.S. Supreme Court.
“The National Academies seem dead set on using taxpayer dollars to push their radical climate agenda and influence court decisions, but not on my watch,” Knudsen said. “My office flagged their fraudulent behavior back in February and gave them the chance to make things right, but instead they doubled down and created yet another biased document to force their ideology on Americans. President Trump has made it clear he takes this issue seriously, so I am hopeful the federal government will immediately halt the National Academies’ grant funding. Taxpayers should not have to foot the bill for this activist work.”
The letter contends the report supports arguments that fossil fuel companies should be held liable for damages tied to extreme weather events linked to climate change. Knudsen’s office noted the report was released ahead of a deadline for amicus briefs supporting plaintiffs in Suncor Energy v. County Commissioners of Boulder County, a case pending before the Supreme Court, which the letter argues “gave plaintiffs’ supporters exactly what they needed, exactly when they needed it, to further their litigation goals, without affording the other side an opportunity to weigh in.” The letter states that one organization supporting the plaintiffs in that case cited the report on ten pages of its own filing and has received $100 million from the Bezos Earth Fund to “accelerate climate action.”
Knudsen’s letter also cites language within the NASEM report itself, noting it states that attribution science “may be relevant to policy and legal decisions pertaining to climate change and liability for losses sustained as a result of extreme weather and climate events,” may be “useful in estimating marginal damages attributable to climate change,” and may inform “responsibility or liability determinations,” including “whether defendants may be held liable” in climate litigation.
The dispute between Knudsen’s office and NASEM dates to at least February, when Knudsen sent a letter to NASEM President Marcia McNutt and President-elect Neil Shubin asking the organization to remove a climate science chapter used by federal judges from its publications. NASEM did not comply with that request, according to Knudsen’s office. President Trump subsequently criticized NASEM and directed federal suspension and debarment officials to review the organization’s judicial training manual. NASEM temporarily removed the climate chapter from its publications for what it described as independent review, then released the disputed climate attribution report in July.
Joining Knudsen in the letter were attorneys general from Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Wyoming, along with co-leads from Nebraska, Tennessee and West Virginia.
NASEM has not yet publicly responded to the letter’s allegations.
