Climate Science Legal Defense Fund prepares for four busy years » Yale Climate Connections

The last time Donald Trump was president, his administration withdrew the United States from the Paris Climate Accord. information deleted on climate change from agency websites, and buried the findings of federal scientists. As Trump prepares to return to office, the nonprofit Climate Science Legal Defense Fundwhich provides free legal and educational support to researchers facing harassment and intimidation because of their work, is preparing for a prolonged, high-stakes fight to protect scientists.

I met last week with Executive Director Lauren Kurtz, a New York-based attorney, to ask about their preparations.

Masters: Have you noticed an increase in demand for the services of the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund since the elections?

Kurtz: Yes, we are already meeting the demand of a growing number of scientists. We typically heard from about one scientist per week before the election, which already put us on track to break our record for the most scientists helped in a year. Today, after the election, we hear from three to four scientists per week. (Sample questions: What types of activism activities can a federal scientist undertake without risking losing their job; how to handle a possible job reassignment in a second Trump administration; what are the risks of publishing a paper and others work related to research on climate attribution?)

Masters: What are the biggest concerns you hear?

Kurtz: We spoke with current and former federal climate scientists to find out what they think the next administration’s biggest problems will be. The main areas of discussion so far have been: The Trump administration’s plans to make it easier to lay off federal employeesincluding federal scientists; the possibility for the Trump administration to close departments / reassign scientists / move scientists to unfavorable or similar offices; the possibility for the Trump administration to censor scientific reports or distort scientific findings (which it happened in spades last time) – and the actions that can potentially be taken to challenge those actions. There has been a lot of legal research and we are just getting started.

Masters: Does your organization have the resources it needs for what’s coming?

Kurtz: We are going to need another lawyer due to the already increased demand. We are working hard to raise funds accordingly, and while I hope we can raise what we need at the moment, all donations are always welcome.

Masters: How is the situation scientists face today different from the situation four years ago, under the first Trump administration?

Kurtz: The Trump administration will likely be wiser in how it approaches its goals than in 2016. It seemed pretty bad at the time, but now they’ve had four years to prepare, so I think we can expect that they are much more organized. For example, in October 2020, the Trump administration issued a decree it would have removed protections for officials perceived to be disloyal to the president and encouraged expressions of allegiance to the president when they were hired. This effort is called “Appendix F” because that is the name of the new employment category created by the executive order. Since it was done so late in his term, it took them a while to implement it, so nothing really came to fruition. I think we can expect them to do this very early in this term, which means this could actually be implemented. The other thing that I think will be different is that the first time they broke a lot of norms that we collectively perceived as laws, but they weren’t actually illegal actions. This time around they will probably be more aggressive and I actually think they will break more laws, in which case it may be easier to challenge these illegal actions.

Masters: Can you give us an example of a climate scientist you helped during the first Trump administration?

Kurtz: Well, about 80 to 90 percent of the scientists we represent don’t want their stories made public. But the one who does it is Dr Virginie Burketta climatologist with USGS (US Geological Survey), who chaired a major White House panel charged with managing the government’s main multi-agency climate program. Between 2017 and 2020, Dr. Burkett was demoted, and subsequently removed from her leadership role, in retaliation for attempts by political appointees to downplay and misrepresent the scale and impact of climate change. Dr. Burkett has since been reinstated to a more senior position. An article in Nature has the complete story.

Read: Michael Mann beat his slanderers. But climate scientists are still under attack.