A federal judge has granted the Trump administration’s request to pause a lawsuit over the Department of Energy’s contrarian climate report.
Senior Judge William Young of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts did not elaborate on his Wednesday night decision. The Trump administration had argued that the government shutdown prevented its attorneys from working on the case.
The lawsuit seeks to toss the DOE report that EPA is using as a scientific basis in its efforts to repeal the 2009 endangerment finding. Young’s decision came hours after the Environmental Defense Fund urged the judge to keep the case moving, arguing that the administration is “racing ahead” to repeal the Obama-era finding, despite the government shutdown.
EDF cited news reports that EPA employees have been working through the shutdown to advance efforts to roll back the finding that greenhouse gases threaten public health and welfare. The finding underpins the agency’s regulations on heat-trapping emissions from vehicles, power plants and the oil and gas sector.
“Defendants should not be permitted to selectively invoke the shutdown when it suits them,” EDF attorneys wrote.
EDF and the Union of Concerned Scientists filed the lawsuit in August, contending that DOE violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act by using a group of handpicked climate skeptics to make a scientific case to repeal the endangerment finding. The so-called Climate Working Group wrote a report that downplayed the risks and severity of global warming.
Young, a Reagan appointee, last month denied the challengers’ attempts to bar the DOE report from EPA’s review of the endangerment finding. But he said the green groups could still challenge any final agency action that relies on the working group’s report. He also found that the authors had provided “advice or recommendations” and were likely subject to FACA, which requires groups that advise agencies to be transparent.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright established the working group in March. But the lawsuit argues that the group’s existence was not publicly disclosed until July 29, when EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin released his agency’s plan to rescind the endangerment finding.
DOE has argued that the lawsuit is moot because it has disbanded the working group. Then, on Monday, the Justice Department filed for a stay in the proceedings, asserting that the shutdown prevents its attorneys from working, “even on a voluntary basis, except in very limited circumstances including emergencies involving the safety of human life or the protection of property.”
EDF attorneys countered that “protecting life or property” was not the sole exception, noting DOJ’s contingency plan cites five categories of work that federal employees may perform.
The group’s attorneys also noted that EPA’s contingency plan says that in the event of a lapse of appropriations, DOJ “expects EPA to continue to provide the legal or technical support necessary to meet any court deadlines or orders.”
EDF said the groups have a “strong interest in this case proceeding expeditiously” because EPA could issue its final rule rescinding the endangerment finding at any time.
