The credibility of research linking climate pollution to specific natural disasters got a major boost Thursday. But the multibillion-dollar battle over the implications of that finding is just beginning.
On one side of the fight are scientists, environmentalists and Democratic lawmakers. They argue that a new review of extreme weather attribution science by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine has more clearly established that fossil fuel companies are responsible for exacerbating heat waves, floods and hurricanes that have damaged the U.S. in recent years.
On the other are oil, gas and coal producers and their Republican allies, who have questioned the motivations of National Academies researchers and sought to cast doubt on attribution science. They escalated that effort Thursday with a subpoena threat sent to the National Academies by the House Science, Space and Technologies Committee shortly after the institution published its attribution science review.
The reactions of both sides suggest the report, released Thursday after several years in the works, could become a key feature of future climate lawsuits. But some legal experts say the report, on its own, isn’t as explosive as the hype surrounding it.
It “might matter in litigation,” said Doug Kysar, director of the Law, Environment and Animals Program at Yale Law School, in an email to POLITICO. Judges do consider the authority of high-level scientific bodies, like the National Academies, when assessing complex topics, he said.
But the report itself focuses largely on the technical methods behind attribution research. And while it acknowledges the field’s practical applications — including uses in lawsuits and climate policies — it offers no new legal insights and makes no recommendations about how the science should be utilized. Its main significance for litigation, Kysar said, is that it “helps underscore the rigor and legitimacy of existing findings.”
That’s still a noteworthy addition to the legal landscape, said Patrick Parenteau, an emeritus professor at the Vermont Law and Graduate School who has provided pro bono advice to a law firm working on climate cases.
“Judges are the gatekeepers of the evidence that gets to the jury,” he told POLITICO. “When you have an entity like the National Academies — that has no dog in the fight, that I think enjoys the reputation of being unbiased, neutral experts — that goes a long way to justifying the introduction of that kind of evidence.”
The National Academies has long been regarded as a nonpartisan entity and the nation’s foremost scientific authority. But fossil fuel companies and their political allies have questioned climate attribution science for years and recently attacked the institution’s reputation for objectivity.
The Independent Petroleum Association of America asserted in a Tuesday post on its Energy in Depth website that “the fingerprints of climate litigation activists and plaintiffs’ attorneys are all over” the National Academies’ report.
But the committee behind the report was composed entirely of academics from universities and federal agencies, and the authors say they weren’t influenced by any outside discourse about attribution science.
“What was going on outside — the criticisms, the critiques, whatever was thrown in the direction of this committee — we were focused on the statement of task,” said committee Chair Jim Hurrell, an atmospheric scientist at Colorado State University.
Critics of attribution science frequently attack the field’s credibility by suggesting it was developed for the explicit purpose of bolstering climate lawsuits. But Hurrell, who has watched the field mature over the course of his 36-year career, says that’s not true.
“From my perspective as a climate scientist, the origin of this research was just trying to understand more about anthropogenic climate change and what the impacts of it are,” he told POLITICO. “I have never thought of this field as being … just something come up with to use in legal cases.”
‘Sign of desperation’
Many legal experts have argued for years that the field has major implications for climate litigation, potentially helping plaintiffs establish clear connections between fossil-fuel-driven greenhouse gas emissions and damaging weather events. Now it’s up to lawyers and judges to determine if attribution science is ready for the courtroom, where the oil and gas industry is fending off about two dozen lawsuits that seek to hold it financially accountable for the impacts of climate change.
“Assuming the Supreme Court lets these cases proceed, which is a big assumption, the key issue really is attribution,” said Parenteau. “Building a body of law that can actually get to the jury in a form that a jury can understand in one or more of these cases is absolutely critical.”
The Supreme Court earlier this year agreed to take up the industry’s bid to dismiss the lawsuits. It is expected to hold oral arguments on the case, Suncor v. Boulder, after its term opens in October. The case introduced by Boulder, Colorado, in 2018 is expected to determine if states and municipalities can sue energy companies for financial damages related to natural disasters in state courts. The outcome could unleash a wave of new suits against the industry or quell the recent surge in climate litigation. A decision is likely in 2027.
The science is not an issue before the high court. The industry is asking it to find that federal law blocks local governments from suing in state courts for relief from climate change.
At least five Republican-led states have passed laws shielding the fossil fuel industry from responsibility for climate-related damages. And congressional Republicans have introduced a bill that would short-circuit the climate cases across the country.
Democrats seized on the National Academies’ review to push back on those efforts.
“This new report is a reminder that political attacks on climate change do not change the overwhelming scientific evidence,” the leaders of the House Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition said in a joint statement. The coalition’s co-chairs are Democratic Reps. Doris Matsui of California, Mike Quigley of Illinois and Paul Tonko of New York.
The new report has been in the works for more than three years — and it has been the subject of outside criticism for nearly as long, asPOLITICO reported last month. On the day of the panel’s first meeting in November 2024, Roger Pielke Jr., a senior fellow at the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute, published aSubstack post accusing the National Academies of engaging in “stealth advocacy in support of climate litigation.”
Pielke, who has a doctorate in political science, the new report Thursday, suggesting on the social media site X that its validation of attribution science “captures the slipping scientific rigor in climate research.”
Hurrell and several other panel members have received open records requests from oil industry allies seeking information about their communications with others at the National Academies. In April, the Republican leaders of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee asked the National Academies for details about the panel’s activities, citing “the appearance of impropriety and member bias.”
House Science sent a follow-up letter Thursday afternoon arguing that the National Academies had not been forthright enough in its response and said the committee “will consider all appropriate oversight tools to secure full compliance.” It was signed by Chair Brian Babin (R-Texas) and Republican Reps. Rich McCormick of Georgia and Scott Franklin of Florida, who lead the investigations and environment subcommittees respectively.
“If one of the most trusted and respected providers of that science is producing biased, partisan, or otherwise deficient science, the United States’ scientific enterprise—and, by extension, its economic, environmental, and national security interests—are threatened,” the lawmakers wrote.
Parenteau said he believes the intense scrutiny being applied to the report and the panel members stems from worries within the fossil fuel industry and its supporters that judges could allow more attribution science to be admitted into the court cases.
“I actually would characterize it as a sign of desperation,” he said. “If you really look at the whole panoply of effort — to discredit the science, to attack the plaintiffs that are bringing these cases, to attack the lawyers that are bringing these — that says to me that they’re really worried.”
