Nearly half of state attorneys general will demand the House Judiciary Committee expand its probe into climate policy-related influence on federal judges to include a gold-standard guide judges use to examine subjects they are not typically versed in.
The development comes after a Fox News Digital report highlighted criticisms of the latest edition of the Federal Judicial Center’s (FJC) 1,600-page ‘Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence.’ Critics said the traditionally apolitical reference guide is now rife with climate change–related ideological bias, citing extensive footnotes drawn from left-leaning and climate-alarmist sources.
The Federal Judicial Center itself is the research and education agency of the federal judiciary, and its governing board is chaired by Chief Justice John Roberts.
Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers is leading the effort, writing to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, subcommittee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, urging them to expand their improper-influence probe to include what they call an ‘inappropriate attempt to rig case outcomes in favor of one side.’
The latest edition was published December 31 and includes a foreword by Justice Elena Kagan before delving into subject matter footnoted to environmental law expert Jessica Wentz, climatologist Michael Mann, and a slew of others involved in climate change research and advocacy.
‘Those same improper influence concerns apply to the Federal Judicial Center and its new ‘Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence’,’ the attorney generals wrote in part.
They noted that Kagan’s foreword said previous editions of the manual helped ‘bring about better and fairer legal decisions,’ but argued her words would not echo the same in the latest edition.
‘Like [the] Climate Judiciary Project that the Committee is investigating, the new chapter presents a highly biased, agenda-driven view favoring radical interests pursuing lawsuits against producers and users of traditional forms of fossil fuel energy,’ the attorneys general argued, citing the inclusion of findings from Jessica Wentz, a climate change advocate at Columbia University, among other names.
They cited a court brief crafted by Wentz in opposition to the Willow drilling project in Alaska, where she was quoted as saying ‘the world needs to phase out fossil fuels as rapidly as possible in order to avert potentially catastrophic levels of global warming and climate change.’
The prosecutors also pointed to the inclusion of work from an attorney who represented the city of Honolulu in cases against traditional energy firms.
‘Not surprisingly, given the strong biases of its authors, reviewers, and sources, the climate change chapter presents as settled the very methodologies that plaintiffs rely on to impose liability on fossil-fuel defendants,’ the letter reads.
‘The chapter presents this science as authoritative without acknowledging contrary views or disclosing the many conflicts of the authors, reviewers, and sources. Ethics experts have noted that these issues raise serious ethics concerns.’
In comments to Fox News Digital, Hilgers said the FJC’s new science manual should present complex evidence impartially, but instead ‘appears to embed the views of climate activists and diversity, equity, and inclusion ideologues into what is presented as neutral guidance.’
‘When the same advocates and experts who are actively litigating climate cases help write and review a chapter that will be used by federal judges behind the scenes, it raises obvious and serious concerns about the impartiality of the judicial system,’ Hilgers said.
‘Nebraskans, and all Americans, deserve courts that are neutral and fair.’
The letter was also signed by Alaska Attorney General Stephen Cox, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman and their fellow state prosecutors in Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas and Wyoming.
‘We’ve seen ridiculous legal warfare grow across the country — politically motivated groups, using our courts and liberal justices to push their climate agenda. That’s bad enough,’ McCuskey told Fox News Digital, saying it is time to prevent the influence of ‘junk science.”
‘We… must protect our judicial system and its impartiality,’ he said.
McCuskey also fired off a missive to the FJC itself, co-signed by Marshall, Uthmeier, Cox and others.
He told the center’s director — Obama-appointed federal judge Robin Rosenberg of Florida — that the manual’s ubiquity must remain trusted.
‘At least up to this point, [FJC] has been careful to stress that the Manual merely ‘describes basic principles of major scientific fields… Instead, the Fourth Edition places the judiciary firmly on one side of some of the most hotly disputed questions in current litigation: climate-related science and ‘attribution’.’
‘Such work undermines the judiciary’s impartiality and places a thumb on one side of the scale,’ McCuskey said.
American Energy Institute CEO Jason Isaac added that the FJC wrongly used taxpayer funds to publish a reference manual that ’embeds disputed, plaintiff-driven climate alarmist theories into materials judges consult.’
‘That is not education, it is outcome-shaping, and it directly undermines judicial impartiality,’ Isaac said.
O.H. Skinner of Alliance for Consumers called the development ‘the woke lawfare playbook in action’ and said climate change activists see the courtroom as their best chance to bring permanence to their ideology.
When reached for comment on the matter of her footnotes coming under scrutiny, Wentz replied, ‘no comment.’
Fox News Digital reached out to Jordan and Grassley for comment, as well as the FJC.