In another move to reverse President Obama's "climate change" agenda, President Trump shut down an advisory committee under the direction of NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The Federal Advisory Committee for the Sustained National Climate Assessment was formed by President Obama in 2015 to help the business community, government officials and the general public understand the National Climate Assessment, noted H. Sterling Burnett, a research fellow at the Heartland Institute, a think tank based in suburban Chicago.
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The document is a U.S. government multiagency periodic assessment of climate science and policy recommendations that is required by the Global Change Research Act of 1990. The advisory committee, however, is not mandated.
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Keeping a campaign promise, Trump has withdrawn from the Paris climate agreement and rescinded dozens of Obama's climate-related executive orders and regulations. The EPA also has decided not to renew the appointments of dozens of scientists on various scientific advisory panels.
The Paris agreement committed the United States to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025.
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Benjamin Friedman, the acting director of NOAA, announced the closing of the climate committee shortly before its renewal deadline expired Aug. 20.
The 15-member panel of environmental activist groups, public officials, lawyers, sociologists, corporate representatives and scientists was chaired by Richard Moss, a former vice president and managing director for climate change at the World Wildlife Fund activist group.
The Heartland Institute cited E. Calvin Beisner, founder and national spokesman for the Cornwall Alliance, saying the climate committee lacked a balance of scientific views.
Beisner contended it was formed largely to promote Obama’s climate policies, arguing it lacked representation from "those who think the empirical evidence points to human actions contributing little to global warming and that attempting to reduce it would slow the conquest of poverty around the world."
"Trump’s decision is in keeping with his determination to bring better balance to federal consideration of such issues," Beisner said.
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Paul Driessen, a senior policy analyst with the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, said Trump's decision puts sound science above politically motivated advocacy.
"Like so many other 'scientific advisory' committees during the Obama years, this one was populated with ‘experts’ who could be counted on to put aside their professional analytical abilities and obligations and simply rubberstamp politicized thinking on supposedly dangerous manmade climate change," Driessen said. "Its entire focus was on greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, the plant-fertilizing miracle molecule that makes life on Earth possible."
Driessen observed the members "rarely acknowledged the role fluctuations in solar energy output, cosmic rays, ocean currents, atmospheric water vapor levels, and other powerful natural forces play in climate change."
