27 state attorneys general called on the Federal Judicial Center (FJC), the taxpayer-funded education and research agency of the federal judiciary, to immediately withdraw their recently released edition of their “Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence” for promoting partisan climate ideology and citing widely discredited activists. 

In a letter — obtained by the Washington Reporter — to Robin Rosenberg, the FJC’s director, the AGs wrote that the manual, intended to serve as a “gold-standard” impartial reference tool “‘has been provided to more than 3,000 federal judges and even more state court judges and others and has been cited in over 1,700 opinions.’ So accuracy and impartiality in the Manual is vital.”

The letter, spearheaded by West Virginia’s attorney general JB McCuskey, was joined by GOP AGs from Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming.

“Impartiality is a cornerstone of our judicial system,” McCuskey said. “That’s why it is so important that a document that serves as the guidelines by which most, if not all, courts interpret the law be written with justice, honesty, and freedom from bias. The climate chapter of the latest edition of the Manual is absolutely biased and would tip the scales in favor of left-leaning policies that would be the final nail in the coffin of American-produced energy. We cannot allow that to happen. Domestic energy production is key to continued American prosperity and security.”

Georgia’s Attorney General, Chris Carr, told the Reporter that “this so-called ‘climate chapter’ has no basis in science or the law. It’s a political document meant to target and undermine our energy producers, and it has no business in our courts. We’ll continue to push for commonsense policies that lead to safe, reliable, and affordable energy for all Americans.”

Despite how the FJC’s manual is sent as a purported gold standard to judges around the country, the lawyers noted that “when the judiciary’s own research arm predetermines contested questions in active litigation, that guarantee becomes meaningless. The Center should withdraw this chapter immediately, not out of political expedience, but out of fidelity to the Constitution it serves.” 

One of the controversial issues the reference manual takes sides on is the hotly debated issue of “climate attribution,” citing academics who argue that human activity has “unequivocally warmed the climate,” contributed to ocean warming, and more, “treating contested litigation positions as settled fact.”

“Working the refs is an essential part of the Left’s strategy to reshape American society through weaponization of the judicial system,” OH Skinner, the executive director of Alliance for Consumers, said of the letter. “As Alliance for Consumers has repeatedly outlined, woke lawfare relies on an echo chamber of activist trial lawyers, billionaire-funded leftwing nonprofits, and progressive politicians who seek to push their political agenda at the expense of everyday consumers. We applaud the Attorneys General for taking action to stop woke lawfare that attempts to drive popular products off the shelf and raise prices at the store in furtherance of liberal ideology.” 

Carrie Severino, the president of the Judicial Crisis Network (JCN), added that “the Federal Judicial Center’s latest reference manual reads more like left-wing advocacy rather than a neutral source for judges. With a foreword from Justice Elena Kagan and citations to disgraced climatologist Michael Mann and the Climate Judiciary Project’s Jessica Wentz, there is clear ideological bias in what is meant to be a gold-standard, impartial manual to educate judges. The Left is trying to use the courts as an end run around the legislative process by indoctrinating our nation’s judges. It is alarming to see how far they’ve gone to capture the judiciary.”

As Severino noted, the reference guide repeatedly cites disgraced and disproven climate activist Michael Mann, who was forced to resign from an administrative position at the University of Pennsylvania after he celebrated the death of Charlie Kirk, as the Reporter previously covered. Mann’s climate activism led for calls from Congress for Penn to fire him. Rep. Pat Harrigan (R., N.C.), told the Reporter that Mann “built his career on hyper-partisan attacks and junk science, not objective inquiry.”