Blue States Want Climate Science Restored in Judicial Manual (1)

Nearly two dozen Democratic state attorneys general on Tuesday sent a letter to the Federal Judicial Center criticizing its removal of a chapter on climate science from a well-known manual judges use as a guide for dealing with scientific evidence.

Attorneys general from 22 states and Washington, DC, along with attorneys for three different localities, called on the Center to reinstate the chapter in the fourth edition of its “Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence.” They accused the Center of cutting the chapter “without any explanation or public process” shortly after a coalition of Republican attorneys general sent their own letter to the Center criticizing the section and calling for it to be eliminated.

“Such a guide is sorely needed as litigation involving climate science only grows in prevalence and urgency in our courts,” the Democratic attorneys general, including those from California and New York, wrote, adding that “the chapter’s removal does not change the scientific reality of climate change.”

The attorneys general also said they’re particularly concerned about how the removal of the chapter will impact the judicial system “at a time when the impacts of climate change are readily apparent and related litigation is on the rise.”

The Democratic attorneys’ general letter and the broader political fight over climate science in the Center’s latest manual comes as many blue states and localities have sued the fossil fuel industry over its role in climate change. The Supreme Court is slated to weigh in when Exxon Mobil Corp. and Suncor Energy Inc. argue to reverse the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling allowing Boulder, Colo., to sue the companies under state law over climate change, a decision that could shape climate litigation across courts.

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. is chair of the Center’s board and announced a little more than a year ago that Rosenberg would take over leading the Center. Most recently, Rosenberg was a district judge in Florida’s Southern District, a role she was appointed to by President Barack Obama (D). The Center, which Congress created in 1967, is supposed to help provide training and education for federal court staff, including judges.

In their letter Tuesday, the attorneys general said the Center’s elimination of the chapter raised concerns over not only the manual itself, but the Center’s “apolitical role to provide accurate, objective information and education.”

“Litigation and disagreements over the scientific concepts involved only further emphasize the need for and importance of the FJC’s role in providing impartial and reliable information and education,” the Democratic attorneys general wrote in their letter.

A coalition of Republican attorneys general sent Rosenberg a letter in January 2026 requesting that the Center cut the chapter, saying this edition of the manual “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,” the Republican attorneys general said in their letter. “It does so even as these issues are pending before the Supreme Court and other parts of the federal judiciary,” they added, calling conclusions in the chapter and its sourcing both “flawed.” Rosenberg sent West Virginia Attorney General John McCuskey a one-paragraph letter roughly a week later saying the Center removed the chapter, according to a copy of the letter on the attorney general’s website.

A representative for the Center said in an email that it had no comment.

The chapter on climate science has also drawn attention from Congress. Four US senators sent a letter to the Center in April, months after it removed the chapter, saying they wanted “to gain clarification on how the FJC safeguards its credibility and ensures that its programming remains rigorously neutral.” They said the Center’s reference materials “should reflect a balanced, transparent, and rigorous evidentiary standard—citing peer-reviewed science and a general consensus where appropriate and identifying contested or evolving areas of science as needed” and that the climate science chapter “did no such thing” and instead “read as if it were a plaintiff brief in a climate lawfare suit.”