OPINION:
Sometimes it is the things you do not know that have a big impact on your life.
For example, unless you pay attention to the daily politics of climate change and the federal judiciary, you are probably not up to speed on which academic reference manuals are available to train judges on topics currently under litigation.
That was why it was important that President Trump took to Truth Social this month to rip into a judicial training manual clearly designed to soften the ground for climate change warriors who take their environmental grievances to court.
“These Manuals have been totally DISCREDITED,” Mr. Trump posted. “Our Nation’s Federal Judges deserve Facts and Science, not Political Fraud and False Science on Climate.”
The publication the president blasted is the 1,682-page Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence, jointly produced by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and the Federal Judicial Center, the federal agency that provides continuing training and education for federal judges.
The manual’s chapter on climate change is hopelessly slanted toward a radical environmentalist point of view, and 27 Republican state attorneys general say it is unconstitutional.
“Article III [of the U.S. Constitution] guarantees every litigant — whether a State, an energy company, or an environmental group — the right to an independent and impartial tribunal,” the attorneys general wrote to the Federal Judicial Center in January. “When the judiciary’s own research arm predetermines contested questions in active litigation, that guarantee becomes meaningless.”
Very few Americans are even aware that such manuals exist, so it is important to sound the alarm about how consequential this really is.
The manual is further evidence of how leftist environmental activists have rigged the game completely in their favor, and against the energy companies that are the very basis of the American and global economies.
The legal strategy of the radical environmental left now involves suing energy producers for producing energy, even though that production was legal and permitted by federal, state and local governments.
In fact, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case from Boulder, Colorado, in which local governments want energy firms to fund pet projects they claim are needed because of climate change.
In this way, the left intends to kill the energy companies that make the modern economy possible, while bleeding them of billions of dollars through court proceedings along the way. To make sure their cases land in friendly places, they have taken pains to groom the federal judges who will hear their arguments.
Success for the left means bringing the American energy sector to its knees, with dramatic effects around the world. Fuel prices will skyrocket, which is what the environmental activists want, to drive people away from using fossil fuels. All this will be devastating to the U.S. and global economies, which is also by design because the left hates capitalist success as well.
After the initial uproar, the Federal Judicial Center withdrew the offending chapter from its version of the manual, but the National Academies did not. The chapter remains available on its website.
This web of conspiring leftists is exactly why Congress must pass the Stop Climate Shakedowns Act of 2026 and get it to the president’s desk for his signature. Introduced by Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Republican, and Rep. Harriet Hageman, Wyoming Republican and a client of my public affairs firm, the bill would forbid lawsuits that wrongfully penalize companies for lawful behavior.
The bill also blocks “superfund” laws in states that have the same goal as the climate litigation, which is to squeeze money out of energy companies as punishment for legal activities, with the intent to spend it on whatever tickles the leftists’ fancy at the moment.
I have written about this issue before, but climate activists consistently give new reasons to keep raising it. Now that the president has brought attention to it as well, the time may be right for action.
Meanwhile, as sinister as all that sounds, it can always get worse.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn, Tennessee Republican, is demanding answers from the Federal Judicial Center over its partnership with the Environmental Law Institute. The two groups have worked together to train untold numbers of judges in climate litigation, but a recent national security report cited by Ms. Blackburn alleges the institute has long maintained ties with Chinese government-affiliated entities that advance Beijing’s strategic interests.
Now, some may think communist China is a strange place to find legal guidance for American judges, but if you think about it, it makes perfect sense.
Both the American left and Chinese communists want the United States to fail, so why would they not want judges they have already coached?
The only good thing is that it is out in the open now.
• Tim Murtaugh is a Washington Times columnist and founder of Line Drive Public Affairs. He served as a senior adviser on the 2024 Trump campaign and as communications director on the 2020 Trump campaign.
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