**This is article is a repost of the original article written for The NYU Institute for Policy Integrity’s blog by Peter Howard and Jessie Arnell. The original article written in May of 2025 is linked: here.

**Additionally, Peter Howard (Bard ’02) will delivering a lecture regarding this topic at Bard on Tuesday, December 9th, 2025. For more details regarding the lecture reach out to [email protected].

The Trump Administration has dismissed all contributors preparing the Sixth National Climate Assessment (NCA6), which is statutorily due in 2027.¹ While the administration has not formally confirmed whether it intends to halt or delay the process, removing all authors with no plan to replace them signals a potential break with established legal obligations — and a troubling disregard for the social, economic, and policy values of the assessment itself.

If this is indeed a step toward undermining or canceling the report, it would not be without precedent. The George W. Bush Administration attempted a similar move and was ordered by a federal court to comply with the law (Center for Biological Diversity v. Brennan, №06–7062, 2007 WL 2408901 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 21, 2007)). The legal framework has not changed. Nor has the scientific and economic reality: climate change is happening, its effects are measurable and costly, and delaying or suppressing information about its impacts imposes real costs on the U.S. economy.

Legal Mandate

The National Climate Assessment is not optional. It is a statutory requirement under the Global Change Research Act of 1990 (GCRA), which mandates that the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) deliver, “not less frequently than every four years,” an assessment that:

“(1) integrates, evaluates, and interprets the findings of the Program and discusses the scientific uncertainties associated with such findings;

(2) analyzes the effects of global change on the natural environment, agriculture, energy production and use, land and water resources, transportation, human health and welfare, human social systems, and biological diversity; and

(3) analyzes current trends in global change, both human-induced and natural, and projects major trends for the subsequent 25 to 100 years.”

The statute also mandates a research plan including an annual report on program progress and research priorities.

The bipartisan consensus behind the GCRA was overwhelming. The Senate passed the bill unanimously (100–0), and the House passed it by voice vote. Legislative supporters made clear that the statute was intended to produce credible, science-based assessments to help the U.S. “understand, assess, predict, and respond” intelligently the consequences of global change.

This obligation was reinforced in Center for Biological Diversity v. Brennan, where a federal district court held that the Bush Administration violated the GCRA by failing to produce a required assessment and updated research plan. The court ordered the Bush Administration to comply and produce the research plan and scientific assessment, confirming that compliance with the GCRA is not discretionary.

The Economic Value of the Assessment

Beyond its legal basis, the National Climate Assessment is a critical tool for understanding the risks and consequences, including major economic concerns, associated with climate change. The assessment provides synthesized, peer-reviewed scientific and economic analysis of how changing climate conditions will affect American livelihoods, infrastructure, health, and industry. Federal agencies, local governments, businesses, and civil society all rely on the assessment to inform long-term planning.

The economic risks of climate change are no longer speculative. The Fifth National Climate Assessment (2023) documented measurable damages from extreme heat, flooding, wildfire, and sea level rise — damages that are already increasing costs across multiple sectors. Economists project that trends will worsen under higher emissions scenarios, and even moderate scenarios entail significant risks to labor productivity, agriculture, supply chains, public health, and housing markets.

Academic economists have reached similar conclusions. These economists developed a metric that quantifies the economic damages from an additional ton of CO₂ emissions — the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases (SC-GHG) — to help inform federal rulemaking. The latest estimates from the EPA (2023) place this number at $212/ton in 2025, with only a subset of climate impacts included. These values are substantially higher than earlier estimates used by federal agencies, reflecting updated projections of climate damages and economic impacts. In fact, we should expect that these estimates will continue to increase with improved modeling, as meta-analyses show this value increasing over time as new data and models are incorporated. (A 2024 study by Moore et al., for example, estimated the SC-GHG at $283 per ton for carbon dioxide when accounting for omitted impacts, such as climate tipping points, impacts to economic growth, and the increased scarcity of environmental goods and services. Similar estimates exit for methane and nitrous oxide.)

Notably, there is a significant consensus among economists that climate change will be costly and action is necessary. A 2021 survey of 738 economists with expertise on climate change, conducted by the Institute for Policy Integrity, found overwhelming consensus that drastic action is economically desirable, with two-thirds believing that the benefits of keeping global temperature increases between 1.5ºC and 2ºC exceeds the costs. Recent work by Nobel Laureate William Nordhaus similarly finds that taking significant climate action beyond the Paris Agreement is benefit-cost justified.

Credible, integrated analysis of climate impacts is essential to rational policymaking. Without it, federal and state governments, businesses, and the public are harmed, as they are less aware of the threats to their health, the environment, and the economy.

Policy Consequences of Withholding the NCA

If the administration proceeds with halting or delaying the NCA, the consequences would extend far beyond legal exposure. The NCA is the only congressionally mandated, whole-of-government report synthesizing climate risks across regions and sectors. It provides critical information for infrastructure design, agricultural policy, disaster planning, insurance regulation, and environmental permitting.

Delaying or disrupting the report would leave a multi-year gap in decision-relevant climate information at a time when economic and environmental risks are accelerating. Moreover, it would compromise future policymaking by further eroding institutional continuity, scientific momentum, and public trust.

This outcome would also carry financial risks. Decisions on federal infrastructure grants, FEMA resilience funding, and regional economic development increasingly rely on accurate climate risk assessments. The NCA helps identify where adaptation investments yield the greatest returns. Undermining this information would increase the likelihood of inefficient spending, mispriced risk, and, ultimately, taxpayer losses.

Information on Climate Change Is in the Public Interest

The National Climate Assessment is not a political document. Congress passed the law requiring the assessment without objection. It is a federally mandated, science-based resource created to inform the country’s response to one of the most complex challenges of our time.

Efforts to halt, delay, or undermine its production would violate clear statutory mandates and deprive policymakers of the information they need to protect American lives, communities, and economic stability. The last time an administration tried to do so, a court order compelled it to resume the process.

If the Administration genuinely believed its own narrative — that climate risks are overblown — it would not need to dismantle the National Climate Assessment. It could let the science and economics speak for themselves.

The Administration may not want to hear what scientists and economists have to say, but suppressing the facts will not prevent climate damages — it will only increase the likelihood that we will face those costs unprepared.

[1] Based on April 2025 reports indicating author dismissals. The Sixth National Climate Assessment is due in 2027, pursuant to 15 U.S.C. § 2936.