By Dino Grandoni / The Washington Post
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross declined to defend the work of climate scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), noting the agency’s numerous reports on global warming have been reviewed less favorably by some critics.
During a talk at the National Press Club on Monday, Ross was asked by an audience member whether he accepts “NOAA findings that humans are the primary drivers of climate change.” NOAA is a division of the Commerce Department.
Ross started his response by saying, “I’m not going to get into the climate debate.”
Then he dove in: “Commerce Department’s NOAA has issued various reports that reflect the thinking of their scientists, and those reports in general have been reviewed, sometimes favorably, sometimes less so by other people in that field. So I think I’ll just let that record speak for itself.” A Commerce Department spokesperson declined to comment further.
Ross, before he took office, promised not to obstruct climate research under his purview. But by declining to endorse the research his department produced, Ross seemed to be pulling a page from the playbook of other Trump officials at departments such as the Environment Protection Agency who are aggressively trying to dismantle the Obama administration’s policies.
The comment swiftly drew rebuke from a science group that accused the Commerce chief of being overly political.
“The secretary of commerce should be unequivocally supportive of the climate scientists, and the climate science happening under his watch,” said Peter Frumhoff, director of science and policy and chief climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
“The only people who are making unfavorable comments,” he added, “are political leaders and their allies in the Republican Party.”
Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., top Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee, weighed in too: “The vast majority of science done at NOAA, NASA, and universities is crystal clear: if we want a prosperous future, we must address climate change and sea level rise now,” he said in a statement. “The only real debate left is how best to address it. Are we going to rise to the challenge and protect our communities, spur the jobs of tomorrow and stop the damage? Or will we continue to ignore the oncoming threat? For Florida, there is too much at stake and the sooner we act, the better.”
Republicans on the House Science Committee are among the harsh critics of NOAA’s climate science. That panel’s chairman, Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, has repeatedly accused NOAA climate scientists of falsifying data to generate “politically correct results.” Smith even went so far as to subpoena President Barack Obama’s NOAA head, Kathryn Sullivan.
While Ross has not been unequivocally supportive of NOAA’s climate science, he hasn’t been really tried to obstruct it either. During Donald Trump’s presidency, climate scientists at NOAA and NASA, the other science agency primarily responsible for studying the warming of Earth’s atmosphere, have carried on climate research with little apparent interference.
In December, for example, numerous NOAA scientists contributed to a sprawling report on the links between climate change and extreme weather events, such as heat waves in Alaska and droughts in Africa. That same month, NOAA’s acting administrator, Rear Adm. Tim Gallaudet, declared findings about unprecedented warming in the Arctic “directly relate to the priorities of this administration” when it comes to national and economic security.
By contrast, leaders at the EPA and the Interior Department have sought to interfere with the publication of climate science by forbidding federal researchers from presenting on climate change at a conference and directing language about climate change be removed from a news release on a sea-level-rise study.
Yet there have been times when the Commerce Department’s record at facilitating scientific discussion has raised questions. Ross allowed the 15-person Advisory Committee for the Sustained National Climate Assessment, which works to translate the findings of the National Climate Assessment to a broad audience, to expire in August. The Washington Post’s Juliet Eilperin reported Tuesday that Trump officials faulted climate panel for having only “one member from industry,” citing emails released under the Freedom of Information Act to the advocacy group Center for Biological Diversity.
Still, Ross has said he is unwilling to disrupt the dissemination of science. “If confirmed, I intend to see that the Department provides the public with as much factual and accurate data as we have available,” Ross wrote in response to a letter Nelson sent last year regarding climate science. “It is public tax dollars that support the Department’s scientific research, and barring some national security concern, I see no valid reason to keep peer reviewed research from the public.”
One reason for the more hands-off approach is that, unlike the EPA and the Interior Department, NOAA merely studies climate change — it does not set regulations trying to address its causes or effects.
Another may just be that NOAA still lacks a permanent leader, even though Trump has been president for 16 months.
Last October, the president nominated Barry Myers, chief executive of the private forecasting firm AccuWeather, to head NOAA. But his nomination may be still gummed up after three former NOAA administrators voiced serious concerns about the businessman, who has tried to persuade Congress to curb free services from NOAA’s National Weather Service that overlap with products sold by AccuWeather.
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