Trump's Energy Department disbands group that sowed doubt about climate change

Source: NPR

September 13, 2025 7:00 AM ET


Energy Secretary Chris Wright has disbanded the Department of Energy's controversial Climate Working Group (CWG), which wrote a report that prompted dozens of independent scientists to issue a joint rebuttal saying the report was full of errors and misrepresented climate science.

The disbanding was first reported by CNN and now NPR has confirmed that Wright wrote a letter on September 3rd to the five hand-picked members of the group, thanking them for their service. The decision to disband the CWG came as a hearing was held this week in a lawsuit that the Environmental Defense Fund and the Union of Concerned Scientists had filed against the Trump administration.

As NPR reported previously, the suit alleges that Energy Secretary Chris Wright "quietly arranged for five hand-picked skeptics of the effects of climate change" to compile the government's climate report and violated the law by creating the report in secret with authors "of only one point of view." Wright wrote in the letter that the purpose of the group and its report was "to catalyze scientific and public debate" and that the result "exceeded my expectations." Wright concluded that with that goal met the CWG could now be dissolved.

The CWG consisted of four scientists and one economist who have all questioned the scientific consensus that climate change poses huge threats to people and ecosystems and who sometimes framed global warming as beneficial. The report was drafted to support a Trump administration effort to stop regulating climate pollution.

Read more: https://www.npr.org/2025/09/13/nx-s1-5539294/climate-change-pollution-report