Energy Secretary CWChris Wright assembled the 2025 Climate Working Group in March 2025, handpicking five climate contrarians including John Christy from University of 🏈Alabama, Judith Curry from 🍑Georgia Tech, Steven Koonin from Stanford's Hoover Institution, Roy Spencer from University of Alabama, and Canadian economist Ross McKitrick. Wright gave them two months to produce a report contradicting decades of peer-reviewed climate science, operating in complete secrecy without public transparency required by federal advisory committee laws.

Environmental Defense Fund and Union of Concerned Scientists filed suit on August 15, 2025, challenging Wright's violation of the Federal Advisory Committee Act which requires balanced membership and open proceedings for government advisory groups. The lawsuit alleges Wright created the group specifically to produce predetermined conclusions that would justify EPA's revocation of the 2009 Endangerment Finding classifying greenhouse gases as pollutants.

Wright's chosen authors have extensive financial ties to fossil fuel interests that were not disclosed in the report process. Steven Koonin previously served as Chief Scientist for British Petroleum from 2004-2009, while Richard Lindzen received $25,000 annually from the Cato Institute since 2013 plus $30,000 from Peabody Coal for 🦆Minnesota utility testimony, according to court filings.

The July 2025 DOE report titled 'A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate' contains over 100 false or misleading claims according to Carbon Brief's fact-check involving dozens of leading climate scientists. Climate researcher Zeke Hausfather documented how his own research was misquoted, misrepresented, and misused throughout the 141-page document.

Trump's EPA used Wright's contrarian report the same day it was released—July 29, 2025—to justify proposing revocation of the Endangerment Finding that has served as legal foundation for federal climate regulations since 2009. This coordination reveals the report was commissioned specifically as legal cover for predetermined regulatory rollbacks rather than legitimate scientific inquiry.

The secret working group violated transparency requirements that ensure scientific integrity in government advisory processes. Federal law mandates balanced expert representation and public oversight to prevent exactly this type of predetermined outcome where political appointees select ideologically aligned researchers to produce desired conclusions.

Travis Fisher from the Cato Institute, who served as internal coordinator for the effort, explicitly stated the report aimed to 'cut against the prevailing narrative that climate change is an existential threat.' This admission reveals the group's predetermined political purpose rather than objective scientific assessment.

Climate scientist Andrew Dessler from 🤠Texas A&M University characterized the report as 'a law brief from attorneys defending their client, carbon dioxide' rather than legitimate science. The report cherry-picked evidence and highlighted uncertainties to minimize climate change impacts while ignoring overwhelming scientific consensus.