On July 29, 2025, the Department of Energy (DOE) published a report from its Climate Working Group (CWG). This report features prominently in the EPA's reconsideration of its 2009 Endangerment Finding. In response, over 85 scientists have come together to write a comprehensive review, which is being submitted to the DOE, EPA, and National Academy review.
Our review reveals that the DOE report's key assertions—including claims of no trends in extreme weather and the supposed broad benefits of carbon dioxide—are either misleading or fundamentally incorrect. The authors reached these flawed conclusions through selective filtering of evidence ('cherry picking'), overemphasis of uncertainties, misquoting peer-reviewed research, and a general dismissal of the vast majority of decades of peer-reviewed research.
No one should doubt that human-caused climate change is real, is already producing potentially dangerous impacts, and that humanity is on track for a geologically enormous amount of warming. No one knows what socioeconomic impacts of this warming will be. It should also be clear that the DOE report's approach to undermining scientific evidence mirrors tactics previously employed by the tobacco industry to create artificial doubt.
Though our review doesn't explicitly address the EPA's 2009 Endangerment Finding, the process of compiling our response made one thing clear: in the 16 years since that finding, evidence of human-caused climate change and its threats to public health and welfare has only strengthened.
Instead of relying on this report, the DOE should instead use the thoroughly vetted assessments from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and National Climate Assessment, which offer more accurate representations of our scientific understanding of climate change.
Media contact: doereportresponse@proton.me
Comment submitted to the DOE
This file is the latest version; it has had several errors corrected since we submitted to the DOE comment portal. This document lists those changes.