The United States Global Change Research Program, or the USGCRP, was disbanded early last year. Created by an act of Congress in 1990, the goal of the USGCRP was to coordinate federal research and investments across fifteen federal member agencies to present a whole-of-government face to the federal government’s position on global environmental change. Now it has returned, but with a new and improved mission and leadership.
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I served as Director of the USGCRP back in the latter days of the first Trump Administration; it was a trying time for me, to say the least. When the second Trump Administration began to take shape, I was asked if I wanted to participate. I firmly replied, “No thanks.”
What was the USGCRP? The USGCRP ran the website climatechange.gov and provided funding opportunities to various groups and individuals through its massive budget, which was $5.14 billion dollars in 2023. It also produced both the annual climate assessment to Congress and the semi-decadal National Climate Assessment.
But the only employees of the USGCRP from the federal government were its Executive Director and the Director of the National Climate Assessment. The remainder of USGCRP personnel were staffed by a company called ICF International Incorporated. ICF International has contracts throughout the federal government, most notably at the EPA, but it is a publicly traded consulting and technology services company located in Reston, Virginia. Many expressed concern about ICF International being in charge of the USGCRP because that meant one of the major players in shaping and presenting the federal government’s face of climate change was a progressive think tank masquerading as a federal agency.
But the congressional mandate to produce a National Climate Assessment still exists. Consequently, the Trump Administration has reconstituted the USGCRP, and its new director is Dr. Matthew M. Wielicki, formerly of the University of Alabama. Dr. Wielicki is a geochemist who rejects the alarmist view of climate change and has suggested that many positives exist within a warmer world.
It is not clear whether Dr. Wielicki will serve both as the Executive Director of the USGCRP and as the Director of the United States National Assessment, but the news is refreshing. I have never met Dr. Wielicki and, given my history with the USGCRP, I will refrain from cheering his appointment—if for no other reason than the press coverage of my time in the USGCRP is likely to generate a negative reaction to my endorsement.
However, I will say that I am pleased to hear of his appointment, and I honestly believe that he will do well at the new USGCRP. My rationale for this latter assessment is that three huge obstacles that I encountered have been removed from the USGCRP and his appointment process.
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First…is timing. When I was appointed, it was in the latter days of the first administration, and indeed, I served only nine-and-a-half weeks as the executive director of which we were closed for four of those weeks due to the holiday break. I had been appointed to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration during the last two months of a heated presidential election cycle and went into the White House during the lame duck presidency. Of course, the mainstream media used me as a foil to score political points. Dr. Wielicki comes into the White House with two-and-a-half years left in the administration—lots of time to push the National Climate Assessment well down the road to scientific realism and away from the alarmist narrative that it usually espouses.
Second…is staffing. As I mentioned earlier, I served in a USGCRP that was staffed by ICF International Incorporated who had an agenda that was diametrically opposed to that of the Trump Administration. It was impossible to change the course of an existing federal agency in just nine-and-a-half weeks, especially when the goal of its employees was to undermine your efforts. Moreover, many in the administration wanted to delay the National Assessment so that the incoming Biden administration could use it to push the alarmist narrative. That Dr. Wielicki does not inherit the burden of a staff with a different agenda can only be a huge advantage.
And third…is support from the administration. I was attacked by the press from the moment I was appointed to the federal government and once again when I was tasked to the White House. I have a nice collection of articles and television rants from just about every news outlet to the left of William F. Buckley, Jr. I also have a list of letters from nearly a hundred sitting U.S. representatives, former NOAA and White House staff, and a request for a congressional hearing that declares my appointment would be like selecting Jair Bolsonaro to head the EPA.
What I did not have was support from within the administration. Several members of the first Trump Administration either decried my initial appointment or praised the end of the administration because I would be replaced. One even lied about my assigned duties within the White House to undermine my credibility. By contrast, Dr. Wielicki already has the support of both Energy Secretary Christopher Wright and White House Budget Director Russell Voight, as well as a formal statement from the White House supporting his appointment. Secretary Wright wrote that Dr. Wielicki “is an honest scientist who follows the data wherever it leads.”
From all I have seen about Dr. Wielicki and from what I know about this administration and its reformulation of the USGCRP, I think Dr. Wielicki will be given the support he needs and he has the wherewithal to be successful at pushing the next National Assessment Report to be a more balanced scientific document rather than, as Mr. Voight noted, being used to constrain government by justifying environmental lawsuits. Let’s hope so.
David R. Legates, Ph.D., retired Professor of Climatology at the University of Delaware, is Director of Research and Education for the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation and co-author of Climate and Energy: The Case for Realism.
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