FJC – Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence Censored

ProPublica: “The “Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence” — updated for the first time in 15 years — eliminates some 90 pages about climate science and comes just as numerous climate cases make their way through state and federal courts. The move by the Federal Judicial Center leaves judges without any official support on how to weigh evidence about basic weather and climate changes just as numerous climate cases make their way through state and federal courts, including two on the docket of the U.S. Supreme Court for the current term. On Dec. 31, 2025, the center released the first update in 15 years of its 1,682-page peer-reviewed guide, called the “Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence,” including more than 90 pages defining climate terminology and describing the state of scientific consensus on climate change and the methods used to attribute specific weather events to climate warming and its causes. The chapter acknowledges uncertainty in some areas of climate science; it generally reflects the conclusions of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine has maintained a copy of the original manual on its own website even as the Federal Judicial Center has removed the version with the climate change chapter from its own. A representative from the center declined to comment, and members from the House Judiciary Committee could not immediately be reached for comment…” [h/t Pete Weiss]

• See also National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and Federal Judicial Center. 2025. Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence: Fourth Edition. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. [Note – if the FJC deletes the entire manual in future, this is a backup source.]
• See also Heated – Trump is wiping out all climate regulation. Big Oil may regret it. For decades, oil majors fought climate regulation. Now, they’re afraid Trump’s extreme rollbacks could leave them on the hook to pay for what they’ve done.