The Trump administration has reconstituted a governmentwide program that tracks how climate change is transforming the country, after having gutted it last year as part of a purge of programs that didn’t line up with its worldview.
The U.S. Global Change Research Program is now headed by Matthew Wielicki, a former University of Alabama geochemist, according to his public postings on social media and confirmed by a second person familiar with the program, granted anonymity over fears of reprisal.
Wielicki, who calls himself a “professor in exile” and who frequently critiques climate science on social media, will be in charge of the program’s primary product, the congressionally mandated National Climate Assessment, a comprehensive report released every four years that shows how American infrastructure, lives and the economy are affected by climate change.
Reached by phone, Wielicki, who has been soliciting ideas on X for what he should include in the next version of the assessment, said he’d like to speak about his work but only if the White House allows. The White House did not make him available for an interview, but sent a statement.
“For too long, the USGCRP has been used as a vehicle for political agendas instead of sound science,” a White House spokesperson said in a statement. “We look forward to restoring the USGCRP and ensuring it fulfills its legal mandate.”
Previous versions of the assessment have warned Americans about the danger of rising temperatures, increased flooding or deadly wildfires. Drawing on hundreds of peer-reviewed studies, they show how warming temperatures are quickly changing some parts of the country. These assessments are used to help inform infrastructure spending, planning and risk mitigation. Shortly after the program was created in 1990, one of its early successes was to reveal how a depleted ozone layer harmed Americans, which led to regulations that addressed the issue.
It remains to be seen how the Trump administration will approach the newly reconstituted office. But White House Budget Director Russ Vought has long viewed it as a source of “climate alarmism” that the White House should have more control over, as he wrote in the Project 2025 conservative policy handbook organized by the Heritage Foundation.