The Trump administration has cancelled its contract with ICF International, the consulting firm that produces the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), dealing a devastating and potentially fatal blow to the federal government’s climate report.
The USGCRP is mandated by Congress to produce a new National Climate Assessment (NCA) every four years, providing far-reaching expert analysis on the climate crisis, its causes, and the threats it poses. The information in the assessment plays a key role in local and national decision-making regarding mitigating and adapting to climate change, including in the agriculture and energy sectors.
The USGCRP consisted of researchers from 15 federal agencies, all of whom were instructed to discontinue the program, and ICF International staff, who were subsequently terminated. According to Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist and lead author of three national climate assessments, “[g]iven the accelerating pace and scale of climate impacts today, a sustained and more comprehensive national climate assessment process is so essential.”
The next assessment is due by 2027, but the contract cancellation means that “the Sixth National Climate Assessment is effectively destroyed,” according to a federal employee.
Update: On April 28, 2025, the Trump administration informed the scientists and experts working on the NCA that they were being “released” from their roles and that the scope of the report was being reevaluated.