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The research arm of the federal judiciary announced it would remove a controversial climate-centric section from the latest edition of its influential scientific-evidence guide for judges, days after a Fox News Digital report highlighted sourcing accused of liberal bias.
The Federal Judicial Center regularly publishes its Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence, and the climate policy chapter of its fourth edition, released on December 31, included several pages of content critics said had been gleaned from left-wing climate advocates and were indoctrinating judges rather than educating them.
Late Friday, federal Judge Robin Rosenberg — the Obama-appointed jurist who leads the center at the Thurgood Marshall Building in Washington — wrote to West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey alerting him that the climate policy chapter has been removed from the guide.
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McCuskey and Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers recently led the charge to get the House Judiciary Committee to expand its probe on climate-related policy influence on federal judges to include the contents of the manual.
“In response to your letter dated January 29, 2026, I write to inform you that the Federal Judicial Center has omitted the climate science chapter from the Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence, Fourth Edition (RMSE),” Rosenberg wrote, linking to the Federal Judicial Center’s webpage introducing the guide.
The approximately 1,600-page guide was released at the beginning of the year and included several citations and footnotes to climate change activists and proponents, including climatologist Michael Mann and environmental law expert Jessica Wentz.
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When Fox News Digital opened the webpage, the download link for a PDF of the manual still listed it as 1,682 pages long — but the document appeared reduced to 1,662 pages.
A footnote in the appendix also indicated that “The FJC omitted ‘Reference Guide on Climate Science’ on 2/6/2026.”
In a statement, McCuskey said his office led the charge in calling for the FJC to withdraw “an inappropriate new addition to the Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence that deals with ‘climate science’.”
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“We have just received notice that, because of our efforts, the chapter is being removed,” McCuskey said, calling the news a “win for impartiality in our judiciary and for the people of West Virginia.”
He also praised Hilgers’ “incredible work” on the effort, as well as that of the other attorneys general who pressed for oversight of the situation.
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“Huge win,” Hilgers reacted on social media. “Proud to work on this with [McCuskey] and our Republican AGs.”
After the change was made, Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton called the original version a “political pamphleteering for the climate scam,” and wrote in the Wall Street Journal that “public accounting of how that [chapter] happened would be useful.”
