In short, the state attorneys general object to the document treating facts as facts, as there have been lawsuits that contested them. “Among other things, the Manual states that human activities have ‘unequivocally warmed the climate,’ that it is ‘extremely likely’ human influence drives ocean warming, and that researchers are ‘virtually certain’ about ocean acidification,” their letter states, “treating contested litigation positions as settled fact.” In other words, they’re arguing that, if someone is ignorant enough to start a suit based on ignorance of well-established science, then the Federal Judicial Center should join them in their ignorance.
The attorneys general also complain that the report calls the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change an “authoritative science body,” citing a conservative Canadian public policy think tank that disagreed with that assessment.
These complaints were mixed in with some more potentially reasonable complaints about how the climate chapter gave specific suggestions on how to legally approach some issues, and assigned significance to one or two recent studies that haven’t yet been validated by follow-on work. But the letter’s authors would not settle for revisions based on a few reasonable complaints; instead, they demand the entire chapter be removed because it accurately reflects the status of climate science.
Naturally, the Federal Judicial Center has agreed. We have confirmed that the current version of the document no longer includes a chapter on climate science, even though the foreword by Supreme Court Justice Elana Kagan still mentions it.