Restoration in the News: Kevin Mooney on Junk Science in the Courtroom
Scientists urge John Roberts to update guidance to judges on how to use scientific evidence.
Kevin Mooney, Senior Investigative Researcher for Restoration News, joined the Steve Gruber Show recently to discuss the politicization of climate science inside America's courtrooms. Mooney made an urgent call for stronger judicial oversight of scientific evidence rules, and a return to objective, evidence-based standards for expert testimony—and to throw out consensus as a scientific justification.
Open Letter to the Chief Justice
Mooney talked about a recent open letter signed by three leading climate scientists—Richard Lindzen (MIT), William Happer (Princeton), and Steven Koonin (NYU)—urging Chief Justice John Roberts to address problems in the Federal Judicial Center’s newly revised Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence. The scientists argue that the manual’s updated chapter “How Science Works” improperly elevates “scientific consensus” above the actual scientific method—testable hypotheses, empirical data, and falsifiability. This shift, they contend, undermines the Daubert standard that federal courts have used since 1993 to screen unreliable expert testimony.
The stakes, Mooney explained, are enormous. More than 1,000 climate-related lawsuits are currently working their way through federal and state courts, many seeking to impose trillions of dollars in damages on energy companies. The EPA's 2009 “endangerment finding” declaring carbon dioxide a pollutant—itself built on models and consensus claims—remains vulnerable to fresh legal challenges now that the Supreme Court’s Loper Bright decision has ended Chevron deference. If courts adopt the manual’s new language, Mooney warned, judges could more easily admit speculative climate models as “settled science,” sidelining dissenting experts who demand reproducible evidence that follows the scientific method.
Mooney tied these courtroom battles directly to broader energy and environmental policy. He noted that activist-funded litigation increasingly bypasses legislatures and uses junk science to achieve regulatory outcomes that elected officials could never pass. Citing his own recent book Climate Porn, he argued that anti-population zealots and global institutions have weaponized precautionary-principle rhetoric to attack American capitalism, energy independence, and individual freedom. Without robust judicial gatekeeping, he said, public trust in both science and the legal system will continue to erode, and trillions in economic costs could be imposed on families and businesses with little accountability.
Gruber and Mooney agreed that restoring Daubert’s rigor is essential for judicial independence post-Loper Bright. Mooney closed by stressing that genuine science thrives on debate and falsification, not enforced consensus, and that judges—not activists or bureaucrats—must remain the final gatekeepers. The segment ended with a call for greater transparency and oversight to protect both scientific integrity and democratic governance.
Mooney delivered a stark warning: when courts treat politicized “consensus” as admissible evidence, policy, the economy, and public confidence all suffer.
Watch the full interview here.
MORE ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT COVERAGE
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