Lawsuit challenges Trump administration plan to dismantle largest climate research lab in US

A group of universities that oversee the nation’s largest federal climate research center filed a lawsuit Monday challenging the Trump administration’s attempts to dismantle the lab.

The lawsuit challenging the decision to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) alleges that the Trump administration is waging a “widespread and coordinated campaign of punishment and coercion” against the state of Colorado due to ongoing tensions between President Donald Trump and the state’s governor, Jared Polis.

The application was filed by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), a nonprofit research group of colleges and universities that operates the center, which is headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, and is the nation’s premier research institute for weather modeling and climate science. The Trump administration announced plans in December to dismantle the center.

“UCAR and NCAR are collateral damage,” the lawsuit states.

Trump’s disagreements with Polis stem from his concerns about mail-in voting in Colorado and the prosecution of a county clerk who was convicted of tampering with election materials in the 2020 presidential election, which Trump lost and falsely claimed was rife with fraud. Trump had pushed for Polis to release the clerk and ban mail-in voting, according to the complaint.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, describes “a retaliatory campaign” in which several federal agencies – including the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Department of Commerce and the Office of Management and Budget – allegedly targeted NCAR as part of a broader fight.

Three of the federal agencies named in the UCAR lawsuit did not immediately respond to requests for comment, except for the National Science Foundation, which said it does not comment on pending litigation.

The state of Colorado has filed a lawsuit over other aspects of the alleged campaign to punish the state.

A lawsuit alleges that the Trump administration moved to move U.S. Space Command away from Colorado, end $109 million in transportation funds and add new requirements for its Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) as part of an effort to “punish” the state.

A district judge has so far ruled on only one element of the case: SNAP. The administration argued in court that benefits fraud in Colorado required a pilot program, that the federal government had the ability to impose such a program, and that the state had not demonstrated immediate and irreparable harm that would warrant a preliminary injunction.

However, a district judge sided with the state, issued a preliminary injunction and laid out his reasoning in an order Monday.

The new UCAR lawsuit relies on arguments similar to those of the State.

It alleges that federal agencies issued “gag orders” preventing NCAR employees from communicating with the public about the restructuring, terminated multimillion-dollar agreements to fund climate change adaptation and mitigation research, and imposed new illegal reporting requirements on NCAR and UCAR. The federal government also took steps to move central Wyoming’s supercomputing facilities out of UCAR’s control, according to the complaint.

“The agencies’ apparent ultimate goal is to completely destroy NCAR,” the lawsuit says, noting that the National Science Foundation sent a public notice in January indicating its intention to restructure the agency and sought ideas on how to use NCAR’s Boulder campus for different public or private uses.

The lawsuit alleges that some of the federal government’s recent actions have violated the Administrative Procedure Act. It asks the court to stop several actions, including the transfer of NCAR’s supercomputing facilities and the cancellation of a key NOAA grant.

UCAR and NCAR together provide jobs for approximately 1,400 scientists, engineers and support staff, according to the lawsuit. The center’s work focuses on hurricane forecasting, wildfire monitoring, weather forecasting and space weather, among other areas. NCAR notably operates powerful supercomputers that researchers use for complex modeling work.

In a statement posted on its website, UCAR said federal agencies named in the lawsuit took actions that “pose a direct threat to national security, public safety, and economic prosperity and risk rolling back the nation’s global leadership in weather and space modeling and forecasting.”

UCAR said it would not comment further until the lawsuit is resolved.