By Dailywire.com
While the U.S. Global Change Research Program states on its website that it has a budget of $4.95 billion in 2025, it only lists two full-time employees. So, who’s getting paid to put the massive and consequential report together?
Sources familiar with past iterations of the National Climate Assessment say the work is largely outsourced to a group called ICF, a massive government contractor that has an active contract to work on the report. The Daily Wire identified at least one active contract from NASA for ICF to “support” the U.S. Global Change Research Program. ICF is set to be paid millions of dollars during the Trump administration to “assist the nation and the world to understand, assess, predict, and respond to human-induced and natural processes of global change.”
The contract was first announced in June 2021, and described as a $34 million, five-year contract to help with the National Climate Assessments. Only $18 million has been paid out, according to the government spending database. But with another assessment on deck and ICF under contract for another year, the additional $16 million could be disbursed in the next year.
A climate scientist who has worked on the National Climate Assessment in the past says ICF runs the show, virtually controlling the entire U.S. Global Change Research Program.
“By providing all staff for the USGCRP, a federal agency, the ICF exerts undue influence over the global change narrative and priorities presented by the federal government,” said the official, who requested anonymity to discuss the work. “The ICF, through the USGCRP, exerts an undue influence on the production of the National Climate Assessment every four years. With the exception of its Executive Director and the Director of the National Climate Assessment, the ICF supplies all staff associated with the USGCRP.”
Those two positions mentioned by the climate official are the only two employees listed on the U.S. Global Change Research Program staff list: a director of the National Climate Assessment named Ariela Zycherman, and a deputy director for services named Heidi Roop.
A top Trump administration official, Russell Vought, has signaled that he wanted to exert more oversight over the next climate assessment. Vought runs the powerful Office of Management and Budget, and has openly stated that he wants to make deep cuts to “woke and weaponized” spending.
Vought has specifically called out the U.S. Global Change Research Program’s report, arguing that the bureaucrats who write it end up with outsized power over government action. He’s called for an investigation of the political leanings of the contractors that assemble the report.
Both staffers listed by U.S. Global Change Research Program appear to be highly partisan actors. Zycherman last year contributed to the presidential campaigns of both Joe Biden and then Kamala Harris, according to campaign finance records. Roop has her pronouns in her Instagram bio and describes herself as a “climate scientist focused on preparing for a warmer world.”