Source: POLITICO, 6/24/19

Agriculture Department studies ranging from a discovery that rice loses vitamins in a carbon-rich environment to a finding that climate change could exacerbate allergy seasons have been suppressed under the Trump administration, POLITICO's Helena Bottemiller Evich reports.

A POLITICO investigation found the Trump administration has refused to draw attention to dozens of studies that show the potential dangers and consequences of climate change, defying a longstanding practice of touting such findings by the Agriculture Department's acclaimed in-house scientists.

A USDA spokesperson said there have been no directives within the department that discouraged the dissemination of climate-related science. "Research continues on these subjects and we promote the research once researchers are ready to announce the findings, after going through the appropriate reviews and clearances," the spokesperson said in an email.

But POLITICO's review found at least 45 Agricultural Research Service studies related to climate change since the beginning of the Trump administration that did not receive any promotion. The total number of studies that have been published on climate-related issues is likely to be larger, Helena reports, because ARS studies appear across a broad range of narrowly focused journals and can be difficult to locate.

"The intent is to try to suppress a message — in this case, the increasing danger of human-caused climate change," said Michael Mann, a leading climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University. "Who loses out? The people, who are already suffering the impacts of sea level rise and unprecedented superstorms, droughts, wildfires and heat waves."