Washington (CNN) Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer vowed Tuesday to defund a climate science panel the White House is looking to create, calling it "fake" and criticizing Republican leaders for their positions on climate change. The White House is considering assembling an "ad hoc group" of scientists to re-evaluate the federal government's current conclusions about climate science and the negative impact of fossil fuels, The Washington Post reported Sunday. The group would include scientists "who question the severity of climate impacts and the extent to which humans contribute to the problem," according to the paper. "So this morning I'm announcing that if the Trump administration moves forward with this fake climate panel, we will be introducing legislation to defund it," Schumer said in a speech on the Senate floor. According to the Post, the plan, which is not finalized, was discussed at a meeting last week with several high level administration officials in which attendees "debated how best to establish a group of researchers that could scrutinize recent federal climate reports."

Source: CNN February 26, 2019 17:03 UTC