Jessica Wentz is a climate law scholar at Columbia Law School’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law whose name has become central to a climate change lawsuit debate after she co-authored a chapter on climate science for a federal judges’ reference manual that was removed following objections from 27 Republican state attorneys general, and after the House Judiciary Committee asked her to sit for a transcribed interview as part of its investigation into alleged advocacy influence on federal judges.
Her Background and Role at the Sabin Center
Wentz is a non-resident senior fellow at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School. She graduated from Columbia Law in 2012, holds a B.A. in International Development from UCLA, and an LL.M. in Energy and Environmental Law from George Washington University Law School. She joined the Sabin Center in September 2014 as an Associate Director and Postdoctoral Fellow and has also taught at George Washington University Law School.1Columbia Law School – Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. Jessica Wentz
Her research centers on how climate science can be used in court, particularly attribution science, which links specific emitters to observed climate changes such as extreme weather and sea-level rise.2Environmental Law Institute – Climate Judiciary Project. Jessica Wentz She was also a technical contributor to the Fourth National Climate Assessment in 2018, working on the section on risk reduction through adaptation.1Columbia Law School – Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. Jessica Wentz
Alongside her academic work, Wentz serves as an expert for the Climate Judiciary Project, an initiative of the Environmental Law Institute (ELI) that provides educational materials on climate science to judges. She authored the project’s curriculum module on “Government Action and Climate Science.”3Environmental Law Institute. Climate Judiciary Project The project says it has educated more than 2,000 judges.4House Committee on the Judiciary. Letter to Environmental Law Institute
The Federal Judges’ Reference Manual Chapter That Was Pulled
The reason Wentz’s name is now attached to a public legal dispute traces to a chapter she wrote with Radley Horton, a climate scientist at Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, for the fourth edition of the Federal Judicial Center’s Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence. The manual is widely used by federal judges when they encounter complex science in litigation. It was published on December 31, 2025.5National Academies of Sciences. Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence, Fourth Edition
Weeks later, on January 29, 2026, a coalition of 27 Republican state attorneys general led by West Virginia Attorney General J.B. McCuskey wrote to the Federal Judicial Center arguing that the climate chapter crossed from neutral explanation into “disputed policy advocacy.” On February 6, 2026, FJC Director Judge Robin L. Rosenberg confirmed the chapter had been omitted from the manual’s digital version.6The New York Times. Judge Manual Climate Change Chapter As of mid-2026, the chapter remains absent from the FJC’s website, though the National Academy of Sciences still hosts it.7Forbes. Concerns Remain About Climate Advocates’ Influence on Judicial Independence
Why Critics Focused on Wentz
Opponents of the chapter pointed to Wentz’s prior activities. They cited her roles at the Sabin Center and the Climate Judiciary Project, her listing as a fact witness for the plaintiffs in Juliana v. United States, and her signatures on amicus briefs supporting federal environmental regulations.8Fox News. Legal Experts Slam Judges’ Guide Over Climate Bias Claims The October 2018 Juliana witness list indicated she would testify about “actions of the Defendants taken during the Trump Administration to perpetuate a fossil fuel-based energy system.”9Climate Policy Radar. Juliana v. United States Witness List
Critics also scrutinized the chapter’s citations to Michael Mann’s work and alleged that portions on attribution science drew heavily from a 2020 law review article Wentz co-authored with Horton and Michael Burger, the Sabin Center’s executive director.8Fox News. Legal Experts Slam Judges’ Guide Over Climate Bias Claims Burger simultaneously serves as Of Counsel at Sher Edling LLP, a plaintiffs’ firm that has filed climate liability suits against fossil fuel companies.10American Enterprise Institute. Who Actually Wrote the Climate Manual for Federal Judges A Wall Street Journal analysis in March 2026 reported substantial similarities between the FJC chapter and the 2020 article, prompting allegations that Burger may have been an undisclosed third author.11House Committee on the Judiciary. Letter to Sabin Center for Climate Change Law
Wentz’s Response
Wentz and Horton pushed back on the removal. In a February 25, 2026, response to the attorneys general, they defended their findings as grounded in authoritative science from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the U.S. Global Change Research Program. They said removing the chapter “deprives judges of a carefully reviewed baseline explanation of the relevant science” and leaves them without tools to evaluate cherry-picked literature or biased expert witnesses.12Inside Climate News. Scientific Reference Manual for Judges Erased A group of Democratic senators and members of Congress wrote to the FJC in February 2026 asking for the chapter’s reinstatement and an explanation of how the decision was made.13Office of Senator Ron Wyden. Letter to Federal Judicial Center
The House Judiciary Investigation
The manual controversy sits inside a wider congressional probe. In August 2025, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan and Subcommittee on Courts Chairman Darrell Issa opened an investigation into the Environmental Law Institute and its Climate Judiciary Project, alleging the CJP had sought to influence federal judges in climate cases with the goal of “predisposing federal judges in favor of plaintiffs alleging injuries” from fossil-fuel products. The committee demanded records on funding, expenses provided to judges, training curricula, and attendance lists.4House Committee on the Judiciary. Letter to Environmental Law Institute
On April 28, 2026, the committee sent a letter directly to Burger at the Sabin Center, seeking documents on CJP program development and any communications between the Sabin Center and Sher Edling LLP. The letter asked that Burger, Sabin Center founder Michael Gerrard, and Wentz make themselves available for transcribed interviews by May 12, 2026.11House Committee on the Judiciary. Letter to Sabin Center for Climate Change Law By April 2026, the committee called ELI’s document production “inadequate,” noting that only 1,432 pages had been produced over seven months, with no records of expenses paid to judges and no transcripts of training sessions.14House Committee on the Judiciary. Letter to ELI Regarding Compliance
ELI has rejected the characterization. A spokesperson said the CJP’s curriculum is “fact-based and science-first, grounded in consensus reports and developed with a robust peer review process,” that claims of improper influence are “without merit,” and that the project “does not participate in litigation, coordinate with parties, or advise judges on how to rule.”15House Committee on the Judiciary. House GOP Launches Probe of Alleged Climate Group Influence on Federal Judges
The Substance Behind the Fight: What Her Scholarship Argues
The dispute over Wentz is partly a dispute over what she has written. Her 2023 article in Earth’s Future, “Research Priorities for Climate Litigation,” co-authored with other scholars, set out how climate science can be produced in a form useful for courts, with a focus on attribution science that links particular emitters to specific harms. One argument in that paper is that scientists producing evidence for legal proceedings should not hold themselves to a 95 percent confidence threshold, because the civil standard of proof is typically “more likely than not,” or greater than 50 percent.16AGU Publications. Research Priorities for Climate Litigation
She has also written on how federal agencies should account for greenhouse gas emissions under the National Environmental Policy Act, on the legal accountability of fossil fuel companies, and on what she has called “liability for public deception” by fossil fuel companies regarding climate science.17Google Scholar. Jessica Wentz Publications Her 2025 article “Climate Science and Natural Resource Litigation” concluded that courts generally defer to agencies on scientific questions unless those agencies have “overlooked or arbitrarily dismissed actionable scientific information.”18Columbia Law School Scholarship Archive. Climate Science and Natural Resource Litigation
Those positions sit at the heart of why her role in judicial education became contested. The committee and the attorneys general treat them as advocacy; Wentz and her co-authors describe them as settled science applied to legal questions. That disagreement, more than any one document, is what has placed her name in the current climate change lawsuit debate.