EXCLUSIVE: Lawsuits Seek Buttigieg-Era Records on Talks With Climate Groups and Federal Climate Report Emails

A government ethics nonprofit has gone to federal court to pry loose Biden-era records about how top officials worked with outside climate groups, including communications involving former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, according to two lawsuits filed Tuesday, Oct. 20, and reviewed by The Digital Free Press.

Protect the Public's Trust, a Washington-based nonprofit that describes itself in court papers as "dedicated to restoring public trust in government," filed both cases in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia under the Freedom of Information Act.

The Buttigieg Transportation Department Case

The first lawsuit, Protect the Public's Trust v. U.S. Department of Transportation, No. 1:26-cv-03673, says the group filed three records requests on Sept. 17, 2025. They cover Feb. 1, 2021, through Nov. 20, 2024, and seek records involving Buttigieg and six other senior Transportation Department officials.

According to the complaint, the requests seek:

Communications between those officials and eight outside groups on climate topics. The groups are the Center for Biological Diversity, Earthjustice, Earthworks, the Environmental Defense Fund, Friends of the Earth, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Public Citizen and the Union of Concerned Scientists. The search terms include "climate" paired with words such as "crisis," "emergency," "denier" and "skeptics," as well as "carbon," "greenhouse gas" and "global warming."

Calendar records of the officials' meetings with or about anyone at those groups.

Internal department communications about those groups.

The complaint says the department acknowledged the requests in September 2025. On Oct. 30, 2025, a department records officer wrote that the search would be finished "within two weeks" and that records would come "within the next 6 to 8 weeks," according to the filing. The group says it asked for updates in February, April and May 2026. On June 1, 2026, the complaint says, the same officer apologized and said production would start "within 2 weeks."

As of the filing, the lawsuit says, the department had not produced any records. The group argues the public has "a substantial interest" in knowing "how senior DOT officials interacted with outside advocacy organizations regarding climate-related matters, and whether those interactions influenced DOT policy."

The Climate Report Case

The second lawsuit, Protect the Public's Trust v. U.S. Department of Commerce, No. 1:26-cv-03671, targets the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is part of Commerce.

The complaint says the group filed two requests on June 17, 2026, for communications involving two federal officials, Christopher Avery and David Easterling, and an email group called "NCA5: Federal Steering Committee." NCA5 refers to the Fifth National Climate Assessment, the government's major climate report released in late 2023. One request covers 2021 and the other covers 2023.

According to the complaint, NOAA invoked a 10-business-day extension and said it expected to respond by July 31, 2026. The group says it has received no substantive response and no records since then. The lawsuit says the records would show "the role federal officials" played in "shaping the assessment."

Alexa Moutevelis, communications director for Protect the Public's Trust, told The Digital Free Press: "These requests contribute to Protect the Public's Trust's efforts to provide transparency for the American public. We hope the records they produce will give insight into and contribute to public understanding of the operations of the federal government, its agencies, and its projects."

Both lawsuits ask a judge to order the agencies to search for and release the records and to justify anything they withhold. The lawsuits do not accuse Buttigieg, Avery, Easterling or any other official of wrongdoing. They are about the agencies' failure to answer records requests. The agencies had not responded in court as of this report.

Aside from automated court-docket listings, The Digital Free Press found no news coverage of either lawsuit before publication.

The Digital Free Press reached out to the Commerce Department and to the group's lawyers at Dhillon Law Group for comment on Oct. 22, and to the Transportation Department on Oct. 23. Protect the Public's Trust responded through its communications director; no response was received from the Commerce or Transportation departments by publication.

Image: U.S. Department of Transportation headquarters in Washington (file photo), by AgnosticPreachersKid, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.

Yossi Schmidt, Founder and Editor-in-Chief, The Digital Free Press

Hold Everyone Accountable.

Sources: Complaint, Protect the Public's Trust v. U.S. Department of Transportation, No. 1:26-cv-03673 (D.D.C., filed Oct. 20, 2026): https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.297825/gov.uscourts.dcd.297825.1.0.pdf ; Complaint, Protect the Public's Trust v. U.S. Department of Commerce, No. 1:26-cv-03671 (D.D.C., filed Oct. 20, 2026): https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.297823/gov.uscourts.dcd.297823.1.0.pdf ; Court document page (CourtListener): https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/74994324/1/protect-the-publics-trust-v-us-department-of-transportation/ ; Court document page (CourtListener): https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/74994212/1/protect-the-publics-trust-v-us-department-of-commerce/