The Trump administration has disbanded two expert committees that advised the government on producing accurate economic statistics. Members of one group, the Federal Economic Statistics Advisory Committee (FESAC), were told Tuesday that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick disbanded the committee last week because its mission “has been fulfilled,” in an email seen by The Wall Street Journal.
The Commerce Department also terminated a second expert group, the Bureau of Economic Analysis Advisory Committee, which consulted on a separate group of economic stats. Both committees’ websites say that coming meetings have been canceled.
A FESAC committee member, economist Erica Groshen, said the group played a critical role in guiding the offices that track U.S. inflation, employment and economic growth. “Its work goes to the essential transparency of these statistical agencies,” Groshen said. “When you remove that transparency, then that diminishes trust.”
FFESACesac guided government statistics for 25 years. High-profile academic economists including Daron Acemoglu, John Taylor and the late Alan Krueger served as some of its past members. Current members included academic economists, think-tank researchers and executives from Wall Street and corporations.
The committees’ dismantling comes at a challenging moment for the government statistics agencies, which have faced tight budgets and falling response rates to surveys that are essential gauges of the health of the economy.
The move also follows a suggestion from Lutnick over the weekend that the government could change how it calculates the size of the economy by separating government spending, which would be a sharp departure from academic theory and international norms.
FESAC met twice a year to advise government statisticians and economists on how to improve and refine their surveys and calculations. Members weren’t paid for their work. Members who chose to attend meetings in person could be compensated for travel expenses.
Groshen, who was previously head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, said FESAC had an especially important role advising on statistics that combine the work of multiple government agencies. That includes the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation metric, the personal-consumption expenditures price index, which melds analysis from both the Labor Department and the Commerce Department.
“These advisory committees are really essential to maintaining the quality of the data going forward,” she said.

@Edmond … in response to your points
1. Scientists around the globe are concerned about climate change. It is not a conspiracy, but based on analyses of facts and measurements. I spent much of my career in air quality. I have personally observed and measured how small concentrations of air pollution can affect the environment and people’s health. Much of the opposition to climate change is funded by fossil fuel companies with vested interests in maintaining the status quo.
2. This is true but context is important. Where I live, conservatives have consistently opposed land use controls to limit development in floodplains, coastal areas. Trump is also cutting funds for the US Forest Service and FEMA. National forests are located all over the US, not just California. I believe we will be experiencing more wildfires in many areas outside the West. Several years ago, we had an exceptionally dry year in North Carolina, and wildfires were occurring across the state.
3. Many areas flooded by hurricanes in North Carolina were well outside floodplains, even 500-year zones. This was true in hurricanes Fran, Floyd, Matthew, Helene and others.

Silly name calling. Ad hominem attacks. The rhetorical style reminds me when I was 10 years old on the school playground.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has dropped its lawsuit against the operator of payment platform Zelle and three of its parent banks, in the latest move by the Trump administration to undo actions of the bureau's prior leadership. The bureau had filed the lawsuit in late December against the operator of Zelle, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo "for failing to protect consumers from widespread fraud." Customers of the top three banks lost more than $870 million over seven years due to the banks' failures to protect them, according to the CFPB.
"This is about financial institutions fulfilling their basic obligations to protect customers' money and help fraud victims recover their losses," then-CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said at the time. "These banks broke the law by running a payment system that made fraud easy, and then refusing to help the victims."
However, that was then. On Tuesday the administration dropped its case against Zelle, according to a filing in U.S. District Court in Arizona.
Zelle and its parent banks are just the latest enforcement target to be abandoned by the CFPB, which is currently led by acting director Russell Vought. Last week the bureau dropped cases it was litigating against five companies including Capital One, Rocket Homes and others. It had earlier dropped its case against online lending platform SoLo Funds.
The CFPB has also been decimated in a matter of weeks, with agency's employees ordered to stop essentially all work, while some 150 employees have been fired. The bureau's D.C. headquarters has also been shuttered.