The White House Killed This One of a Kind Report. The Scientists Behind It Aren’t Giving Up

Libby Denkmann and Alec Cowan · KUOW · April 22, 2025

Featuring Phil Levin, member of the Center’s Research Collaborative

“Our world is changing. It’s changing rapidly. Like, we can see climate changing our world as we speak, but also, we’re losing nature at unprecedented rates, and there’s an equity crisis as well.”

That was University of Washington professor Phil Levin two years ago. At the time, he’d just been tapped by the Biden Administration for a one of a kind mission: writing the most all encompassing review ever of nature throughout the entirety of the United States.

“The National Nature Assessment,” as it was called, was to be a wide ranging report on the state of and potential threats to the U.S.’s varied ecosystems.