"Kelly Levin, a senior associate with the World Resources Institute’s major emerging economies objective, wrote in a blog post last month that the kind of adversarial process Pruitt is advocating is better suited for policy debates than for scientific findings. Scientific arguments, she wrote, are mediated through a peer-review process in which experts in the same field evaluate one another’s work.

'Scientific understanding, unlike proposals for what to do about a given problem, is well established through the scientific method,' wrote Levin, noting that 97 percent of peer-reviewed papers on climate change support the idea that humans play a contributing factor. 'If skeptics want their voices heard in scientific discourse, they should try to get their findings published in the peer-reviewed literature. They would then be assessed on their merits through peer review.'

Some members of EPA’s scientific rank-and-file, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal, questioned Pruitt’s plan.

'It’s an obvious attempt to cast doubt on climate science under the guise of a common sense-sounding process,' said one EPA employee who focuses on climate issues. 'But of course, we already have a process for scrutiny of the science — the peer review process is a much more robust assessment of scientific integrity than a childish color war.'

The employee called the effort 'incredibly insulting' and said it red team-blue team idea 'is a weaker process than we already have in place for peer review and scientific assessment.'"