(CNN) The Trump administration may have shut down the government advisory committee on climate change started by President Barack Obama, but its members considered the work so important that they did not stop working.

Trump allowed the charter of the advisory committee to expire in August 2017 after his administration showed concern about the political makeup of the 15-member panel.

"It only has one member from industry," wrote George Kelly, then deputy chief of staff at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in a June 2017 email, the Washington Post uncovered . Kelly said officials needed to decide whether to let the committee "expire as soon as possible," as the "process to gain more balance would take a couple of years to accomplish."

At the invitation of New York's governor, Andrew Cuomo, most of the members of the committee reconvened and became the Science to Climate Action Network, also known as SCAN.