political interference with government

Political Interference With Government Climate Change Science

Dec 10: For the past 16 months, the House Oversight and Government

Reform Committee, Chaired by Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA), has

been investigating allegations of political interference with

government climate change science under the Bush Administration.

During the course of this investigation, the Committee obtained over

27,000 pages of documents from the White House Council on

Environmental Quality (CEQ) and the Commerce Department, held two

investigative hearings, and deposed or interviewed key officials. Much

of the information made available to the Committee has never been

publicly disclosed.

A proposed report, released on December 10, presents the findings of

the Committee's investigation. According to an announcement released

by the Committee, "The evidence before the Committee leads to one

inescapable conclusion: the Bush Administration has engaged in a

systematic effort to manipulate climate change science and mislead

policymakers and the public about the dangers of global warming."

According to the announcement, in 1998, the American Petroleum

Institute developed an internal "Communications Action Plan" that

stated: "Victory will be achieved when ... average citizens

`understand' uncertainties in climate science ... [and] recognition of

uncertainties becomes part of the `conventional wisdom.'" The

announcement says, "The Bush Administration has acted as if the oil

industry's communications plan were its mission statement. White House

officials and political appointees in the agencies censored

congressional testimony on the causes and impacts of global warming,

controlled media access to government climate scientists, and edited

federal scientific reports to inject unwarranted uncertainty into

discussions of climate change and to minimize the threat to the

environment and the economy.

"The White House exerted unusual control over the public statements of

federal scientists on climate change issues. It was standard practice

for media requests to speak with federal scientists on climate change

matters to be sent to CEQ for White House approval. By controlling

which government scientists could respond to media inquiries, the

White House suppressed dissemination of scientific views that could

conflict with Administration policies. The White House also edited

congressional testimony regarding the science of climate change."

The announcement highlights the recent climate change testimony of Dr.

Julie Gerberding, the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention, and Dr. Thomas Karl, the Director of National Climatic

Data Center, who appeared before the House Oversight Committee a year

earlier and says that their testimony was heavily edited by both White

House officials and political appointees at the Commerce Department.

It says there was a systematic White House effort to minimize the

significance of climate change by editing climate change reports. It

indicates the White House insisted on edits to EPA's draft Report on

the Environment that were so extreme that the EPA Administrator opted

to eliminate the climate change section of the report. In the case of

EPA's Air Trends Report, CEQ went beyond editing and simply vetoed the

entire climate change section of the report. And, despite objections

from EPA, CEQ insisted on repeating an unsupported assertion that

millions of American jobs would be lost if the Kyoto Protocol were

ratified.

The White House Press Secretary, Dana Perino, who said she had not

seen the report but heard reports of it, responded saying, "I think

that it's inescapable that they issued this report on a day when they

knew that the United States would be represented at the Bali

conference, where we are currently talking about the next step for a

framework after 2012, which is when Kyoto would end... I would submit

to you, having worked on these issues for a long time, that it's

rehashed rhetoric that has come out of the Democrats beforehand, and

we just reject it as being untrue." In response to a question stating,

Did the White House ever asked employees at agencies like NOAA to

suppress climate change information and science?; Perino said, "Not

that I'm aware and I do not believe that is true. "

Access the announcement (click here). Access the 37-page proposed

report (click here). Access the White House press briefing that

contains the Press Secretary's comments (click here). [*Climate]