Official Played Down Emissions' Links to Global Warming (NYT)

[Viking12]

Surprise, surprise, surprise....

By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Published: June 7, 2005
A White House official who once led the oil industry's fight against limits on greenhouse gases has repeatedly edited government climate reports in ways that play down links between such emissions and global warming, according to internal documents.

In handwritten notes on drafts of several reports issued in 2002 and 2003, the official, Philip A. Cooney, removed or adjusted descriptions of climate research that government scientists and their supervisors, including some senior Bush administration officials, had already approved.

Mr. Cooney is chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the office that helps devise and promote administration policies on environmental issues. Before coming to the White House in 2001, he was the "climate team leader" and a lobbyist at the American Petroleum Institute, the largest trade group representing the interests of the oil industry. A lawyer with a bachelor's degree in economics, he has no scientific training.

The documents were obtained by The New York Times from the Government Accountability Project, a nonprofit legal-assistance group for government whistle-blowers. The project is representing Rick S. Piltz, who resigned in March after a decade working in the office that coordinates government climate research and issued the documents that Mr. Cooney edited.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/07/science/07cnd-climate.html?hp&ex=1118203200&en=494354b6393298f4&ei=5094&partner=homepage

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1. The press follow up, but not well

http://www.chriscmooney.com/blog.asp?Id=1901

Q Scott, the Government Accountability Project, a private group, has obtained internal White House documents that show that a White House official that was formerly a lobbyist for the oil industry has doctored and edited administration scientific reports in ways that consistently emphasize supposed uncertainties about global warming -- uncertainties that the vast consensus of science doesn't think are that severe. And I wonder, does the President think that helps the credibility of the administration on scientific issues?
MR. McCLELLAN: Actually, first, I disagree with the characterization. I think that your characterization is contradicted by the scientific community. The National Academies of Science came out with a report in 2001 that was requested by the President; it took a look at science of climate change, and in that very report it talked about how there are considerable uncertainties. So some of the language that you referenced was based on the very report from the scientific community that the President had requested.

And in terms of this report that came out earlier today, let me just step back and talk to you a little bit about our interagency review process, because that's all this is. We have an interagency review process when it comes to issues like climate change and the environment. There are some 15 federal agencies that are involved in that interagency review process. It includes policy people; it includes scientists. And when we're getting ready to put out a report, it goes through that interagency review process so people can have their input into the report.

One of the very reports highlighted in the article today was the administration's 10-year plan for climate science. And that plan was widely praised by the scientific community, including the National Academies of Science.

Mooney's commnetary: It's now 2005; how long will a 2001 NAS report remain the Bush administration's gold standard for the science of climate? But I digress. The stuff about the "interagency review process" is B.S.; the whole point is that that process has been corrupted, and that political people should not be put in the position of tinkering with scientific content in any interagency review process. Moreover, citing the Bush administration's ten year plan is also misleading. The National Academies report had praise for that plan but also had serious criticisms as well, which McClellan doesn't bother to cite. Thankfully, though, the reporter is tenacious (although not about the points I've just raised):

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2. science?