The House Oversight and Government Reform is circulating a draft report on the Bush administration's political interference with government climate change science. The report, put together after a 16-month investigation, brings together the information culled from 27,000 pages of documents from the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) and the Commerce Department, two investigative hearings, and interviews with officials from relevant agencies. It concludes (surprise!) that the White House has engaged in systematic censorship of climate science, deliberately misleading press, policymakers, and citizens.
Former CEQ Chief of Staff Philip Cooney told the Committee: "Our communications people would render a view as to whether someone should give an interview or not and who it should be." According to Kent Laborde, a career public affairs officer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, media requests related to climate change issues were handled differently from other requests because "I would have to route media inquires through CEQ." This practice was particularly evident after Hurricane Katrina. Mr. Laborde was asked, "Did the White House and the Department of Commerce not want scientists who believed that climate change was increasing hurricane activity talking with the press?" He responded: "There was a consistent approach that might have indicated that."
And in addition to keeping scientists in their own agencies from talking to the press about their scientific observations, they've also edited or minimized references to climate change in reports. In the administration's Strategic Plan of the Climate Change Science Program, CEQ officials made 294 edits to the document to emphasize uncertainty about climate science and deemphasize the role of humans in global warming. In the EPA's Air Trends Report, CEQ cut the climate change section entirely. And in the EPA's Report on the Environment, the White House made so many edits to the draft that EPA officials decided to drop the climate change section.
Not that there's any question these days why the general public (and legislators) remain confused, cynical, and pessimistic about acting on climate change. Years of misinformation have left people still very unsure of who to trust on climate change, and successfully stalled progress to date. Yet there has been marked progress in both public opinion and Congress over the past year on climate and energy despite this, which should lend hope about what could be possible in an administration where science is actually valued.
--Kate Sheppard
