At a Congressional hearing yesterday, the Bush administration was accused of systemically tampering with the works of government climate scientists to eliminate material which was politically inconvenient. Scientists and advocacy groups spoke about a White House campaign to remove references to global warming from scientific reports, and limit public pressure to impose controls over greenhouse gas emissions.

The Union of Concerned Scientists and the Government Accountability Project released a report saying that nearly half of the 1,600 scientists surveyed at government agencies, ranging from Nasa to the Environmental Protection Agency, had been advised against using the terms “global warming” and “climate change”. 43% said their published work had been revised in a way which altered the meaning of scientific findings, while 38% said they had direct knowledge of scientific climate information being completely stripped from websites and printed reports.

The Congressional hearing was finally overseen by the new Democratic chair of the House committee on oversight and government reform, Congressman Henry Waxman, after years of complaints from scientists that the Bush administration was thwarting scientific research at government agencies. Since the Democrats took control of Congress, at least five bills proposing mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions have been introduced in the House and Senate. Another topic brought up by scientists was the drop in climate research funding which was reduced back in the 1990’s.

Much of the testimony yesterday centered on the influence exerted by Mr Cooney, a former lobbyist for the petroleum industry who was put in charge of the Council on Environmental Quality. Mr Cooney now works for Exxon Mobil, the committee was told. In one instance, Mr Cooney personally edited out a key section of an Environmental Protection Agency report to Congress on the dangers of climate change. “He called it speculative musing,” Mr Piltz said.

Rick Piltz, a former senior associate at the US Climate Change Science Program, said there has been a great deal of political interference in technical reports, public meetings, and exchanges with the media. “There were a very large number of edits that came at the 12th hour after all the earlier science people had signed off,” said Piltz. In one such case, Phil Cooney demanded 400 last-minute edits to significantly change the meaning and tone of a report. Scientists were constantly assigned minders from the administration, and Mr. Piltz eventually left his job because of such pressure to manipulate the truth.

Beyond being “the Decider” on issues such as troop increases, Bush also dictates that science agree with his administration’s policies or science is wrong. I never knew Alberto Gonzales extended presidential powers to include complete control over the laws of physics.

source