Whistleblower Reveals Bush Administration Altered Climate Change Reports

A former oil industry lobbyist changed language in government climate change reports to undermine the science on climate change and present it as less problematic, according to a government whistleblower, in what is becoming a persistent problem of politics trumping science.

The whistleblower, Rick Piltz, accused Philip Cooney of changing several 2002 and 2003 reports, including Out Changing Planet and the Strategic Plan for the United States Climate Change Science Program that discussed climate change. He asserts Cooney made changes focused on creating an air of doubt around climate change science. One of the changes Cooney made was crossing out a section on ice and snowpack melting, noting that it strayed "from research strategy into speculative findings/musings."

Before joining the White House Council on Environmental Quality as chief of staff, Cooney was a lobbyist for the largest oil industry trade group -- the American Petroleum Institute. He is trained as a lawyer, not a scientist. Cooney's changes echo the beliefs of the institute, whose website states, "U.S. oil and natural gas companies believe that uncertainties about climate change make it hard to justify mandatory, severe, near-term emission reductions."

Piltz, a Senior Associate with the U.S. Climate Change Science Policy Office and former Associate Director of the U.S. Global Change Research Program, resigned from the Climate Change Science Program in March in protest of the politicization of his science program. He noted in a memorandum sent to climate change officials last week, "I have not seen a situation like the one that has developed under this administration during the past four years, in which politicization by the White House has fed back directly into the science program in such a way as to undermine the credibility and integrity of the program."


This is not the first time the White House has altered reports on climate change. The Bush administration has also repeatedly shown resistance to embracing the scientific community's consensus that global warming is occurring, and oppose mandatory regulations aimed at curbing the release of greenhouse gases. As previously reported by OMB Watch, administration officials cut out an entire chapter on climate change within EPA's 2003 Draft Report on the Environment. In this case, CEQ requested changes such as the removal of any reference to National Academy of Sciences (NAS) findings which confirmed the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report asserting that climate change is happening, and humans are altering the atmosphere. This is particularly ironic, given that the White House requested the NAS report, but was unhappy with its findings. The administration also inserted a reference to a discredited study from the American Petroleum Institute.


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