T1B

US official edited warming, emission link
Wed Jun 8, 4:42 AM ET

A White House official, who previously worked for the American Petroleum Institute, has repeatedly edited government climate reports in a way that downplays links between greenhouse gas emissions and global warming, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.

Philip Cooney, chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, made changes to descriptions of climate research that had already been approved by government scientists and their supervisors, the newspaper said, citing internal documents.

The White House declined comment on the report.

The report said the documents were obtained by the newspaper from the Government Accountability Project, a nonprofit group that provides legal help to government whistleblowers.

The group is representing Rick Piltz, who resigned in March from the office that coordinates government research and issued the documents that Cooney edited, the Times said.

The newspaper said Cooney made handwritten notes on drafts of several reports issued in 2002 and 2003, removing or adjusting language on climate research.

White House officials told the newspaper the changes were part of a normal interagency review of all documents related to global environmental change.

"All comments are reviewed, and some are accepted and some are rejected," Robert Hopkins, a spokesman for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy told the the newspaper.

In a memo sent last week to top officials dealing with climate change at a dozen agencies, Piltz charged that "politicization by the White House" was undermining the credibility and integrity of the science program. ((Writing by JoAnne Allen; Editing by Stacey Joyce; Reuters Messaging: joanne.allen.reuters.com@reuters.net; 202-898-8322)s

The newspaper said Cooney made handwritten notes on drafts of several reports issued in 2002 and 2003, removing or adjusting language on climate research.

White House officials told the newspaper the changes were part of a normal interagency review of all documents related to global environmental change.

"All comments are reviewed, and some are accepted and some are rejected," Robert Hopkins, a spokesman for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy told the the newspaper.

Mikey wrote:Very nice retort.
"You guys do it so why shouldn't we?"

At least I have a documented example, and it's coming from the Bush Administration.
No agenda there, of course, and no problem because he's our hero.

DrDetroit wrote:Handwritten notes in the margins is not editing.

Dinsdale wrote:

DrDetroit wrote:Handwritten notes in the margins is not editing.

Ever seen a news draft after it's been submitted to the editor?

DrDetroit wrote:Looks to me like the issue is a non-starter as soon as you read:

The newspaper said Cooney made handwritten notes on drafts of several reports issued in 2002 and 2003, removing or adjusting language on climate research.

White House officials told the newspaper the changes were part of a normal interagency review of all documents related to global environmental change.

"All comments are reviewed, and some are accepted and some are rejected," Robert Hopkins, a spokesman for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy told the the newspaper.

What's the story?

Cooney did not "edit" anything. Handwritten notes in the margins is not editing.

Typical leftist rubbish.

And we'll continue to see this as long as the administration continues to rightly disagree with the conclusion that greenhouse gas emmissions are causing global climate change. And that would be another few years.

Mikey wrote:

DrDetroit wrote:Looks to me like the issue is a non-starter as soon as you read:

The newspaper said Cooney made handwritten notes on drafts of several reports issued in 2002 and 2003, removing or adjusting language on climate research.

White House officials told the newspaper the changes were part of a normal interagency review of all documents related to global environmental change.

"All comments are reviewed, and some are accepted and some are rejected," Robert Hopkins, a spokesman for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy told the the newspaper.

What's the story?

Cooney did not "edit" anything. Handwritten notes in the margins is not editing.

Typical leftist rubbish.

And we'll continue to see this as long as the administration continues to rightly disagree with the conclusion that greenhouse gas emmissions are causing global climate change. And that would be another few years.

And you're a blind fool.
But then it's a free country, so feel free to continue.

DrDetroit wrote:

Dinsdale wrote:

DrDetroit wrote:Handwritten notes in the margins is not editing.

Ever seen a news draft after it's been submitted to the editor?

Irrelevant.

DrDetroit wrote:Looks to me like the issue is a non-starter as soon as you read:

The newspaper said Cooney made handwritten notes on drafts of several reports issued in 2002 and 2003, removing or adjusting language on climate research.

White House officials told the newspaper the changes were part of a normal interagency review of all documents related to global environmental change.

"All comments are reviewed, and some are accepted and some are rejected," Robert Hopkins, a spokesman for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy told the the newspaper.

What's the story?

Cooney did not "edit" anything. Handwritten notes in the margins is not editing.

When a piece is turned in, it comes back from the editor with handwritten notes in the margins(in red ink), telling the writer what to fix. Technically, it's proofreading, but that's kind of splitting hairs.

Mister Bushice wrote:"removing or adjusting language on climate research."

You're right. He didn't edit it, as much as he censored it.

"adjusting language"? Is that like changing "Acid rain" to "stinging rain", "Global Warming" to "Extended heat wave" "rain forest depletion" to "Landscape modification"?

No surprise the bush administration has people doctoring environmental reports, but you'd think they would have learned you can't hide shit like this.

The White House is defending the changes made to government reports on global warming by a former oil industry lobbyist turned White House official.

The New York Times reported on Wednesday that the changes that were made play up doubts on whether so-called "greenhouse gases" from human activity really cause climate change.

But Press Secretary Scott McClellan says the resulting reports were still "scientifically sound."

The changes were made by Philip Cooney, who led the American Petroleum Institute's fight against greenhouse gas limits before he joined President Bush's Council on Environmental Quality in 2001.

The Times documents several handwritten notes by Cooney on drafts of reports issued in 2002 and 2003. Cooney removed or adjusted descriptions of climate research that government scientists and their supervisors, including some senior Bush administration officials, had already approved.

While sometimes as subtle as the insertion of the phrase "significant and fundamental" before the word "uncertainties," tend to produce an air of doubt about findings that most climate experts say are robust, reports the Times.

In one instance detailed by the Times, an October 2002 draft of a summary of government climate research, Cooney adding the word "extremely" to this sentence: "The attribution of the causes of biological and ecological changes to climate change or variability is extremely difficult."

In another cited example, Cooney crossed out a paragraph describing the projected reduction of mountain glaciers and snowpack. His note in the margins explained that this was "straying from research strategy into speculative findings/musings."

The Times said Cooney has no scientific training. But McClellan calls him a "policy person" whose editing is "part of the interagency review process."

Environmentalists have accused Bush and top aides of claiming doubt about mankind's role in global warming -- when the vast majority of scientific evidence supports a link.

The Times documents several handwritten notes by Cooney on drafts of reports issued in 2002 and 2003. Cooney removed or adjusted descriptions of climate research that government scientists and their supervisors, including some senior Bush administration officials, had already approved.

In one instance detailed by the Times, an October 2002 draft of a summary of government climate research, Cooney adding the word "extremely" to this sentence: "The attribution of the causes of biological and ecological changes to climate change or variability is extremely difficult."

In another cited example, Cooney crossed out a paragraph describing the projected reduction of mountain glaciers and snowpack. His note in the margins explained that this was "straying from research strategy into speculative findings/musings."

Having a "policy person" edit scientific reports that had already been approved by senior scientists.
Yep, there's your definition of "good science". If it fits with policy it's good if it doesn't then it quackery.

Environmentalists have accused Bush and top aides of claiming doubt about mankind's role in global warming -- when the vast majority of scientific evidence supports a link.

DrDetroit wrote:

In another cited example, Cooney crossed out a paragraph describing the projected reduction of mountain glaciers and snowpack. His note in the margins explained that this was "straying from research strategy into speculative findings/musings."

What's the problem? The projections are based on computer modeling that cannot reliable predict glacier/snowpack reduction that has already occurred.

Having a "policy person" edit scientific reports that had already been approved by senior scientists.
Yep, there's your definition of "good science". If it fits with policy it's good if it doesn't then it quackery.

Boy, lie much?

Who are you (and he) to judge the reliability of a projection that you haven't even read?

A projection that has been reviewed by multiple scientists who have actual knowledge in the field, as compared to you (an him) who only have a political agenda.

And BTW, liar, he did not merely comment on the projections, he removed them, dipshit. Try a little honesty once in a while and you might actually get somebody to respect your opinion. Nah, never mind.

Where's the lie? Is he not a "policy person", without scientific training? Was he not characterized as such by McClellan? Lie much?

You haven't yet defended how he can possibly be qualified or justified to add or subtract anything from a scientific report, except for the fact that the results are contrary to his and his boss' agenda.

Left Seater wrote:I will look at the history of the earth and see that we have had temperature changes over many years and the current warming fits in quite nicely with historical trends.

Increased snowfall over a large area of Antarctica is thickening the ice sheet and slowing the rise in sea level caused by melting ice.

A satellite survey shows that between 1992 and 2003, the East Antarctic ice sheet gained about 45 billion tonnes of ice - enough to reduce the oceans' rise by 0.12 millimetres per year. The ice sheets that cover Antarctica's bedrock are several kilometres thick in places, and contain about 90% of the world's ice. But scientists fear that if they melt in substantial quantities, this will swell the oceans and cause devastation on islands and coastal lands.

Left Seater wrote:Bottom line for me is I think both sides will manipulate numbers in an attempt to prove their view. I will look at the history of the earth and see that we have had temperature changes over many years and the current warming fits in quite nicely with historical trends.

Bush Says `What, Me Worry?' on Global Warming: Margaret Carlson June 16 (Bloomberg) -- I always wonder if the president really doesn't know things or if he's found ignorance so useful he's made it his strategy of choice.

Here's a Yale University graduate with better grades than Mr. Know It All, John Kerry, yet George W. Bush entertains a theory of intelligent design that says the earth isn't 4.5 billion years old but was, in geological terms, born yesterday, suggests that cures from embryonic stem cells are a cruel hoax of those unconcerned about life in a petri dish, and believes that record-setting heat is good for baseball.

When his vice president says the insurgency in Iraq is in its last throes, who is Bush going to believe: Dick Cheney or his own eyes? The president is smart. He's just not curious, especially when acknowledging the facts would require him to do something.

Bush's most stunning lack of curiosity concerns global warming. The heat wave this spring, prairie droughts, melting glaciers -- all flukes to him.

Bush is always awaiting yet another study to prove a link between greenhouse gases and global warming because the one in his hands isn't good enough. To make sure he didn't get a study that would force him to act, Bush hired Philip Cooney, the former lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute.

To the Heart

Like the cattlemen regulating meat inspections, mining executives over at the Interior Department and drug salesman at the FDA, Cooney took his private war against government regulation public to the heart of the administration as chief of staff at the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

It all worked beautifully. Scientists would issue a study, and Cooney, with his blue pencil in hand, would happily doctor it up. Insert a few words like ``significant'' and ``fundamental'' just before ``uncertainties'' and, voila, you turn a study that links greenhouse gases to a hotter planet into one that has significant and fundamental doubts about it.

No wonder Cooney got mash notes from the Competitive Enterprise Institute. CEI -- heavily funded by Exxon Mobil -- thanked him for consulting with them, unlike that closet greenie Christie Todd Whitman at EPA who never did. Whitman gave up on having as much influence as Cooney and left her post early, making moot CEI's wish that she be fired.

Pressing Need

Last Friday, Cooney left too. Just two days after the New York Times reported on his editorial climate changes, Cooney discovered a pressing need to spend more time with his family. After one weekend of that, he discovered a pressing need to work at Exxon.

It's a fitting place. According to The Guardian of London, which says it got hold of briefing papers prepared for Undersecretary of State Paula Dobriansky, the administration wanted her to thank Exxon executives for their ``active involvement'' in setting climate change policy and to ask what policies they'd like to see in the future.

Unlike former CIA director George Tenet, who sexed up intelligence to make a slam dunk case for invading Iraq, the guy who de-sexed climate change intelligence did not need a Medal of Freedom dangled in front of him to turn off the lights.

Turning Point

Years from now, if we aren't all swimming to work, we may look back on Cooney's departure as the moment Bush had to give up his denial.

Bush stands nearly alone as he goes off to the G-8 meeting in Scotland next month. Former Bush lap dog, U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, has pushed action on global warming near the top of the agenda.

Ten scientific academies around the world have in unison with our National Academy of Sciences called for action on global warming. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, no girlie man in earth shoes, said last week, ``The debate is over, we know the science, we see the threat'' and ``the time for action is now.''

In 2003, the Senate gave polluters a pass. Now it looks as if a cap-and-trade system to lessen emissions might be adopted as part of the energy bill. Bush's allies in industry, with the exception of Exxon, are deserting him, realizing that controls are not only inevitable but in the long run efficient. Even the CEO of Chevron likes breathing.

When Bush spokesman Scott McClellan was asked on Wednesday whether Cooney's quick move to Exxon didn't suggest the White House had a ``shill for the oil industry driving environmental policy,'' McClellan offered no alternative explanation but denied the charge hotly enough to cause considerable warming in the press room. The White House long ago learned not to let facts slow you down.