ClimateScienceWatch |
Promoting integrity in the use of climate science in government |
Climate Science Watch is a nonprofit public interest education and advocacy project dedicated to holding public officials accountable for the integrity and effectiveness with which they use climate science and related research in government policymaking, toward the goal of enabling society to respond effectively to the challenges posed by global warming and climate change. See Details |
House Science Committee takes a step toward protecting honest climate science communication
Posted on Friday, March 30, 2007
At its March 28 hearing on “Shaping the Message, Distorting the Science,” the House Science Investigation & Oversight Subcommittee considered testimony based on two reports—one, released March 27, that documents in detail how administration political officials have manipulated climate science communication, and the other a recent report that documents the global warming disinformation campaign funded by ExxonMobil. The witnesses who spoke about these reports made excellent recommendations designed to ensure the protection of federal climate scientists and undercut the disinformation campaign.
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NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman on Phil Cooney
Posted on Thursday, March 29, 2007
In his column in the March 28 New York Times, Tom Friedman talks about the Bush administration and the role of its former climate change communications operative Phil Cooney, and draws a contrast with the bipartisan and science-accepting approach being taken by the governor of California.
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GAP issues in-depth report on political interference at climate science research agencies
Posted on Tuesday, March 27, 2007
On March 27 the Government Accountability Project (GAP) released a comprehensive report, Redacting the Science of Climate Change, detailing the findings of a year-long investigation into how federal agency media policies and practices and other forms of political interference have negatively affected the flow of climate change science communication from publicly funded research. The report focuses especially on problems at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The investigation incorporated dozens of interviews and a comprehensive review of thousands of Freedom of Information Act disclosures, internal documents, and public records. See the full report here.
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ABCnews.com: “Exclusive: Report Charges Broad White House Efforts to Stifle Climate Research”
Posted on Tuesday, March 27, 2007
ABCnews.com reported: “Bush administration officials throughout the government have engaged in White House-directed efforts to stifle, delay or dampen the release of climate change research that casts the White House or its policies in a bad light, says a new [Government Accountability Project] report that purports to be the most comprehensive assessment to date of the subject.”
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House Science Committee hearing March 28 on media strategies to distort climate science
Posted on Tuesday, March 27, 2007
The House Science Investigations & Oversight Subcommittee will hold a hearing on Wednesday, March 28, on “Shaping the Message, Distorting the Science: Media Strategies to Influence Public Policy.” Witnesses testifying at the hearing will include Tarek Maassarani, attorney with the Government Accountability Project (our parent organization). GAP is releasing a new, in-depth investigative report documenting in detail how policies and practices at federal research agencies have restricted the flow of scientific information getting to the public.
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House Oversight Committee hearing March 19 will be broadcast live on C-SPAN TV and radio
Posted on Sunday, March 18, 2007
According to the C-SPAN Web site, the March 19 House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on “Allegations of Political Interference with Government Climate Change Science (Part II)” will be broadcast live at 10:00 a.m. on C-SPAN TV. We also understand the hearing will be broadcast live on C-SPAN radio. See our earlier posts on this hearing on March 16 and March 15. See our posts on the Committee’s first hearing in this series on January 30 and February 10.
House Science Committee chairs question 11 federal agencies about science media openness policies
Posted on Saturday, March 17, 2007
Following their letter last Friday to the Secretary of the Interior, House Science Committee Chairman Bart Gordon (D-TN) and Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Brad Miller (D-NC) sent letters on March 15 to the Administrators of eleven federal agencies about their science media policies. The Chairmen’s earlier letter to Interior sought an explanation of such practices in the wake of reports that federal scientists at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) have been barred from discussing “climate change, polar bears and sea ice.” “Although we were assured that this Administration’s policies on scientific openness had been changed, it appears that not all agencies got the message,” said Chairman Miller.
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House approves landmark whistleblower legislation with protection for scientific freedom
Posted on Saturday, March 17, 2007
The Government Accountability Project (GAP) hailed the March 14 House of Representatives floor vote approving H.R. 985, the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act, legislation that overhauls federal whistleblower law. Among its numerous provisions, the bill would create specific protection in the law for scientific freedom, making it an abuse of authority to censor, obstruct dissemination, or misrepresent the results of federal research. For the last seven years, GAP has led a campaign working toward this reform’s enactment. The margin of victory is large enough to overcome a veto threatened by the administration
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GAP press release: Monday House Hearing to Feature Cooney, Hansen, Deutsch
Posted on Friday, March 16, 2007
Rick Piltz: “Acting on behalf of the President, the White House Council on Environmental Quality has been instrumental in undermining the integrity of federal climate change communications and the credibility of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program. The American public needs to know the full role the Bush administration has played in politicizing climate change science communication. Questioning Philip Cooney and James Connaughton under oath is an essential step in understanding this. Important pieces of the puzzle need to be put together. This hearing is the first opportunity for Congress to document and investigate the total breadth of this operation, one where the mission was to create an exaggerated sense of scientific uncertainty regarding climate change.”
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Cooney, Hansen, and Connaughton to testify before House Oversight Committee
Posted on Thursday, March 15, 2007
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, chaired by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), will hold a hearing on Monday, March 19, “To Examine Allegations of Political Interference with Government Climate Change Science (Part II).” White House Council on Environmental Quality Chair James Connaughton is scheduled to testify, along with former CEQ Chief of Staff Phil Cooney, who resigned in June 2005. Cooney, who until now has been entirely reticent about speaking publicly on his own behalf, will be making his first, very likely reluctant, Congressional appearance. Also appearing will be leading federal climate scientist Jim Hansen, along the former staffer in the NASA public affairs office who foolishly tried to silence him(with spectacular lack of success).
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Misleading NY Times article on Gore film gets deserved excoriation by RealClimate
Posted on Wednesday, March 14, 2007
RealClimate, a key Web site in which leading scientists set the record straight on current climate change issues, takes apart William Broad’s deplorable and widely off-the-mark March 13 article in the New York Times on “An Inconvenient Truth.” How can we expect the average newspaper to get it right, if the Times role-models this kind of second-rate reporting?
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GAP letter to the NOAA Administrator on criteria for media policy reform
Posted on Tuesday, March 13, 2007
The Government Accountability Project has sent a letter to Vice Admiral Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Undersecretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Administrator, detailing GAP’s recommendations on NOAA’s media policy reform. GAP is urging that NOAA enact a policy that eases and clarifies the flow of information to the press from NOAA scientists; makes federal scientists aware of their First Amendment right to speak to the media as citizens about any subject; gets rid of mandatory pre-approval and various other politicizing impediments to public communication by scientists that NOAA has engaged in; ensures that the ultimate decision about the content of and parties to any particular media communication lies with the reporter and the scientist whom the reporter requests; and avoids several shortcomings of the reformed NASA media policy, including its failure to comply with the requirements of the Whistleblower Protection Act. Click on “Details” for full text.
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House Oversight Committee to hold second hearing on political interference with climate science
Posted on Tuesday, March 13, 2007
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has scheduled another full committee hearing to examine allegations of political interference with government climate change science, to be held on Monday, March 19, 2007 in 2154 Rayburn House Office Building. Stay tuned. We anticipate that this will be a hearing not to be missed.
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Panel at National Press Club agrees the public’s right to know is frequently compromised
Posted on Tuesday, March 13, 2007
From the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s article on “Sunshine Week 2007”—“Rick Piltz, founder of Climate Science Watch...cited a recent study saying that polar bears are endangered because of disappearing sea ice. But the Bush administration, he said, insisted the study had nothing to do with global warming.”
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More on the Administration’s long-withheld U.S. Climate Action Report
Posted on Monday, March 12, 2007
The New York Times and the Associated Press reported on a leaked internal government draft of the long-overdue U.S. Climate Action Report, required under the climate treaty, which the Administration continues to withhold. In the AP wire story (March 3) we said we think “it is very likely that the main reason the report has been held up for more than a year beyond the deadline is because the administration is reluctant to make an honest statement about likely climate change impacts on this country.” [Editor’s Note: See also the 30 July 2007 posting, Bush Administration submits evasive Climate Action Report to the UN.]
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