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

U.S. Climate Change Science Program

The public interest calls for knowledgeable, independent investigation of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, through which federal agencies coordinate $1.7 billion in annual support for research on climate and global change.

CSW director: White House under Clinton-Gore “was not at war with the mainstream science community”

Posted on Tuesday, December 11, 2007

In an article on the House Oversight Committee majority report on White House political interference with climate change science, released December 10, the Christian Science Monitor reports: “Rick Piltz, director of the climate science watch program at the Government Accountability Project...[says] the White House’s efforts this time were about more than organizing a coherent policy message.” No administration is above criticism, but under the previous administration the White House “was not at war with the mainstream science community.”

Climate Change Science Program assessment failures aired at Senate Commerce oversight hearing

Posted on Monday, December 03, 2007

We examine key issues raised in the November 14 Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee hearing on federal climate change science research, set the record straight on a few matters—in particular, on some of White House science advisor John Marburger’s misleading answers to questions from Sen. Kerry, and review testimony by a panel of nongovernmental witnesses that pointed to needed reforms in the Climate Change Science Program.

Webcast and Written Testimony from Senate Hearing on U.S. Global Change Research Program

Posted on Thursday, November 15, 2007

On November 14, 2007, the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation held a hearing on “A Time for Change: Improving the Federal Climate Change Research and Information Program.” We provide links to an archived Webcast and to the written statements of the witnesses; soon we’ll have more to say about this interesting hearing. Stay tuned.

Senate hearing on federal climate research program will hear from OSTP director Marburger

Posted on Tuesday, November 13, 2007

The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee will hold a full committee hearing November 14 on “A Time for Change: Improving the Federal Climate Change Research and Information Program.” We have a couple of questions for witness Dr. John Marburger, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Kerry-Snowe global change research bill focuses on climate impacts assessment and communication

Posted on Tuesday, November 13, 2007

On November 5, Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) introduced S. 2307, the Global Change Research Improvement Act of 2007. The bill would amend and update the Global Change Research Act of 1990, the authorizing statute for the multiagency climate and global change research program. Climate Science Watch is keeping a close eye on this bill as it is considered in the legislative process.

Eileen Claussen: “The first thing the CCSP needs is strong and independent leadership”

Posted on Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Speaking at a National Academy of Sciences workshop on Future Priorities for the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, Eileen Claussen, President of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, laid down this challenge: “If this program cannot produce a comprehensive and integrated national assessment on the climate issue, who can? You cannot communicate effectively until you have something to communicate, until you can produce an up to date, integrated national assessment. And you cannot do that until you have independent leadership that is not subject to either bureaucratic or political interference.”

U.S. Climate Change Science Program has been undermined by budget cutbacks

Posted on Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Examining U.S. federal climate change expenditures, Part 2: the Climate Change Science Program—Even with upwardly-adjusted numbers obtained by bringing additional programs into the CCSP budget crosscut for 2007-2008 that serve to partially mask dramatic budget cuttting by the administration, the inflation-adjusted CCSP budget in the President’s FY 2008 request is 23% below the peak FY 1995 level, 15% below the FY 2004 level, and 1.5% below the FY 2007 level.

Examining the U.S. climate change budget—Part 1

Posted on Tuesday, September 25, 2007

[Revised September 25] Is $37 billion in total federal “climate expenditures” over 7 years—for all climate change science research, global observing systems, energy technology R&D related to reducing emissions, international assistance, and alternative energy tax breaks—a lot of money?

Former Director of Climate Program Office: “Administration should be held to a higher standard”

Posted on Sunday, September 02, 2007

The director of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) Office until March 2006 calls for a “full soup-to-nuts national assessment” of climate change impacts.

Bush-Cheney Administration spins a sound legal defeat into an affirmation of their illegal actions

Posted on Monday, August 27, 2007

On August 22, a spokesperson for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), Kristin Scuderi, released an official statement of reaction to the court case, Center for Biological Diversity et al. v. Dr. William Brennan et al (see related post). The ruling by Judge Saundra Brown Armstrong was clear: by failing to meet deadlines to produce a research plan and climate change impacts assessments, the Administration is in violation of the law, and now is under an enforceable court order to comply. However, the inaccurate and grossly misleading OSTP statement "attempts to spin a complete legal defeat into an affirmation of their illegal actions” says the lead attorney for the plaintiffs, Brendan Cummings with the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD). We list OSTP's claims and Cummings' point-by-point rebuttals.

Inslee, Kerry Applaud Decision Forcing Administration to Comply with Climate Change Law

Posted on Thursday, August 23, 2007

The office of Repesentative Jay Inslee (Democrat, Washington) released a press release on 22 August 2007 in response to the court order issued on 21 August 2007 regarding Center for Biological Diversity et al. v. Dr. William Brennan et al. Senator Kerry and Congressman Jay Inslee had filed a memorandum of Amici Curiae to the court on 17 April 2007. According to Rep. Inslee, the decision “makes clear that the Bush Administration has been illegally suppressing the scientific facts that link global warming to the very real impacts on our daily lives.” We provide the full press release.

Court Rules that Bush Admin. Unlawfully failed to produce Scientific Assessment of Global Change

Posted on Wednesday, August 22, 2007

A Federal judge says the Bush Administration has violated the Global Change Research Act by failing to produce a national global change research plan that was due by July 2006; and a scientific assessment of global change that was due in November 2004. The last scientific assessement, the US National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change, was submitted to Congress in November 2000. Climate Science Watch has long maintained that the Bush administration’s suppression of official use of the first National Assessment report and its termination of the national climate change assessment process for connecting scientists to policymakers and society is the central climate science scandal of the administration. Ruling on the lawsuit filed by the Center for Biological Diversity et al, U.S. District Judge Sandra Brown Armstrong has ordered the Administration to produce both the plan and the assessment no later than the end of May 2008.

House of Representatives Passes the Global Change Research and Data Management Act of 2007

Posted on Monday, August 13, 2007

A legislative proposal repealing the US Global Change Research Act of 1990 and replacing it with a set of provisions that re-establishes an interagency Global Change Research Program passed the US House of Representatives on August 4 as part of an omnibus energy bill (see related post).

Energy Bill Passed by House Has Many Provisions on Climate Change Impacts, Assessment, Adaptation

Posted on Monday, August 13, 2007

An omnibus energy bill (HR 3221) and a companion energy tax package (HR 2776) were passed by the House of Representatives in a rare Saturday session on August 4 2007. Both are voluminous and contain hundreds of provisions that, if signed into law, would reorient the United States toward cleaner and more efficient energy technologies and approaches, and take significant steps to address climate change. However, President Bush has already indicated he will veto both bills.

House appropriations for NASA and NOAA would begin to reverse damage to climate observing system

Posted on Saturday, July 28, 2007

On July 26 the House of Representatives approved a Fiscal Year 2008 appropriations bill with funding for NASA and NOAA. The bill, if enacted, would take a few steps toward rectifying the damage that has been done during the current administration to the future of global climate change space-based observations and to Earth science research and analysis at NASA. The Appropriations Committee report on the bill challenges administration priorities and underscores the need for a stronger national climate program.

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