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.

NASA Administrator Griffin “not sure” global warming is a problem or long-term concern

Posted on Wednesday, May 30, 2007

In an interview to be aired tomorrow morning, May 31, on NPR Morning Edition, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin says: “I’m aware that global warming exists....Whether that is a long term concern or not, I can’t say....To assume that it is a problem is to assume that the state of Earth’s climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had....I think that’s a rather arrogant position for people to take.” Now there’s a framing that’s worthy of Phil Cooney.

24 House members call for new National Climate Impacts Assessment

Posted on Friday, December 22, 2006

On December 11, Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA), Rep. Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD), and 22 House co-signers sent a letter to William Brennan of NOAA, the Acting Director of the Climate Change Science Program, in which they say: “The failure of the CCSP to produce a National Assessment report within the time frame required by law has made it more difficult for Congress to develop a comprehensive policy response to the challenge of global climate change.” The Members are on the right track here. The National Climate Impacts Assessment is a key issue for oversight of the CCSP in the new Congress, and one we have been raising for some time.

Concerns raised about NOAA deputy administrator nominee stall confirmation process

Posted on Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-AK) took the nomination of Jane Luxton to be NOAA deputy administrator and possible Climate Change Science Program director off the agenda of a committee hearing today after deciding not to proceed further with the confirmation process this year. This step resulted from intervention by several members of the committee, showing responsiveness to concerns raised about the appropriateness of the nomination. We have criticized this nomination. The committee is wise to step back and, when they take up this matter in 2007, members should consider this position in the context of a serious examination of the important position of Climate Change Science Program director, its place in the overall structure, and how it should be filled.

Upcoming confirmation vote a threat to the integrity of the Climate Change Science Program

Posted on Monday, December 04, 2006

On December 5 the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee will hold a hearing on the nomination of corporate lawyer Jane Luxton to the position of Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere (thus, also the NOAA deputy administrator). If confirmed, Luxton would take the position previously held by Jim Mahoney, who retired last spring. Mahoney was also the director of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program from 2002 until his retirement. We raised concerns about this nomination in our September 26 post and in this morning’s Environment & Energy Daily. Luxton has no apparent professional experience with climate change issues and, unlike all former directors of U.S. climate and global change research, she appears to have no scientific credentials. Nothing personal here, really, but why is she even being considered for a position as director of the U.S. Government program that supports the nation’s scientific effort to understand global climate change and its potential consequences?

Michael MacCracken’s 2002 letter to the ExxonMobil board of directors

Posted on Thursday, November 23, 2006

ExxonMobil had attacked the National Assessment of Climate Change Impacts and had called on the incoming Bush administration to purge four specific individuals involved in climate change activities. In September 2002, in his final week in the U.S. Global Change Research Program Office, National Assessment coordinator Michael MacCracken, one of the “ExxonMobil Four,” sent a letter to each member of the ExxonMobil board of directors. With ExxonMobil’s global warming denial campaign behavior and the Bush administration’s suppression of the National Assessment process coming under greater critical scrutiny, Dr. MacCracken has authorized us to post his letter as part of the record.

Press coverage and comment on the National Assessment lawsuit

Posted on Thursday, November 16, 2006

The suit filed in federal court on November 14 by the Center for Biological Diversity et al. to require the production of a second National Assessment of Climate Change Impacts (see our November 14 post) was reported by the Associated Press ("White House Sued Over Global Warming"), the San Francisco Chronicle ("White House sued for not doing report on warming"), and others. “The Bush administration has failed to comply with the law,’’ said attorney Julie Teel of the Center for Biological Diversity, which is a plaintiff in the lawsuit. “I think the administration’s afraid to release this information because it makes climate change real for people.’’ The NOAA press office responded on behalf of the government, with the official party line that offers 21 topical reports as an alternative to an integrative, independent assessment.

Sen. Kerry statement in support of lawsuit on National Assessment of Climate Change Impacts

Posted on Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Senator Kerry issued a statement on November 14 supporting a lawsuit filed by conservation advocates—the Center for Biological Diversity, Greenpeace, and Friends of the Earth—calling for the administration to issue an overdue National Assessment on the impacts of climate change on the United States. Climate Science Watch encourages Congressional interest and oversight on this issue, to undo almost six years of allowing the administration to suppress the National Assessment process, and almost six years of allowing the first National Assessment to be slandered by the global warming denial machine without a principled defense by the leadership of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program.

Conservation groups file suit against Bush administration to compel second National Assessment

Posted on Tuesday, November 14, 2006

The Center for Biological Diversity, along with other conservation groups, filed suit November 14 in federal district court for the Northern District of California against the Bush administration for refusing to conduct a second U.S. National Climate Change Impacts Assessment. The suit contends that such an integrated scientific assessment, due in November of 2004, is required by the Global Change Research Act of 1990. The suit names Dr. William Brennan, acting director of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, and Dr. John Marburger, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, as defendants. We have repeatedly and strongly criticized the Bush administration for officially suppressing the National Assessment process, and the leadership of the Climate Change Science Program for their silence on this central climate science scandal of the administration.

The “Vanishing” National Climate Change Assessment, Part 1: The Administration

Posted on Sunday, October 08, 2006

An October 3 story in Greenwire on the continuing controversy over the administration’s actions to bury the first National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change quotes Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute as saying: “To the extent that it has vanished, we have succeeded.” Here we clarify a few points about the actions of the administration to make the National Assessment “vanish”.

The unfinished business of the National Climate Change Assessment scandal

Posted on Wednesday, October 04, 2006

On October 3, the Greenwire daily news report on environmental and energy policy featured in its #1 position a story on the continuing controversy over the administration’s decision to kill the National Assessment of Climate Change Impacts process and suppress official use of the first National Assessment reports issued in 2000-2001. The article quotes Climate Science Watch Director Rick Piltz as calling this “the central climate science scandal of the Bush administration.”

Why the administration buried a NOAA scientists’ statement on hurricanes and climate

Posted on Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Officials at the Department of Commerce have been blocking the release of a new statement by federal climate scientists at NOAA on Atlantic hurricanes and climate. On September 27 a leaked copy of the statement was posted on the web (see “Details” for the text). We believe they decided to bury the statement because, albeit in a low-profile way, it acknowledges that global warming can increase hurricane intensity, and also the possibility that, because of global warming, the current active hurricane period could persist. That is a linkage the administration has taken pains to keep the public from making, for reasons having to do with the political fallout from Hurricane Katrina and the administration’s desire to fend off public pressure for a stronger global warming mitigation policy.

Questions about White House nominee to replace Jim Mahoney at NOAA

Posted on Tuesday, September 26, 2006

The White House announced September 26 that the President intends to nominate corporate lawyer Jane Luxton to be Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and deputy administrator of NOAA. If confirmed, Luxton would replace Jim Mahoney, who retired last spring, leaving this position vacant for 6 months so far. Mahoney was also the director of the interagency U.S. Climate Change Science Program from 2002 until his retirement. This announcement raises questions about both the nominee and the leadership of federal climate science research.

Where is the U.S. Climate Action Report required under the climate treaty?

Posted on Monday, September 18, 2006

The fourth U.S. Climate Action Report, required to fulfill a climate treaty commitment, was due no later than January 1, 2006. A public review draft of the report announced by the State Department as upcoming in the summer of 2005 is now more than a year overdue. What has happened to this missing-in-action report? Has it been held up at the political level of the Administration? Climate Science Watch calls for the fourth Climate Action Report to be submitted expeditiously for public review. We call on the Administration and the leadership of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program to ensure that the report contains an honest discussion of U.S. vulnerability to climate change impacts. [Editor’s Note: See also the 30 July 2007 posting, Bush Administration submits evasive Climate Action Report to the UN.]

Sen. Kerry calls for new National Climate Change Assessment

Posted on Monday, August 28, 2006

[The Climate Science Watch blog returns to action after an August hiatus.]
In a letter to Bush administration officials Sen. John Kerry has called for the production of the now-overdue second National Climate Change Assessment. The administration politically suppressed official use of the first National Assessment of Climate Change Impacts, a seminal major work, and has killed the process that could have produced an updated assessment.

House Government Reform Committee calls for White House CEQ climate change documents

Posted on Monday, July 24, 2006

In a July 20 letter to the Chairman of the the President’s Council on Environmental Quality, House Government Reform Committee Chairman Tom Davis (R-VA) and Ranking Member Henry Waxman (D-CA) requested CEQ provide the Committee with various types of “documents that would shed light on interactions between CEQ and other government agencies and outside parties relating to the Administration’s position and public communications on climate science.” The letter refers to former CEQ Chief of Staff Philip Cooney and asks for documentation of his activities related to climate change.

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