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

Congressional Oversight

House Oversight report on administration political interference with climate change science

Posted on Monday, December 10, 2007

On December 10 the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, chaired by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), released a proposed report on the results of a 16-month investigation of allegations of political interference with government climate change science under the Bush Administration. The report draws on more than 27,000 pages of documents obtained by the Committee from the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) and the Commerce Department. The report draws on and validates information we and others brought forward, and includes material that has not previously been published. On the corrupting influence of CEQ, we told Greenwire: “Everybody was complicit. Everybody knew what was going on, although nobody had the full story, because the tentacles of CEQ were out in so many different directions.”

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.

Legal deadline today for White House to issue federal science communication principles

Posted on Wednesday, November 07, 2007

President Bush on 9 August 2007 signed into law the America Competes Act, including a provision that requires the Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to "develop and issue an overarching set of principles to ensure the communication and open exchange of data and results" from Federal scientists and to "prevent the intentional or unintentional suppression or distortion of such research findings." The principles are due "no later than than 90 days" after the law was enacted, i.e. no later than today, 7 November 2007. Will the White House comply with the law by meeting today's deadline?

Senate subcommittee approves cap-and-trade bill – New climate assessment and adaptation provisions

Posted on Friday, November 02, 2007

This week a subcommittee of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee approved by a narrow margin the first major “cap-and-trade” climate change bill to be considered formally in the 110th Congress. In addition to establishing a framework for capping carbon emissions and trading carbon credits, the bill includes provisions for scientific assessment, adaptation, and mitigation of climate change. However, there appears to be a disconnect between Congress and the federal Climate Change Science Program.

Screw-up at House Judiciary Committee sends whistleblower e-mail addresses to Cheney

Posted on Thursday, November 01, 2007

The Washington Post reported on October 31 that “the House Judiciary Committee, after promising strict confidentiality, inadvertently sent the e-mail addresses of Justice Department whistle-blowers out to all those who have used a special tip line.” Vice President Cheney’s office got all 150 of the e-mail addresses. The Committee’s failure to design an effective system for dealing with confidential information strikes at the heart of one of the key reasons people hesitate to become whistleblowers—that they won’t be protected.

CSW director ABC News Now interview on CDC climate testimony censorship

Posted on Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Climate Science Watch director Rick Piltz was interviewed October 25 on ABC News Now, as part of ABC News coverage of White House censorship of CDC director Julie Gerberding’s Senate testimony on the human health impacts of climate change. See Details for text of the interview.

Censored Testimony from Centers for Disease Control: Update

Posted on Sunday, October 28, 2007

There have been several important developments since the morning of Wednesday, 24 October 2007, when we posted the uncensored draft Congressional testimony from the Center for Disease Control’s Director Julie Gerberding on the relationship between climate change and human health. The Congress has stepped up the presssure; and the White House has responded. The Climate Science Watch research team documents events from Tuesday October 23rd through Friday October 26th 2007.

The censored testimony of CDC Director Julie Gerberding

Posted on Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Climate Science Watch has obtained a copy of the testimony on the health impacts of climate change as drafted by Dr. Julie Gerberding, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This draft testimony was substantially cut by the White House before Dr. Gerberding was allowed to testify before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on October 23. See Details for the document.

White House ‘eviscerated’ Centers for Disease Control testimony on climate change health impacts

Posted on Tuesday, October 23, 2007

More administration global warming censorship? The Associated Press reported that the White House “severely edited congressional testimony given [on October 23] by the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the impact of climate change on health, removing specific scientific references to potential health risks, according to two sources familiar with the documents....It was eviscerated,” said a CDC official familiar with both the OMB-approved testimony and the original censored draft.

Upcoming House hearing to examine National Security Implications of Climate Change

Posted on Monday, September 24, 2007

On September 27 the House Committee on Science and Technology, Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight, will hold a hearing to examine current thinking on the nature and magnitude of the threats that global warming may present to national security, and to explore the ways in which climate-related security threats can be predicted, forestalled, mitigated, or remedied.

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.

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