Cross-Posted at My Left Wing
I want to keep this very short, as time is limited and the topic is just one of many things coming out on this busy day and night.
While Gore was getting pilloried by the scumbag Republicans on Capitol Hill, Congress was gathering more evidence of politically motivated manipulation of climate data at the White House Council of Environmental Quality (a doublespeak concept if ever I've heard one).
Follow me below the fold for a brief summary.
I was browsing one of my preferred computing technology Web sites when I ran across this fascinating tidbit. I swear, there is not enough time to read everything these days about what is going on, and what has been going on within this amoral Administration.
Some of you will already be acquainted with Phil Cooney, Satan's handmaiden on the topic of global change. He may even be old news to some.
But now Waxman the Valiant is talking to him.
It seems that Congress grilled him today:
In testimony before the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, former White House aide Phil Cooney defended his editing of official reports on climate change during his tenure as chief of staff at the White House's Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) from 2001 to 2005. Cooney, together with a CEQ colleague, made about 300 edits to the reports, downplaying scientific certainty about the effects of climate change and minimizing the role of industry and other human endeavors in contributing to global warming, according to a committee memo (PDF).
Here is a link to the Committee's PDF file on the hearing.
Another quote and then a brief observation.
Sections describing the "increasing precision and reliability" of computer climate simulations that point to global warming were deleted, along with statements declaring that "Climate change has global consequences for human health and the environment."
In an EPA report, Cooney also cut passages linking the accumulation of greenhouse gases with human activity, and personally inserted a reference to a study funded by the American Petroleum Institute that disputes the findings of the National Academy of Sciences and the lntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cooney worked as an oil industry lobbyist before serving the White House. He left his administration post in 2005 to take up his current position with oil giant Exxon.
Cooney told the committee that his changes were supported by a previously published report on climate change by the National Academy of Sciences, and that he was "seeking merely to align Executive Branch reports with administration policies" on environmental issues.
The committee also heard testimony (PDF) from government climate change experts complaining that the White House tried to muzzle its own scientists when it came to explaining the threat of global warming. [snip, reluctantly]
It has been a BUSY two months, has it not?
Can you even BELIEVE it's been just two months since this Congress began?
Our Dems are doing yeoman work. No wonder Pelosi mandated a five-day week!
And Cooney? Scum, to be sure.
Just wanted to pass this on for late-night reading matter.
Talk amongst yourselves.