Piltz, R GAP CSW
see also
https://www.whistleblower.org/
==
GLB:
Rick Piltz has worked as an educator, writer, and policy analyst and advocate since the 1970’s, in federal and state government, academia, and nonprofit organizations.
During his more than 20 years in Washington, his primary focus has been on the collision of climate science with the reality of climate politics and policy.
From 1995 to 2005 Piltz held senior positions in the Coordination Office of the U.S. Global Change Research Program. In the spring of 2005, he resigned from his position to protest the Bush Administration’s political interference with climate change communication.
His whistleblower documentation of Philip Cooney's politically-motivated editing and censorship of climate science program reports intended for the public and Congress received front-page coverage in the New York Times and was widely reported in the media. Piltz testified before both the House of Representatives and the Senate at hearings on political interference with federal climate scientists.
After leaving the U.S. Global Climate Research program, Piltz partnered with the Government Accountability Project to create Climate Science Watch (CSW). Through its research, analysis and public communications, CSW not only protects the freedoms of climate scientists, but also holds government accountable for using climate science with integrity and incorporating it into public policy.
- Notes from Underground: Fraxit
- A Lesson in Constitutional Illiteracy: Lamar Smith and the Climate Science Witch Hunt
- Floods, Fires, and Public Policy Failures: ExxonMobil Facilities are Among Those Being Slammed by Climate Change Impacts
- Notes From Underground: As With Climate Change, So With Fracking at ExxonMobil
- ExxonMobil and Climate Change: A Story of Denial, Delay, and Delusion, Told in Forms 10-K (2001-2008)
--
http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2016/07/21/a-lesson-in-constitutional-illiteracy-lamar-smith-and-the-climate-science-witch-hunt/
on September 17th of 2014, the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology voted 4-3 to grant subpoena powers to the Committee Chair, useable without consultation of the Committee as a whole. This extraordinary power became available for the first time during the current Congress, withRep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) serving as Committee Chair. The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) expressed concerns about the potential abuse of this power in January of 2015. This summer, the concern has been justified.
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Congressional committees have inherent subpoena power as a part of their Constitutional power to investigate. Committees create their own rules for how subpoenas are issued; they are entitled to endow the Committee Chair with that power individually, if they so choose. The number of committee chairs with unilateral subpoena powers increased significantly in the past two Congresses, raising questions about fairness and transparency. As the current instance demonstrates, unilateral subpoena power can also lead to Constitutional questions of states’ rights and federal overreach.}:
On July 13 of this year, House Science Committee Chair Lamar Smith (R-TX) issued subpoenas to the Attorneys General (AGs) of New York and Massachusetts, and eight NGOs, including UCS, demanding documents and correspondence related to the investigation of the Exxon Mobil Corporation’s use or misuse of climate data. The subpoenas represent an unconstitutional intrusion by the federal government into the state law enforcement arena.
The Chairman and other Republican members of the Committee have complained that the investigation has infringed on the First Amendment Free Speech rights of ExxonMobil. The statements of the Committee’s majority members imply that the goal of the AGs’ investigation is to suppress opposing views on climate science. However, the accusations completely misrepresent the nature of the AGs’ investigation: the science is not in question; the investigation is based on the fact that Exxon failed to report on its own scientific findings to its shareholders, and instead fueled skepticism and denial by downplaying or ignoring the consequences of climate change and its impacts on ExxonMobil stock value.
The science at the heart of the suit, generated by Exxon scientists, supports the almost-universally-accepted understanding that burning fossil fuels negatively impacts the environment and influences climate change. The company’s scientists began reporting these findings over forty years ago, and continued to reconfirm those conclusions well into the 1980s – at which time Exxon adopted the policy of supporting the climate science denial machine to create a debate on false premises, manufactured by a group of conspirators in the fossil energy industries. This has been accomplished through the funding of organizations that deal in denial, and through exaggerating the uncertainty and downplaying the risks associated with anthropogenic climate change.
The denial campaign’s success can be measured by the fact that the majority of Representatives on the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology contend that climate change is not a real thing. Based on their statements, these members seem to believe that climate science is the result of some global conspiracy among scientists, politicians, and environmentalists. They argue that the suit being brought by the AGs will stifle the free speech of scientists who attempt to refute established climate science – like the type generated by Exxon before the company embraced its current stance.
The irony of climate change deniers worrying about stifling scientific viewpoints is not lost on the AGs or the scientific community. Nor is it a new phenomenon, even within the current Congress. Only last year Chairman Smith subpoenaed the administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in a fishing expedition for material to fuel his denial, convinced that, among the countless email exchanges between NOAA-affiliated scientists, there must be enough facts to cherry-pick and cobble together a coherent denial argument.
Although NOAA did not comply with the subpoena and has not turned over the material Rep. Smith demanded, Smith apparently lost interest in this battle and let it fizzle out. We suspect he will do the same when none of ten subpoenaed entities meet this arbitrary July 27 deadline.
None of this should imply that the Committee as a whole agrees with the Chair’s choice to issue subpoenas. Minority members have been vocal in their criticism of the Chair, and in their support of the AGs and NGOs. Agroup statement condemned the subpoenas as part of a “witch hunt,” and Rep. Paul D. Tonko (D-NY) criticized them “as not only highly inappropriate, but also unnecessary.”
In his statement, Rep. Tonko cites a detailed letter sent to the Chairman in June – long before the subpoenas were issued – from Ranking Committee Member Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX). This letter laid out the many legal and factual flaws underlying Chairman Smith’s requests to AGs and NGOs, including disregard of Tenth Amendment states’ rights, multiple violations of First Amendment rights, mischaracterization of legal precedent in support of Chairman Smith’s requests, and abuse of the power of his position to pursue publicity instead of policy.
The letter also notes the unsettling parallels between ExxonMobil’s reputed misrepresentations about climate science and the tobacco industry’s denial of the health threats posed by smoking, of which its own scientists had long been aware. It further draws deliberate parallels between Chairman Smith’s actions and those of the House Un-American Activities Committee of the 1950s, during the communist witch hunts under Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) – whose precedent is cited by Chairman Smith as justification for his actions. In sum, the letter provides ample proof that the Chairman’s understanding of his own, his Committee’s, and Congress’ powers is not only severely flawed, but also a threat to the very freedoms it purports to defend.
In response to Chairman Smith’s initial requests for documents relating to the AGs’ investigation of ExxonMobil, several of the AGs pointed out that they are investigating fraud, and fraud is not protected speech. They thus argue that it is therefore the Chairman’s subpoenas and the inherent intimidation they carry with them that are infringing on AGs’ and NGOs’ First Amendment rights of free speech, free association, and to petition public officials – not to mention the Due Process questions inherent to unilateral subpoena power.
The subpoenas follow a barrage of requests for the same documents – those exchanged between the NGOs and the AGs regarding ExxonMobil and climate science. The AGs objected to the requests as abuses of power, citing overreach of a federal committee into state law enforcement. UCSresponded similarly, noting that such requests violate the group’s First Amendment rights, and noting that not only are UCS’s scientific findings publicly available, but UCS welcomes a dialog with the Committee provided that dialog is not compelled.
Regardless, Chairman Smith issued the subpoenas.
UCS argues that subpoenas leveled against an organization against which no criminal allegations have been or could reasonably be made violate the First Amendment on several levels. Furthermore, work prepared in anticipation of a lawsuit is protected under attorney-client privilege – a fact that should be known to Chairman Smith, who has a law degree.
As a scientist who fears his or her research will be rejected purely on political grounds may well consider pursuing other areas of research; a scientist who expects to be called to appear before a Congressional Committee every time his or her work sparks controversy will cease to be productive; a scientist or scientific organization who has to pay for legal representation will not have the resources to conduct the best research.
Chairman Smith’s use of a unilateral subpoena – while legal – suggests obscure motives. Then again, given the petroleum industry’s financial contributions to Smith’s and other deniers’ political campaigns, maybe these motives aren’t so obscure after all. In response to the subpoena of Massachusetts AG Maura Healey, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) chimed in with a critique of the Chairman and his allies, noting the $675,000 the Texas Republican has received from fossil fuel interests. This is government transparency, but not in the way that benefits the public.
The House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology should not be in the business of suppressing science or state law enforcement, but Chairman Smith’s use of unchecked subpoena power to interfere with legitimate research and legitimate communication between private entities and public officials can serve no other purposes. Chairman Smith and his allies have taken a viewpoint – climate change denial – that is in the smallest minority among the scientific community, originating from sources funded by fossil fuel interests and consistently refuted by peer-reviewed research. Yet, through the actions of Chairman Smith and other deniers in powerful positions, they are intent upon putting a misguided thumb on their side of the scale.
In any event, without a reasonable suggestion of wrongdoing, the subpoenas issued by Chairman Smith are an abuse of power, and can only be described as partisan political posturing.
The Government Accountability Project and its Climate Science and Policy Watch program have experience with government agencies attempting to intimidate through the use of subpoenas. The risks posed by such government action are numerous, and go beyond the direct impact on subpoenaed individuals or organizations. For example, subpoenaed documents may expose government employees who provide researchers or journalists with evidence of fraud, waste, or abuse, thus exposing whistleblowers to persecution and preventing such individuals from effectively making their cases. This in turn inflates the risk to the public that is inherent when abuse of power remains hidden. It is a concern that GAP and CSPW take very seriously.
Unchecked subpoena power is a threat to government transparency and tothe functioning of a democracy. It can stunt whistleblowing, science, research, investigation, and journalism. The example set by Chairman Lamar Smith should be a warning about the witch hunt emanating from his Committee, and about unilateral subpoena power generally.
Environmental Counsel Adam Arnold worked with GAP’s clinical program while earning his J.D. from the University of the District of Columbia’s David A. Clarke School of Law, is a member of the Maryland Bar, and has an LL.M. in International Environmental Law and International Organizations from American University’s Washington College of Law.
CSPW Senior Climate Policy Analyst Anne Polansky has 30 years of experience in public policies relating to energy and the environment, with a strong focus on climate change and renewable energy
This entry was posted in Assessments of Climate Impacts and Adaptation, Attacks on Climate Science and Scientists, Climate Science Censorship, Global Warming Denial Machine, Scientific Integrity,Whistleblowers. Bookmark the permalink.
==
Climate Science Watch (CSW)was initiated in 2005 after founder and director Rick Piltz went public about the George W. Bush Administration’s political interference in the U.S. Climate Change Science Program’s climate change reports. White House censorship and misuse of climate change communication had undermined the scientific integrity of policymaking and contributed to a failure of preparedness to deal with the impacts of climate disruption. After his resignation from the federal program, Rick teamed up with the Government Accountability Project (GAP) in Washington, DC, the nation’s leading whistleblower protection and advocacy organization, and formed Climate Science Watch as a sponsored project of GAP.
Over the years, CSW’s investigation, analysis, communication, and reform advocacy combined the concerns that led to its creation in 2005: protecting freedom of communication by federal scientists; combating the global warming denial machine; holding government accountable for using climate science with integrity; and the policy mission of climate change preparedness. We have brought stories to light and developed information and ideas that have prompted electronic and print media coverage in the U.S. and internationally. We have testified before the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives and contributed to a successful legal challenge to the George W. Bush Administration in federal court. We have also served as a vehicle for communication by leading scientists, through original posts and interviews.
GAP intends to honor the legacy of Rick Piltz by carrying forward what he had envisioned just before his passing in the fall of 2014. As he wished, Climate Science Watch will continue to serve its established watchdog role in accordance with the expanded vision Rick set forth to GAP before he passed. Drawing on Rick’s extensive network and decades of experience, and building off of his successes and increasing impact on these critical issues, the next phase of GAP’s Climate Science Watch program – now renamed: Climate Science & Policy Watch (CSPW) – is to assess the actual implementation of the administration’s stated support for a strong climate policy and critique its contradictory behind-the-scenes actions that support accelerated fossil fuel development. This website is a vehicle for our commentary, documentation, and reform advocacy.
While many of the communications that inform our work are off the record, much of our activity is documented on this website. Some of our most-viewed posts include:
Interview with Stephen Schneider on climate science expert credibility study (July 12, 2010)
Senator Inhofe inquisition seeking to criminalize climate scientists (February 24, 2010)
Richard Somerville: A Response to Climate Change Denialism (January 22, 2010)
IPCC slips on the ice with statement about Himalayan glaciers (January 19, 2010)
Text of the Copenhagen Accord (December 19, 2009)
Ben Santer: Open letter to the climate science community (December 1, 2009)
Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, global warming denialist du jour on Capitol Hill (March 27, 2009)
The censored testimony of CDC Director Julie Gerberding (October 24, 2007)
MacCracken on Lindzen’s misleading Newsweek Op-Ed (May 12, 2007)
MacCracken refutes global warming denier David Legates (June 11, 2006)
Toward a Second U.S. National Climate Change Assessment (January 4, 2006)
outed cooney:
RS:
Rewriting climate change science
In June 2005, Cooney was criticised for radically changing a number of 2002 and 2003 official reports on climate change, despite his lack of scientific expertise.
The New York Times reported that "In a section on the need for research into how warming might change water availability and flooding, he crossed out a paragraph describing the projected reduction of mountain glaciers and snowpack. His note in the margins explained that this was 'straying from research strategy into speculative findings/musings.'" [4]
In a lengthy memo Rick S. Piltz, a former senior associate in the Climate Change Science Program, revealed that U.S. government climate research reports had been edited by Cooney, to emphasize doubts about climate change. According to Piltz's memo Cooney changed one 2002 document to "create an enhanced sense of scientific uncertainty about climate change and its implications." [5]
In March of 2005 Piltz resigned and subsequently contacted the Government Accountability Project, a whistleblower protection organization. [6] A White House spokeswoman, Michele St. Martin, told the New York Times that Cooney would not be available to speak to reporters after Piltz's memo was released. "He's not a cleared spokesman," she said of Cooney. [7] Myron Ebell from the Competitive Enterprise Institute, defended the editing as necessary for "consistency."
The spokesman for the White House, Scott McClellan, defended Cooney's role in editing scientific reports on climate change. McClellan sought to downplay Cooney's role in editing the reports insisting that all reports were reviewed by an interagency taskforce involving 15 agencies. McClellan also sought to invoke the credibility of the National Academy of Sciences as having endorsed one of the reports cited in the Piltz's statement, not that they would have known of Cooney's watering down of what it stated. Challenged on whether Cooney had any scientific credentials, McClellan at first defended him: "And he's one of the policy people involved in that process, and someone who's very familiar with the issues relating to climate change and the environment."
"Because of his work lobbying for the oil industry?," a journalist asked. McClellan decided it was time to retreat to safer ground. "I'll be glad to get you his background, Terry," he said.[8]
Two days after the New York Times reported on Piltz's revelations Cooney resigned. White House spokeswoman, Dana Perino, told Reuters that Cooney's resignation was unrelated to the report. Cooney, she claimed, had "long been considering his options following four years of service in the administration ... He had accumulated four weeks of leave and decided to resign and take the summer off to spend time with his family." [9]
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/08/politics/08climate.html?e=&_r=0&hp=&ex=1118289600&pagewanted=print
June 8, 2005
Bush Aide Softened Greenhouse Gas Links to Global Warming
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
A White House official who once led the oil industry's fight against limits on greenhouse gases has repeatedly edited government climate reports in ways that play down links between such emissions and global warming, according to internal documents.
In handwritten notes on drafts of several reports issued in 2002 and 2003, the official, Philip A. Cooney, removed or adjusted descriptions of climate research that government scientists and their supervisors, including some senior Bush administration officials, had already approved. In many cases, the changes appeared in the final reports.
The dozens of changes, while sometimes as subtle as the insertion of the phrase "significant and fundamental" before the word "uncertainties," tend to produce an air of doubt about findings that most climate experts say are robust.
Mr. Cooney is chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the office that helps devise and promote administration policies on environmental issues.
Before going to the White House in 2001, he was the "climate team leader" and a lobbyist at the American Petroleum Institute, the largest trade group representing the interests of the oil industry. A lawyer with a bachelor's degree in economics, he has no scientific training.
The documents were obtained by The New York Times from the Government Accountability Project, a nonprofit legal-assistance group for government whistle-blowers.
The project is representing Rick S. Piltz, who resigned in March as a senior associate in the office that coordinates government climate research. That office, now called the Climate Change Science Program, issued the documents that Mr. Cooney edited.
A White House spokeswoman, Michele St. Martin, said yesterday that Mr. Cooney would not be available to comment. "We don't put Phil Cooney on the record," Ms. St. Martin said. "He's not a cleared spokesman."
In one instance in an October 2002 draft of a regularly published summary of government climate research, "Our Changing Planet," Mr. Cooney amplified the sense of uncertaintyby adding the word "extremely" to this sentence: "The attribution of the causes of biological and ecological changes to climate change or variability is extremely difficult."
In a section on the need for research into how warming might change water availability and flooding, he crossed out a paragraph describing the projected reduction of mountain glaciers and snowpack. His note in the margins explained that this was "straying from research strategy into speculative findings/musings."
Other White House officials said the changes made by Mr. Cooney were part of the normal interagency review that takes place on all documents related to global environmental change. Robert Hopkins, a spokesman for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, noted that one of the reports Mr. Cooney worked on, the administration's 10-year plan for climate research, was endorsed by the National Academy of Sciences. And Myron Ebell, who has long campaigned against limits on greenhouse gases as director of climate policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a libertarian group, said such editing was necessary for "consistency" in meshing programs with policy.
But critics said that while all administrations routinely vetted government reports, scientific content in such reports should be reviewed by scientists. Climate experts and representatives of environmental groups, when shown examples of the revisions, said they illustrated the significant if largely invisible influence of Mr. Cooney and other White House officials with ties to energy industries that have long fought greenhouse-gas restrictions.
In a memorandum sent last week to the top officials dealing with climate change at a dozen agencies, Mr. Piltz said the White House editing and other actions threatened to taint the government's $1.8 billion-a-year effort to clarify the causes and consequences of climate change.
"Each administration has a policy position on climate change," Mr. Piltz wrote. "But I have not seen a situation like the one that has developed under this administration during the past four years, in which politicization by the White House has fed back directly into the science program in such a way as to undermine the credibility and integrity of the program."
A senior Environmental Protection Agency scientist who works on climate questions said the White House environmental council, where Mr. Cooney works, had offered valuable suggestions on reports from time to time. But the scientist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because all agency employees are forbidden to speak with reporters without clearance, said thekinds of changes made by Mr. Cooney had damaged morale. "I have colleagues in other agencies who express the same view, that it has somewhat of a chilling effect and has created a sense of frustration," he said.
Efforts by the Bush administration to highlight uncertainties in science pointing to human-caused warming have put the United States at odds with other nations and with scientific groups at home.
Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, who met with President Bush at the White House yesterday, has been trying to persuade him to intensify United States efforts to curb greenhouse gases. Mr. Bush has called only for voluntary measures to slow growth in emissions through 2012.
Yesterday, saying their goal was to influence that meeting, thescientific academies of 11 countries, including those of the United States and Britain, released a joint letter saying, "The scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to justify nations taking prompt action."
The American Petroleum Institute, where Mr. Cooney worked before going to the White House, has long taken a sharply different view. Starting with the negotiations leading to the Kyoto Protocol climate treaty in 1997, it has promoted the idea that lingering uncertainties in climate science justify delaying restrictions on emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping smokestack and tailpipe gases.
On learning of the White House revisions, representatives of some environmental groups said the effort to amplify uncertainties in the science was clearly intended to delay consideration of curbs on the gases, which remain an unavoidable byproduct of burning oil and coal.
"They've got three more years, and the only way to control this issue and do nothing about it is to muddy the science," said Eileen Claussen, the president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, a private group that has enlisted businesses in programs cutting emissions.
Mr. Cooney's alterations can cause clear shifts in meaning. For example, a sentence in the October 2002 draft of "Our Changing Planet" originally read, "Many scientific observations indicate that the Earth is undergoing a period of relatively rapid change." In a neat, compact hand, Mr. Cooney modified the sentence to read, "Many scientific observations point to the conclusion that the Earth may be undergoing a period of relatively rapid change."
A document showing a similar pattern of changes is the 2003 "Strategic Plan for the United States Climate Change Science Program," a thick report describing the reorganization of government climate research that was requested by Mr. Bush in his first speech on the issue, in June 2001. The document was reviewed by an expert panel assembled in 2003 by the National Academy of Sciences. The scientists largely endorsed the administration's research plan, but they warned that the administration's procedures for vetting reports on climate could result in excessive political interference with science.
Another political appointee who has played an influential role in adjusting language in government reports on climate science is Dr. Harlan L. Watson, the chief climate negotiator for the State Department, who has a doctorate in solid-state physics but has not done climate research.
In an Oct. 4, 2002 memo to James R. Mahoney, the head of the United States Climate Change Science Program and an appointee of Mr. Bush, Mr. Watson "strongly" recommended cutting boxes of text referring to the findings of a National Academy of Sciences panel on climate and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations body that periodically reviews research on human-caused climate change.
The boxes, he wrote, "do not include an appropriate recognition of the underlying uncertainties and the tentative nature of a number of the assertions."
While those changes were made nearly two years ago, recent statements by Dr. Watson indicate that the admnistration's position has not changed.
"We are still not convinced of the need to move forward quite so quickly," he told the BBC in London last month. "There is general agreement that there is a lot known, but also there is a lot to be known."
http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/people/
Rick has worked as an educator, writer, and policy analyst and advocate since the 1970’s, in federal and state government, academia, and nonprofit organizations. During his more than 20 years in Washington, his primary focus has been on the collision of climate science with the reality of climate politics and policy.
From 1995-2005 he held senior positions in the Coordination Office of the U.S. Global Change Research Program. In the spring of 2005, Rick resigned from his position to protest the Bush Administration’s political interference with climate change communication. His whistleblower documentation of politically motivated White House editing and censorship of climate science program reports intended for the public and Congress received front-page coverage in the New York Times and was widely reported in the media. Rick testified before both the House of Representatives and the Senate at hearings on political interference with federal climate scientists.
For more on Rick’s media appearances following his disclosure, continued appearances as a commentator, and his publications, please see here.
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Rick Piltz was a senior associate in the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, resigns over the White House’s attempt to interfere with the program’s findings and manipulate them to overstate the degree of scientific uncertainty about human causes of climate change.[citation needed]
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There are few who understand the ins and outs of the U.S. government's climate-change research program better than Rick Piltz. A political scientist by training, Piltz moved to Washington, D.C., from Texas during the scorching summer of 1988, when NASA climatologist James Hansen put global warming on the map with his famous congressional testimony warning that the greenhouse effect had been triggered by humans. Piltz eventually wound up working for a decade as a senior official in the climate research program, launched in 1989 and now a $ 2 billion dollar a year enterprise. An insider who coordinated the editing of many program documents, Piltz resigned in March, charging that White House politics has undermined the credibility and integrity of the program. Now he has some very revealing stories to tell.
On Wednesday, June 8, The New York Times told some of those stories to the American public. Based on documents provided by Piltz and the Government Accountability Project, the paper reported that a White House official formerly with the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry's trade association, had edited the text of government scientific documents on climate change. The changes, according to the Times, generally had the effect of casting doubt on the increasingly strong scientific conclusion that human beings are causing global warming and its attendant environmental effects.
In a 14-page complaint memo written following his resignation from the government, Piltz went further: "I believe the overarching problem is that the administration … does not want and has acted to impede forthright communication of the state of climate science and its implications for society." As Piltz goes on to say, although he has worked in different administrations, none has been so bad: "I have not seen a situation like the one that has developed under this administration during the past four years, in which politicization by the White House has fed back directly into the science program in such a way as to undermine the credibility and integrity of the program in its relationship to the research community, to program managers, to policymakers, and to the public interest."
To hear Piltz tell it, the White House has essentially broken the back of the U.S. climate-change science program by suppressing one of its key documents: the U.S. National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change, a 2000 report loathed by industry that explains national and regional vulnerabilities to global warming (decreased snowpack in the West, for instance, will lead to dwindling water supplies for an already parched region). Piltz relates in his complaint memo that references to the report have been "systematically" edited out of government scientific documents, and claims that the administration has deliberately sent the report into "a black hole." As Piltz put it to me in an interview, "There's got to be a special circle in hell reserved for people who play games with scientific information."
The stories we're now hearing from Rick Piltzsound highly credible to anyone who's followed previous accusations about the way the Bush administration handles science, especially climate science. Such charges have come from multiple government insiders (though few have put their names alongside the charges as Piltz has), and have been reported on by many different major newspapers. They have even prompted an unprecedented protest against the administration's scientific stewardship by a stunning cast of luminaries organized by the Union of Concerned Scientists.
The big picture, in short, is nothing new. But in the case of the revelations that have come courtesy of Rick Piltz, it's the details that count -- as well as the timing.
Even though Piltz's complaints were far broader, journalists immediately latched on to a key nugget: A lawyer formerly with the American Petroleum Institute named Philip Cooney, who had previously lobbied against the Kyoto Protocol, had been the White House editor of the scientific documents in his role as chief of staff on the Council on Environmental Quality. Here was a classic fox-guarding-the-henhouse story that everyone could understand and get easily outraged about. The blogs went nuts over the news. Moreover, the charges came just as Tony Blair arrived in the United States to pressure George W. Bush to do something about global warming. Blair's visit -- a prelude to the coming G8 meeting in Gleneagles, Scotland, where more pressure will be applied -- catapulted the issue from an environmental obscurity to the center of pack media coverage.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan was thrust into a journalistic feeding frenzy, where his defenses of the White House's "interagency review process" for scientific reports did not impress. McClellan uttered that phrase as if the mere fact that such a process exists provided an automatic justification for the routine editing of scientific content by political actors. It didn't wash. Before long, The Daily Show was mocking the Bush White House for its willful and devious denials of global warming, Cooney had resigned from his government post (promptly moving to work for Exxon Mobil, a key corporate sponsor of global-warming skepticism), and USA Today was declaring, "The debate's over: Globe is warming."
What hath Rick Piltz wrought? It's too soon to tell, but there's a new feeling in the air about global warming. It's a sense that the Bush administration may finally be held to account, by the media and by Congress, for four years of obstruction and denial while a planetary problem steadily worsened.
Chris Mooney is Washington correspondent for Seed Magazine and a TAP Online columnist. His first book, The Republican War on Science, will be published in September by Basic Books. His daily blog and other writings can be found at www.chriscmooney.com.