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Location: Nashville, Tennessee, United States

6/24/2003

Ignorance is Bliss
The Tennessean (and probably a lot of other papers) is slamming the Bush administration for altering an Environmental Protection Agency report, the Draft Report on the Environment, by deleting sections related to global warming. "White House officials simply deleted the conclusions from the report," says the paper's op-ed.

Problem: That's a lie.

EPA chief Christine Todd Whitman says it didn't happen that way. Listen to Whitman's entire interview with National Public Radio here. The gist of it: information for the report was gathered from scientists and researchers with about 30 different federal agencies and other entities, and on the subject of global warming there was not sufficient consensus to include a definitive statement or section in the report.

From the EPA press release:

The report uses available scientific data, gathered from more than 30 other federal agencies, departments, states, tribes and non-governmental organizations, to answer questions that the EPA and its collaborators have identified as indicators of the nation’s environmental quality and human health. It establishes scientific, consensus-based benchmarks to measure EPA’s progress. This is the first time that EPA has developed a comprehensive report about the nation’s environment, and it will be used as a baseline for future evaluations.
The Tennessean present only the most distorted view of what happened, based on a few notes provided by one disgruntled EPA worker, in order to perpetuate the paper's view that the Bush administration is "more interested in appeasing the oil, coal and gas industries than making sound policy." But, of course, making sound policy depends on consensus and - as Whitman explains but the Tennessean ignores, there simply is not yet consensus among Uncle Sam's scientists about global warming.

While The Tennessean got it wrong, CNN got it right:
Whitman chose to scrap the entire section on climate change after a dispute developed over how the issue was to be characterized. White House officials had directed a major rewrite of the section to emphasize uncertainties they said surround global warming and delete references to any impact rising global temperatures might have on health and the environment. The White House involvement came to light last week with release of internal EPA documents and various earlier drafts of the climate section of the report including changes directed by the White House.

Paul Gilman, EPA's science adviser and head of its office of research and development, said it was decided to drop the climate section because of the lack of consensus and because "the debate on climate is ongoing."

"It wasn't a significant piece," he added, saying two pages were removed.

Officials noted the document released Monday was a draft, still subject to public comments in the coming months. A section on climate feasibly still could be added.
The White House asked for a rewrite to include additional information. Whitman decided that, because there was not consensus on climate change, and the report was supposed to provide the consensus view on the issues it covered, it was better to just scrap the entire section on global warming. That's 180 degrees different from what The Tennessean says happened. White House officials did not delete the section from the report.