Recently, former government climate science guy Rick Piltz blew the whistle on now-former White House official Philip Cooney, who was watering down scientific climate-change reports. Perhaps you heard something about it?
Environmental Science & Technology has an interview with Piltz. Interesting stuff. This bit is amusing:
In a letter about your resignation, you wrote that the program’s annual report to Congress, called Our Changing Planet, was being dramatically altered by the President’s Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ).
I edited this report for nine years. It’s a basic primer on the Climate Change Science Program — what we’re doing, who we’re funding — and it does include a lot of material on current scientific development.
Federal career science professionals develop the different chapters of the reports and then revise and fix them. Then it goes for a high-level review to the White House, and at that point you would have the President’s CEQ weigh in.
The White House likes to characterize this as, “Well, everyone gets to weigh in and then we all hash it out.” As though this is some sort of collegial seminar.
But that’s not the role the White House plays. They have a top-down approach.
