CEI Appeals White House Science Office Refusal to Reexamine Polar Vortex Video

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Christine Hall, 202-331-2258

CEI Appeals White House Science Office Refusal to Reexamine Polar Vortex Video

Scientific Basis for White House Claim Weakens

WASHINGTON, June 20 – This Thursday, the Competitive Enterprise Institute filed an appeal under the federal Data Quality Act in response to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy’s refusal to reconsider a video that tied the cold winter to global warming.

The trouble started when OSTP Director John Holdren claimed in a January, 2014 video, The Polar Vortex Explained In 2 Minutes, that the cold winter was the likely fault of global warming. CEI subsequently challenged that claim with a data correction petition, filed under OSTP’s Data Quality regulations. The petition was denied by OSTP on June 6.

CEI’s petition pointed out that the “growing body of evidence” cited by Dr. Holdren was not growing but, in fact, shrinking.  (It shrank even more earlier this week, when yet another contrary study came out.)  But OSTP ducked the issue in its June 6 denial, claiming that its Director had only been expressing his “personal opinion” and that, therefore, the Data Quality Act didn’t apply.

“OSTP’s attempt to exempt its own video on the grounds that the statement by the Director is his ‘personal opinion’ is laughable,” said CEI General Counsel Sam Kazman. “If that were really true, why is the video on the White House web site?”

“Moreover, the video has been touted by other OSTP staff, and after its release the agency was happy to see media coverage characterizing the video as the position of the White House,” said Kazman.

CEI’s appeal was also prompted by another study, released Monday, that further undercuts the polar vortex/cold winter connection. That makes five contrary studies since September.

Read all about it and see the underlying documents here:  http://www.globalwarming.org/2014/06/19/holdren-bi-polar-vortex-part-ii/

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