Proposed NCEE Comments on Draft Technical Support Document for Endangerment Analysis for Greenhouse Gas Emisions

DRAFT Report of the Environmental Protection Agency's National Center for Environmental Economics

The Competitive Enterprise Institute has charged that a senior official of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency actively suppressed a scientific analysis of climate change because of political pressure to support the Administration’s policy agenda of regulating carbon dioxide.

As part of a just-ended public comment period, CEI submitted a set of four EPA emails, dated March 12-17, 2009, which indicate that a significant internal critique of the agency’s global warming position was put under wraps and concealed.

The study the emails refer to, which ran counter to the administration’s views on carbon dioxide and climate change, was kept from circulating within the agency, was never disclosed to the public, and was not added to the body of materials relevant to EPA’s current “endangerment” proceeding. The emails further show that the study was treated in this manner not because of any problem with its quality, but for political reasons.

The report finds that EPA, in adopting the United Nations’ 2007 “Fourth Assessment” report, is relying on outdated research and is ignoring major new developments.  Those developments include a continued decline in global temperatures, a new consensus that future hurricanes will not be more frequent or intense, and new findings that water vapor will moderate, rather than exacerbate, temperature.  New data also indicate that ocean cycles are the most important single factor in explaining temperature fluctuations, though solar cycles are important as well, and that satellite data undercut any likelihood of endangerment from greenhouse gases.  All of this demonstrates EPA should independently analyze the science, rather than just adopt the conclusions of outside organizations.

“While we hoped that EPA would release the final report, we’re tired of waiting for this agency to become transparent, even though its Administrator has been talking transparency since she took office. So we are releasing a draft version of the report ourselves, today,” said CEI General Counsel Sam Kazman.