Ex-oil
lobbyist watered down US climate research
Julian Borger in Washington
Thursday June 9, 2005
The Guardian
A former oil industry lobbyist edited the Bush administration's official policy
papers on climate change to play down the link between greenhouse gas emissions
and global warming, it was reported yesterday.
Documents released by a watchdog group, the Government Accountability Project, show that as chief of staff for the White House council on environmental quality, Philip Cooney watered down government scientific papers on climate change and played up uncertainties in the scientific literature. Mr Cooney is a law graduate and has no scientific training.
The Bush aide had performed a similar role in his previous job for the American Petroleum Institute, a lobby group representing oil giants and focused on countering the virtual consensus among scientists that man-made emissions are rapidly heating the planet.