A new report by the Inspector General of the EPA questions the EPA's procedures in making a 2009 endangerment finding about excess greenhouse gas emissions.
The report "calls the scientific integrity of EPA's decision-making process into question and undermines the credibility of the endangerment finding," according to Sen James Inhofe, the senate Environment and Public Works committee minority leader.
The report, released today, does not argue the science, but says that the EPA should have conducted further peer review because the ruling was highly influential.
At Issue
In 2007 the supreme court found that greenhouse gases are air pollutants under the Clean Air Act. The court instructed the EPA to determine whether emissions of greenhouse gases from new motor vehicles cause or contribute to air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare, or whether climate change science is too uncertain to make a reasoned decision.
All of the research the EPA considered in assessing this question was extensively peer reviewed, including the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report; four reports by the National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS); 18 independent federal studies; and the international Arctic Climate Impact Assessment.
Since the finding, the NAS has reconfirmed the science, saying in May that it now be regarded as "settled facts" that climate change is occurring, is most likely caused by human activities, and separately, that it poses a significant threat to public health and the environment.
It's not about the scienceThe IG's findings don't question the science. Instead, the IG questions whether the EPA followed the proper procedure, suggesting the agency should have conducted its own peer review of all the literature, instead of relying on the peer-review processes of the National Research Council and other scientific bodies that issued the underlying reports and studies.
The IG's position contradicts the EPA's own peer review handbook, which in December of 2000 laid out the policy the EPA was to follow:
The goal of the Peer Review Policy and this Handbook is to enhance the quality and credibility of Agency decisions by ensuring that the scientific and technical work products underlying these decisions receive appropriate levels of peer review by independent scientific and technical experts. (emphasis added)
The National Academies' work has been the gold standard of scientific research since president Lincoln signed its charter in 1863. But the body is independent, and members of congress, federal agencies, and others requesting research have no control or influence on its outcome. In a time in the United States in which climate science is denied by leading republicans, this makes the studies the body authors the subject of political attacks.
The peer review was already recursiveIn addition to relying on independently peer-reviewed research, the EPA's endangerment finding underwent a technical review by 12 federal climate change experts, and internal EPA review, an interagency review, and a public comment period.
The inspector general argues that the EPA did not follow a set of peer review guidelines (pdf) issued by the Bush White House Office of Management and Budget for dealing with controversial science, which require agencies to conduct another layer of peer review and exclude any agency employees from review panels when the policy implications of a ruling could exceed $500 million annually.
Attacks on the Endangerment RulingTen groups--including coal and energy companies, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and politicians acting on behalf of Texas and Virginia--petitioned the agency to drop the finding, arguing against the agency's procedural handling of the science, and against climate change science itself.
In July 2010, the EPA rejected the petitions, arguing that they were erroneous in fact and science, and that the agency had adequately responded to the concerns raised during its comment period for the new rules.
Since then, other attempts have been made by republican members of congress to strip EPA of its authority to regulate greenhouse gases, and to cast doubt on the credibility of the EPA's analysis.
The man behind the curtainSen. James Inhofe requested the IG prepare the report, and leaked it early this morning. Inhofe argues that climate change is a "hoax" and refuses to admit that climate change and its likely human cause are, in the words of the National Academy of Sciences, "settled facts."
In his request (pdf), Inhofe argued that several of the scientists the EPA used lacked impartiality because they had previously made public statements saying that climate change is a fact. By this logic, the vast majority of climate scientists would be unacceptable to Inhofe, and US scientists would be muzzled from talking about the facts of their findings because they had political implications.
The problem with this thinking is that science is independent of scientists - it's based on observations and facts that are laid out for anyone to tear down if they can, and in the case of climate science, it has withstood withering scrutiny. Whether a scientist has made a public comment is immaterial.
Inhofe then argues that the OMB guidelines says that the EPA's panels should be "balanced" in perspectives; ie "We emphasize that the term "balance" here refers not to balancing of stakeholder or political interests but rather to a broad and diverse representation of respected perspectives and intellectual traditions within the scientific community, as discussed in the NAS policy on committee composition and balance." But climate change is, in the words of the NAS, "so thoroughly examined and tested, and supported by so many independent observations and results, that their likelihood of subsequently being found to be wrong is vanishingly small," so providing the two percent of scientists who are somewhat skeptical a seat on a 12-person review committee would not be "balanced."
This highlights Inhofe's approach to all climate science: to treat it as if it were a battle of opinions, instead of a data-driven conclusion based on multiple lines of facts that all point in the same direction. That places opinion on an equal footing with knowledge, and erodes the basis of our democratic republic.
The inspector general made it clear that EPA followed current guidelines for ensuring that it based its decision on robust science. Nothing in the report questions the agency's ability to move forward with global warming emissions rules. But Inhofe can be expected to continue to loudly proclaim otherwise.
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Doesn't matter if we're responsible or if the planet is going through it's own natural cycle, The question, what do we do about it? Continue bus as usual or start a different track to accomodate our eventual new climate and weather reality, or argue over what it isn't?
Both sides have axes to grind. Current population growth makes current energy usage unsustainable. They don't want gov't sponsoring new entrants or supplying support. Otherside, sounds alarms true or almost true for the need to support alternative energy prod, preferably thru gov't support, since they have such big capital guns against them.
EPA, double-edge sword. If EPA spent money and time to do research proponents would have attacked their findings, call it unnecessary and wasteful. Reps want to defund EPA, can't win. I say fund it, make it better. If Sen. Ihofe w/others spent as much time on the economy instead of defunding gov't agencies that protect health/welfare of the public we wouldn't be in a reccession we'd be in recovery. Their priorities are seriously skewed. Don't encourage them to distract us from the economy and what they aren't doing about it.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-5117890-503544.html
The earth is currently cooling.Because of the thermal inertia of the oceans and the lack of any Urban Heat Island effect the best indicator of trends is the Hadley - CRU Sea Surface Temperature data. The 5 year moving average shows the warming trend peaked in 2003 A simple regression analysis shows a global cooling trend since then . The data shows warming from 1900- 1940 ,cooling from 1940 – about 1975 and warming from 1975 – 2003. CO2 levels rose steadily during this entire period. There has been no net warming since 1997 - 14 years with CO2 up 7% and no net warming. ( Check the actual global SST data at the Hadley center) Since 2003 CO2 has continued to rise and yet the global temperature trend is negative. In the context of declining solar magnetoc field strength – to the extent of a possible Dalton or Maunder minimum and the negative phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation a 20 year cooling spell is more likely than a warming trend.
Even Hansen and Trenberth now have been forced to acknowledge the discrepancy between their forecasts and the reality and are searching for the "missing heat "and coming up with epicycle type theories to save their CO2 sensitivity estimates.
The EPA should be forced to revisit their finding and make an objective independent assessment based on the latest data. Meanwhile all pending GHG regulations shoud be suspended.
It is now the month of September and Icebergs are still in the waters off Eastern Canada including the massive ice island which broke away from the East Greenland Ice cap two years ago. This is something unheard of untill now. We are witnessing global warming right at our coastline so your arguement about cooling is a lie.
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/hadsst2gl.txt
Look when ever politics become more important than the science we have a problem. It does not matter politically which side you are on.
The EPA has the information to do this the right way they did not need to take short cuts!
Anyone who defends the EPA in this case is more concern with the politics than the science.
The science will stand on it's own.