From: The Daily Caller
In a report released Wednesday (at Sen. Inhofe’s request, dating back to April) the inspector general found that the EPA failed to follow the Data Quality Act and its own peer review process when it issued the determination that greenhouse gases cause harm to “public health and welfare.”
From Yahoo today:
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration cut corners before concluding that climate-change pollution can endanger human health, a key finding underpinning costly new regulations, an internal government watchdog said Wednesday.
…
The report said EPA should have followed a more extensive review process for a technical paper supporting its determination that greenhouse gases pose dangers to human health and welfare, a finding that ultimately compelled it to issue controversial and expensive regulations to control greenhouse gases for the first time.
“While it may be debatable what impact, if any, this had on EPA’s finding, it is clear that EPA did not follow all the required steps,” said Inspector Arthur A. Elkins, Jr. in a statement Wednesday.
The EPA and White House said the greenhouse gas document did not require more independent scrutiny because the scientific evidence it was based on already had been thoroughly reviewed. The agency did have the document vetted by 12 experts, although one of those worked for EPA.
“The report importantly does not question or even address the science used or the conclusions reached,” the EPA said in a statement. The environmental agency said its work “followed all appropriate guidance,” a conclusion supported by the White House budget official who wrote the peer review guidelines in 2005.
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The greenhouse gas decision — which marked a reversal from the Bush administration — was announced in December 2009, a week before President Barack Obama headed to international negotiations in Denmark on a new treaty to curb global warming. At the time, progress was stalled in Congress on a new law to reduce emissions in the United States.
Online:
EPA inspector general’s report: http://www.epa.gov/oig/
Full report at Senate EPW: http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=e0584e33-d3da-4fba-b95a-e93548105e09
Do you mean flouted not flaunted?
[FIXED. Thanks. REP, mod]
In heading: “Report: EPA cut corners on climate finding, ignored Data Quality Act, flaunted peer review process”, please change “flaunted” to “flouted”.
IanM
You just don’t care about our children.
2 red herrings are enough to feed the multitude of 5,000 global warming alarmists.
They’re using the new pal/peer review process, so “flaunted” is probably the right word.
According to “The Daily Caller,” Senator Inhofe is calling for investigations. The article is worth reading.
”
‘Carl Bussjaeger says:
They’re using the new pal/peer review process, so “flaunted” is probably the right word.’
They’re using the new pay-pal/peer review process, so “flaunted” is probably the right word
There fixed.
[REPLY: The title has been changed to “flouted”, REP]
Care to take a guess at who the people who “vetted” this report are?
The EPA didn’t follow it’s own guidelines?
Perhaps we need a “Clean EPA Act”?
🙂
Taking a bit broader view as we head into the 2012 election year, it seems that American voters are waking up in light of a “a new NASA study was interpreted by skeptics to reveal that global warming is not man-made.” 69% Say It’s Likely Scientists Have Falsified Global Warming Research says Rassmusen Reports on Aug 3, 2011
“…While a majority of Americans nationwide continue to acknowledge significant disagreement about global warming in the scientific community, most go even further to say some scientists falsify data to support their own beliefs….”
Looks like we just got in a one – two punch (Large grin)
Anthony, there is a typo in the article, “EPA” should read “The Ministry of Public Protection”.
69%! Thank you again, DC.
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Another good sign: I heard about this EPA thing on a general interest blog before I heard it here.
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Lol, well, I’m glad to see the LSM is reporting crap we knew back in 2009. One day they might actually get to reporting news.
It’s not surprising EPA is fudging the results, for it’s no surprise either that most of the political appointees running the gov’t agencies are crooked as a dog’s hind leg. As a friend long in the civil service elite in one major agency commented recently, they’re unethical and don’t care about anything but their own and Obama’s skins. Washigton is truly infected.
Wow, this is actually pretty important. Inhofe has established that the EPA didn’t follow procedures, and has established that the committee for which he is the ranking minority member has jurisdiction. The Chairman of the committee in Barbara Boxer. She will likely try to kill any attempt at having hearing, but given the OIG report, it could be hard for her to do so.
In the OIG report, EPA indicates that they relied heavily on the IPCC. Inhofe submitted questions about the IPCC procedures and EPA answers those questions in the report. What’s interesting is the Inhofe asked a couple of questions regarding Climategate, and EPA’s answers are clearly inadequacy. If there are committee hearings (and there almost certainly will be), Inhofe has created a predicate to bring Climategate into scope. It seems nearly certain to me that Inhofe will issue a congressional subpoena to gets Mann’s emails, and no court in the land could stand in the way.
Standard EPA procedure for a long time in the so-called ‘species at risk’ listing game, so to be expected.
My take on this is here:
“It appears that the OIG [Office of Inspector General] will allow the Endangerment Finding to stand, and is recommending only that EPA revise its procedures for future. This could be a wrong interpretation, however nowhere in the OIG report is the EPA required to revise or re-issue the missing transparency documents, nor hold a second and independent review by qualified scientists.
The fact that only procedures were evaluated [and not the science] means that the clearly false statements and conclusions of many of the peer-reviewed papers and documents were considered acceptable by EPA.”
This opens the door to additional litigation against EPA for not following regulations.
http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/epa-co2-endangerment-finding-review-by.html
Remember the delta smelt, the little fish “saved” by destroying large chunks of California agriculture through the denial of irrigation water?
(bold added)
Are you a federal scientist for whom the legal system has found your work faulty, showing dereliction of duty with a demonstrated willingness to lie and deceive while violating the law in order to push the Green agenda? Congratulations, you have a promotion coming!
“The agency did have the document vetted by 12 experts, although one of those worked for EPA.”
And would any of the “experts” be impartial and not biased or in “climate science” or funded (heavily and richly) by the IPCC or EPA? How could they not. All 12 vetted the paper?
“Pass the rubber stamp, please.”
No conflicts of interest here, move along.
EPA INSPECTOR GENERAL: KEY ENDANGERMENT FINDING DOCUMENT NEEDED MORE REVIEW
In a major development, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Office of the Inspector General (IG) today said a key document underpinning the agency’s so-called “endangerment finding”—the determination that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare and legally supports agency rules that regulate carbon dioxide emissions—required a “more rigorous peer review than occurred.” Read More »
http://www.powermag.com/POWERnews/4072.html?hq_e=el&hq_m=2292875&hq_l=4&hq_v=d0622051c2
Flaunted is common US usage, even if not correct Queen’s English.
As i recall this is how Climategate began…
opening up a big bag of popcorn.. this is about to get very interesting…
After watching the EPA Oversight Committee on C-Span this morning, it’s clear we need to be combing through the reports and footnotes used to make environmental policy line by line. I was shocked listening to Joe Barton, R.-Texas, questioning Lisa Jackson, head of EPA, about the studies used to support some kind of policy (just happened to catch a few minutes and missed the intro) about “soot”? and air pollution. He stated that he has still not received copies of the studies included in the footnotes and he was starting to doubt their existence. He went on to describe the sources footnoted were studies that were 10-15 years old, some not peer-reviewed, not replicated, not performed by scientists and on and on. And then another representative questioned her about another set of studies he too had requested and not received.
Who is responsible for ascertaining the scientific integrity of studies and reports submitted to our legislators? And, isn’t it about time that we have some kind of absolute standard of accepted research studies and reports? Much of the “research” used to support Obamacare was based on poorly constructed research that would have failed a freshman basic research class yet, these were accepted in the Congressional Record and used to provide rationale for legislation that effects every man, woman, child in this country. This is what happens when science gets hijacked by agendas.
I read through about half of the report and so far I fail to see where this is anywhere near as damning as the headlines are implying.
I suspect it might give ammunition to the suits over the endangerment finding, but no smoking gun which on its own can sink the EPA’s rule making.
I wonder though whether the pause in that rule making process is related more to this report rather than the stated economic reasons (or even the unstated political ones).