CEI Files Lawsuit against Office of Science and Technology Policy
The Competitive Enterprise Institute has sued the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to produce the work-related emails of its director, John Holdren, that were sent from a private email account and thus hidden from the Freedom of Information Act and archiving laws.
The lawsuit alleges that Holdren used an email account from his former employer Woods Hole Research Center, an environmental advocacy group.
From CEI:
CEI Files Lawsuit against Office of Science and Technology Policy
The Competitive Enterprise Institute sued the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) for flouting the Freedom of Information Act. CEI’s Chris Horner asked OSTP to produce work-related emails that OSTP’s Director, John Holdren, stored in an email account at his former employer, the environmental-pressure group Woods Hole Research Center. OSTP has resisted producing them. (The use of such non-official accounts for agency business frustrates federal open-government laws, and undermines government accountability, since such accounts are generally not searched in response to FOIA or congressional oversight requests seeking work-related communications or agency records. Moreover, the use of email accounts at a former employer that lobbies the federal government gives such pressure groups direct access to and control over public records, including highly sensitive information.)
What is ironic about this is that OSTP’s Director, soon after taking office, lectured OSTP employees about not conducting official business using private email accounts, and about the need to forward all work-related communications to their agency email account in order to comply with federal record-keeping laws. (See May 10, 2010 Memo from OSTP Director John Holdren to all OSTP staff, Subject: Reminder: Compliance with the Federal Records Act and the President’s Ethics Pledge, at 1, available as Exhibit B to the letter at this link.) Apparently, the longer an official is in power, and the less he fears losing power, the less he cares about government transparency and the rule of law.
Meanwhile, OSTP has thumbed its nose at CEI’s request under the Information Quality Act that it correct OSTP Director John Holdren’s notoriously false claim, criticized or disagreed with by climate scientists, that global warming is leading to more severe cold weather. As of the time this blog post was published, OSTP’s “Information Quality Guidelines” website continued to falsely claim that “OSTP has received no information quality correction requests. Any future requests will be posted on this page.” It so claims even though CEI had submitted its most recent information quality request about a month ago (emailing it on April 13, and faxing it on April 14), and that same week, discussed that request by phone with an OSTP employee, who confirmed receipt of CEI’s request, and stated that it would be posted on OSTP’s web site.
OSTP made this false claim on its web site even though it was blatantly wrong at the time it was made: OSTP has received not one, but two CEI data quality correction requests, including a highly-publicized 2003 request that OSTP was sued over and resulted in a correction of OSTP’s earlier climate change claims. See Chris Mooney, Paralysis by Analysis: Jim Tozzi’s Regulation to End All Regulation, Washington Monthly, May 1, 2004, at 23 (“Last August, the Competitive Enterprise Institute . . . filed suit under the Data Quality Act over a Clinton-era report on global warming, known as the National Assessment of Climate Change. Though the suit was ultimately settled out of court, government lawyers agreed to attach a disclaimer to the report.”).
OSTP’s recent attempt to evade FOIA is equally disturbing. OSTP first claimed that CEI lawyer Chris Horner’s FOIA request was not a FOIA request at all, even though it explicitly cited FOIA and FOIA statutory provisions and regulations. Then it interpreted Chris’s request as covering only certain emails already found in Holdren’s official OSTP email account. The latter contention tortured the English language, while its former contention was legally just wrong: judges have ruled that agencies have to produce records reflecting agency activities, even if they were “neither created by agency employees, nor . . . currently located on agency property.” Burka v. HHS, 87 F.3d 508, 515 (D.C. Cir. 1996). Here, the records were exchanged with an agency employee — indeed, the agency’s director! — and recent rulings affirm that FOIA can be used to request agency records, even when they are in an official’s private email account. (See, e.g., Landmark Legal Foundation v. E.P.A., 2013 WL 4083285, *6 (D.D.C. Aug. 14, 2013) (refusing to dismiss a FOIA lawsuit, because EPA failed to search agency officials’ personal email accounts); CEI v. EPA, No. 12-1617, 2014 WL 308093, at *14 (D.D.C. Jan. 29, 2014) (noting that a requester ”can simply ask for work-related emails and agency records found in the specific employees’ personal accounts; requesters” need not even identify the non-official email addresses at issue, which requesters may not know)).
h/t to Dennis Kuzara and Chris Horner
The Duckers and Dodgers are still at it; they know no other way.
These people believe that if they claim to value openness and transparency that should be enough. They don’t actually have to be open and transparent. It’s the same thing with hating the rich. They preach the need for equality while quietly using government contracts and green-energy subsidies to enrich themselves and their cronies on the backs of the taxpayers.
A new transparency… it is called opaque.
Well, alarmists have so much to hide, if you take away the following what evidence do you have of climate change/global warming/climate shift/whatever?
1. Natural climate cycles.
2. Dodgy, demonstrably inaccurate computer models with pre-determined results,
3. ‘Homogenised’/manipulated/tortured data, and
4. Scary, twisted, misinterpretations of real weather data.
Answer: Not a lot.
What I find intriguing is that the worst of the alarmist peddlers these days do not have a clue about science, as they are usually economists, psychologists and populist politicians.
WHITE HOUSE BLOWS OFF ANOTHER LAWSUIT
Says Needs Not Respond as Climate Change is National Security Issue
Biden: “When I heard about it I laughed so hard I almost Putin’d my shorts”
O/T apologies:
being picked up by the MSM:
7 May: New Scientist: Michael Slezak: Rapid Arctic melting is only partly our fault
The rapid warming and melting of the Arctic is only half our fault. While our greenhouse gas emissions are clearly a factor, the record melts of the past few decades are partly the result of huge waves of warm air emanating from the Pacific Ocean.
The same region of the Pacific seems to be behind both the Arctic warming and the global warming “hiatus” of the last decade. That means we could be in for something unexpected: when global warming speeds up again, the melting of the Arctic might slow down, because both are partly controlled by the Pacific. If there is still some summer ice left when that happens, the Arctic could go another decade without a complete melt.
Qinghua Ding of the University of Washington in Seattle and his colleagues reanalysed temperature data from 1979 to 2012…
His team used climate models to simulate these changes, and found that they drove waves of high-altitude warm air into the Arctic. In effect, the cool surface waters in the Pacific have been warming Greenland, especially since the late 1990s…
Journal reference: Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature13260.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25531-rapid-arctic-melting-is-only-partly-our-fault.html
Is this the same Dr. John Holdren who in 1971 predicted another ice age unless we curbed our “air pollution” without delay?
Is this the same Dr. John Holdren who earlier this year wrongly stated that cold winters were becoming more common in the US?
How did Dr. John Holdren become the White House Science Advisor?
http://youtu.be/xcrbZ74mvgg
Shocking DIRECT quotes by Dr. John Holdren on compulsory abortions and adding sterilization chemicals to drinking water. Image of text provided.
http://zombietime.com/john_holdren/
Why should I listen to a word that Dr. John Holdren has to say? His record of prediction is terrible. World population was in 1969 was around 3.7 billion. Today it stands at just over 7 billion and rising.
In a 1969 article, Holdren and co-author Paul R. Ehrlich argued
It looks like “all the technology man can bring to bear” DID “fend off the misery to come”
Hats off to CEI, they are really going to the heart of the problem with this.
In 1980 Dr. Holdren along with Paul R. Ehrlich made a bet with Julian Simon called the ‘Simon–Ehrlich wager’. To cut a long story short Holdren and Ehrlich LOST when the price of metals had decreased by 1990. If I were a betting man I would bet AGAINST any alarmism that comes out of Holdren’s hottist lips.
http://www.stanford.edu/group/CCB/Pubs/Ecofablesdocs/thebet.htm
Other references and links
Lil Fella from OZ says:
A new transparency… it is called opaque.
====
transparency is not an absolute binary qualitiy , it is a grey scale that goes from 1 to 0. So saying government will be have a new policy on transparency does not comit to anything.
It’s like a used car salesman offering you a “quality” used car. It sounds great but he does not tell you what “quality” he is offering. He can not be attacked for selling you a poor quality car, because poor quality is still “quality”. He just tries to suggest GOOD quality without ever actually saying so.
Politicians are just like used car salemen (except they’re less honest).
Announcing a new transparency is the same thing as announcing a new opacity, it just sounds nicer.
Jimbo says
‘How did Dr. John Holdren become the White House Science Advisor?’
In some quarters it would require Baksheesh, in others dirt.
Jimbo says:
May 8, 2014 at 2:41 am
Why should I listen to a word that Dr. John Holdren has to say? His record of prediction is terrible. World population was in 1969 was around 3.7 billion. Today it stands at just over 7 billion and rising.
————————
Again and again the predictions are wrong, I really cannot understand why the newspapers don”t jump on this but i guess they get held to ransom , push the agw scam and we will give you access to ………. or we can make things difficult for you. Ok this sounds conspiracy theory but we know deals are made behind closed doors. In the end the newspaper editors mix in the same circles as those pushing it and to the editors the story is not a Watergate story that has to be exposed. They can kid themselves they are saving the planet. I suppose the good news is coverage has dwindled. But judging by the comments sections on the online versions I have looked at the climate stories throw up a barrage of skeptic readers.
Even the Guardian has let a few through, maybe the sign of a sinking ship, they don’t have the will to closely monitor the comments section as the water is lapping at their necks.
Good luck SS Guardian.
No I mean SS as in SS Manhattan! , the first ship to travel the NW Arctic route in 1969.
lee says: “In some quarters it would require Baksheesh, in others dirt.”
Jim says: Or choosing staff on the basis of politics.
Follow up to pat’s post about arctic warming, here is the last sentence of the abstract:
“This suggests that a substantial portion of recent warming in the northeastern Canada and Greenland sector of the Arctic arises from unforced natural variability.”
So another example of warmist spin from the New Scientist journo and the editor of Nature.
“WHITE HOUSE BLOWS OFF ANOTHER LAWSUIT
Says Needs Not Respond as Climate Change is National Security Issue”
So, since when has information about climate change become classified?
By the year 2000 the world will be completely frozen over. Period.
Lee and Jimbo–
Bird of a feather flock together.
Don’t make Holdren retract his statement about global warming causing more extreme cold. I’ve used that one a dozen times to show folks how the position has now morphed into everything is caused by global warming. It’s perfect.
8 May: Guardian: AAP: Million-year climate record a step closer after Australian expedition
Australian Antarctic Division scientists returned to Hobart with two tonnes of ice cores dating back 2,000 years
Antarctic science’s holy grail of a million-year climate record is a step closer following a successful ice-drilling expedition.
Australian Antarctic Division (AAD) scientists have returned to Hobart with two tonnes of ice cores dating back 2,000 years and say a record of the climate over a million years could be achievable within a decade.
The Australians were part of an international team that drilled down 300m at a site 500km inland from Casey station…
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/may/08/million-year-climate-record-a-step-closer-after-australian-expedition?CMP=twt_gu
In case Holden needs an introduction http://tinyurl.com/p6btnoc
@Greg says:
>>Lil Fella from OZ says:
>>A new transparency… it is called opaque.
====
>transparency is not an absolute binary qualitiy , it is a grey scale that goes from 1 to 0. So saying government will be have a new policy on transparency does not comit to anything.
I was thinking about how to describe this scale. Surely it ranges from ‘shadowy’ to ‘gloomy’, ‘dark’, ‘darker’, ‘obscuring’, ‘murky’ and finally ‘opaque’.
Imagine if “climate enthusiasts” (most are amateurs) would produce ‘enlightening’, ‘revealing’, ‘informative’, ‘representative’, ‘comprehensive’, ‘thorough’ and ‘radiantly self-effacing’ tracts informed by virtues worthy of emulation. That would be a social environment we would all enjoy.
If this was a Hollywood movie, in it we would hear Holdren whispering into Obama’s ear, “Plausible climate deniability in case it continues to not warm. Worst case, we can always throw Mann under the bus.”
Sometimes movie do imitate life.
John
This regime appears to have glaucoma.
Fine, add FOIA to the inequality debate
Conducting official business using private email accounts is indeed violation of IT policy. Hope everyone will learn from this.
“If you want your transparency you can have your transparency!” I think I heard that from our Dear Leader.
Must prepare for the warmcold droughtflood to come.
The root cause of this problem is that the press in the US is racists. The US press is afraid to criticize the Obama administration because of the color of his skin.
This is the very essence of racism. The press should be color blind, but they are not. As a result one of the fundamental checks and balances of the US political system has been undermined.
Any time your decision is influenced by the color of someone’s skin, you are a racist. If you criticize someone because they are black, you are a racist. If you fail to criticize them because
they are black, you are still a racists.
Racists come in all shapes, sizes and colors. Racists can be red, white, yellow, brown or black, and all shades in between. If you excuse someone’s failings because the color of their skin matches yours, you are still a racist.
Extreme Pornography Agency
EPA official caught with more than 7,000 porn files on government computer
http://freebeacon.com/issues/extreme-pornography-agency/
Re: plausible deniability
There is a mechanism by which the Obama Administration maintains plausible deniability. In logic it is called the “equivocation fallacy.” Operating under this fallacy, Administration “scientists” use equivocal language in stating what is going to happen next and when.
Its all bull; he’s nothing more than a Zionist puppet. His handlers love to use intimidation, fear, half truths and legal bull to get control over the sheeple and further their agenda. Just another employee of a corporate body politic; just like a sales associate is to Home Depot. HE’S NOTHING!!!
Mikva is one of many influential Chicago [liberals] who have been among Obama’s earliest and most ardent backers. Through their large financial contributions and influence peddling, Obama’s Chicago enablers insured for themselves both a place in his administration and political leverage serving [liberal] interests. These include the following, all of whom, are inter-connected:
-1- Bettylu Klutznik Saltzman, whose father, Phillip Klutznik (d 1999), served as President of B’nai B’rith -2- Rahm Emanuel, former partner in Chicago’s branch of Wasserstein Investments, currently White House Chief of Staff -3- Penny Pritzker, heiress to the Chicago-based Hyatt Hotel fortunes, now member of Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board -4- Lester Crown, Chairman of Chicago’s Crown Investments, -5- Valerie Jarrett, former Chairman of the Chicago Stock Exchange, currently Obama’s Senior Adviser for Intergovernmental Affairs -6- David Axelrod, founder of Axelrod & Associates which ran Obama’s senate and presidential campaigns, now Special Adviser to Obama
[A person’s religion has no part of this discussion. Their politics? yes. Mod]
The fact that left-wingers all through the government are using private accounts to conduct business (Lisa Jackson being just one other example) shows what a stupid supposition it is that all communication that is government related once you are in government cannot be private. I believe it was during Watergate this became something the leftist herd seized upon as absolutely necessary for pure and pristine government and as usual they passed a bunch of ridiculous laws that grossly infringed on people’s ability to write private notes and express perhaps daring or unpopular opinions while serving in government.
The idea that once you are a government employee you lose the right to communicate privately about your job or policy is restrictive and destructive of the deliberative processes necessary for the effective governance. In the high councils of government, people need to be able to speak freely without fear of being hounded out of government or even arrested.
What do people really know about John Holdren- what? freakin nothing.
The Mexican drug cartels sell drugs to gain power and wealth via crime.
The American left/Democrats/Climate Fraud Operations sell lies to gain power and wealth via crime.
No amount of facts thrown at the Mexican drug cartels will stop them from their crimes.
No amount of facts thrown at the American left Climate Fraud Cult etal will stop them from their crimes.
LIes kill.
Truth is life.
Life is the only choice.
– – – – – – – – –
Terry Oldberg,
I think I saw that movie. It starred some unknown railroad engineer and was called ‘The Equivocation and Seduction of Science – The Tragedy of AR5’. It was rated PS-17 (Pseudo-Science- 17). It was directed by he who shall not be named (short ball headed paunchy guy). Music by Andy Revkin and his compliant MSM quartet. Based on a script written by Lysenko.
: )
John
Jimbo asks:
‘How did Dr. John Holdren become the White House Science Advisor?’
**************
Because (IMHO) he was selected by a president who has the same amount of respect for honest, sound science that the president himself does: zero.
Holdren, like many other climate alarmist “scientists” today, actually abandoned science for political activism a long time ago. In his mind, science is now just a tool, a plaything to be manipulated and abused as he sees fit to advance his activist cause or causes. Science is no longer about the pursuit of truth or about trying to understand the mysteries of this planet we live on and that of the universe beyond it.
With the purpose of science now “properly” rewritten and with an ego the size of Texas to go with it, Holdren is now just masquerading as a scientist so as to “properly” propagandize the American people. Once properly brainwashed, the American people can thus be herded together in pursuit of his activist goals in life with little or no regard for the logic, rationality, consequences and soundness of the science behind them (or lack thereof). And having a nicely compliant but scientifically illiterate mainstream media behind you to assist certainly helps.
In Holdren’s mind, there is no other way of pursuing his ends that are worthy of his consideration (such as simply promoting advanced 4th generation nuclear power as replacements for closed or closing coal-fired power plants instead of a climate alarmist campaign). While there may indeed be more than one way to do anything, only HIS way is the right one.
Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels would have been proud of him.
Re: Jimbo says at 2:13 am,
Out of some of the outrageous quotes from Dr. John Holdren you have linked to I noticed this ‘outstandingly scientifically technical’ quote;
“..a sudden outward slumping in the Antarctic ice cap, induced by added weight, could generate a tidal wave of proportions unprecedented in recorded history.”
Holdren appears to have moved from global cooling alarmism to global warming alarmism. Is there a word for someone who has an alarmism fetish?
Add “open government” to “keep your health insurance pledge” and the real maestro emerges, but still behind the curtains of power
Transparency. Yes, when the Nixon administration tried to hold information from the public it was called “stone walling.” I see no difference between that and what is happening now. They are stonewalling, not trying to mislead or redirect appearances. I think this adminstration studied the Nixon adminstration and said “we can do better than that.” About the only thing these people haven’t done is stand up and say “I’m not a crook,” probably because they couldn’t say it while taking a lie detector test. Nixon probably could have.
Jimbo says:
May 8, 2014 at 2:13 am
Well, when Obama walks into the room, he’s the smartest guy in there, & he obviously picked his science advisor with that in mind.
Woods Hole Research Center is not an environmental advocacy group, but a research center. They write:
Of course, the environment is biased
Difficult to decide whether to laugh or cry?
oh yay…
The sidebar of the Washington Times article at the “flouting” link has a poll about the recent National Climate Assessment report. The results as of when I viewed the results at 1015 PDT:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/polls/2014/may/8/840-page-national-climate-assessment-paints-grim-p/
Poll: The 840-page “National Climate Assessment” paints a grim picture for America, warning of severe droughts, rising sea levels and other catastrophic consequences of global warming. Do you agree with this report?
Yes 73(8%)
No 800(89%)
Undecided 26(2%)
Other 3(0%)
Jimbo says: May 8, 2014 at 2:41 am
Why should I listen to a word that Dr. John Holdren has to say? His record of prediction is terrible. World population was in 1969 was around 3.7 billion. Today it stands at just over 7 billion and rising.
In a 1969 article, Holdren and co-author Paul R. Ehrlich argued
“if the population control measures are not initiated immediately, and effectively, all the technology man can bring to bear will not fend off the misery to come.”
_________________________________
Having just made a tour of Pakistan, India and Philippines, I would say that he was dead right – for there was overcrowding and misery galore.
Not everyone lives in Wyoming, you know….
Ralph.
Never forget where John Holdren comes from, an outright disdain for skeptic climate scientists going all the way back to his Woods Hole days. I wrote two articles about his involvement with what I call the “Greenpeace USA née Ozone Action” epicenter of the smear of skeptics, first in 2010, “The Curious History of ‘Global Climate Disruption’ ” ( http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/10/the_curious_history_of_global.html ) and then later in 2011 to detail his 1998 White House involvement as Clinton’s PCAST advisor regarding the smear of the Oregon Petition Project via that same Ozone Action group: “White House Involved in Warmist Smear Campaign” http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/11/white_house_involved_in_warmist_smear_campaign.html
Years ago Triumph Automobiles (remember them?) produced, what I consider to have been, a handsome, wedge shaped (it was all the rage then), two seater, open sports car, named the TR8. The ad agency for Triumph produced a very dramatic, and I believe effective, television ad for this car wherein it was dropped at high altitude, slung underneath a parachute. When it hit the desert floor, the occupant, who was either in it the whole time or hopped in when it touched the ground, sped away in a cloud of dust.
The federal laws concerning truth in advertising required that the particular Triumph TR8 used in this ad had to be actually capable of doing this. So, not withstanding the fact that no TR8, anywhere, at anytime, ever, was actually going to be ever required to be used for such a thing, that car had to be beefed up so that it good.
That was back in the late 1970s during the Carter administration. Well, I’d say those laws are more relevant than ever. The National Crap, er Climate, Assessment, in the end, is nothing other than Madison Avenue transplanted to Washington. Let’s see it sink or swim according to truth in advertising. Time for the lawsuits to begin.
Transparency and FOIA do not apply to the politically well connected, just ask Hillary.
Federal record-keeping laws?
We don’t need no federal record-keeping laws. We ARE the law!
I’ve been there, done that. Watch out America.
Eli Rabett says:
May 8, 2014 at 8:49 am
“Woods Hole Research Center is not an environmental advocacy group…”
On their website’s masthead, the byline reads “Science, Education, and Policy for a Healthy Planet”. So it looks like policy advocacy is part of their raison d’être.
pottereaton says:
May 8, 2014 at 7:15 am “The idea that once you are a government employee you lose the right to communicate privately about your job or policy is restrictive and destructive of the deliberative processes necessary for the effective governance. In the high councils of government, people need to be able to speak freely without fear of being hounded out of government or even arrested.”
So you believe if someone in a powerful government “conducting” government business shouldn’t be subject to laws. Interesting. I guess “inside trading information” is OK for government employees while the rest of us would be facing jail time.
You need to read a lot slower and don’t miss the critical words. Here they are again.
It was not initiated in “Pakistan, India and Philippines” immediately, and effectively. That is my point Ralph.
India produces enough of what it’s people want. Talk to the exporters.
Don’t miss the word “Remain”.
And finally Ralph, “there was overcrowding and misery galore” in UK cities in the early part of the 19th century. In 1975 you could not say the same. The problem was not over population but poverty and a lack of municipal action among other issues.
Ralph, I DO NOT LIVE IN THE USA. I too live in a poor, developing country. I know the low down. Think before you post next time.
Eli rabbit:
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Like any such group, they do what they can to advance their point of view.
You say that they do not advocate sound environmental practices, as perceived by them. You need to re-think.
People are generally better off today than when Holdren made his failed prediction
World agricultural production has trended UP since 1990 and rising.
Global fertility rates since the 1960s has been plunging.
See this example and you might understand why Holdren and co. keep on getting it wrong.
Read about the agricultural revolution since the 1960s. Holdren got it wrong because he and Ehrlich argued
Do you agree that they got it wrong in 1969 given the critical words “immediately, and effectively“? The populations of the 3 countries you quoted went up.
Thanks David Ball. I knew “it” had a name:
“warmcold droughtflood”
It’s everywhere, happening now, look out your window, it’s worse than we thought.
It seems the government can read private citizens’ emails without a request but emails and business conducted by government and paid for by the citizens is made out of bounds.
There are subjects and government employees in Australia and UK that have to sign the Official secrets act, and public servants can not communicate with the media, or they lose their jobs. I can just imagine how this must be in America. National security must have gone paranoid.
LOL, maybe a certain person might disappear it’s happened before even in UK, we don’t know the dark side of governments. They have a way of covering up a suicide or accident.