The EPA apparently doesn’t care about any negative comment of their GHG Endangerment findings, even internally, so the exercise in Democracy we did yesterday apparently was for naught.
“The time for such discussion of fundamental issues has passed for this round. The administrator and the administration has decided to move forward on endangerment, and your comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision… I can only see one impact of your comments given where we are in the process, and that would be a very negative impact on our office.”
– Internal EPA email, March 17th, 2009
The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) has caught EPA administration red-handed in concealment of internal dissent as well as apparently proceeding with plans in advance.
From this PDF circulated today by CEI, here are the points:
EI is submitting a set of four EPA emails, dated March 12-17, 2009, which indicate that a significant internal critique of EPA’s position on Endangerment was essentially put under wraps and concealed. The study was barred from being circulated within EPA, it was never disclosed to the public, and it was not placed in the docket of this 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.
CEI hereby requests that EPA make this study public, place it into the docket, and either extend or reopen the comment period to allow public response to this new study. We also request that EPA publicly declare that it will engage in no reprisals against the author of the study, who has worked at EPA for over 35 years.
The emails, attached hereto, consist of the following:
1) a March 12 email from Al McGartland, Office Director of EPA’s National Center for Environmental Economics (NCEE), to Alan Carlin, Senior Operations Research Analyst at NCEE, forbidding him from speaking to anyone outside NCEE on endangerment issues;
2) a March 16 email from Mr. Carlin to another NCEE economist, with a cc to Mr. McGartland and two other NCEE staffers, requesting that his study be forwarded to EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, which directs EPA’s climate change program. The email notes the quantity of peer-reviewed references in the study, and defends its inclusion of new research as well. It states Mr. Carlin’s view that “the critical attribute of good science is its correspondence to observable data rather than where it appears in
the technical literature.” It goes on to point out that the new studies “explain much of the observational data that have been collected which cannot be explained by the IPCC models.” (Emphases added);
3) a March 17 email from Mr. McGartland to Mr. Carlin, stating that he will not forward Mr. Carlin’s study. “The time for such discussion of fundamental issues has passed for this round. The administrator and the administration has decided to move forward on endangerment, and your comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision… I can only see one impact of your comments given where we are in the process, and that would be a very negative impact on our office.” (Emphasis added);
4) a second March 17 email from Mr. McGartland to Mr. Carlin, dated eight minutes later, stating “ I don’t want you to spend any additional EPA time on climate change.”
Mr. McGartland’s emails demonstrate that he was rejecting Mr. Carlin’s study because its conclusions ran counter to EPA’s proposed position. This raises several major issues.
A. Incompleteness of the Rulemaking Record: The end result of withholding Mr. Carlin’s study was to taint the Endangerment Proceeding by denying the public access to important agency information. Court rulings have made it abundantly clear that a rulemaking record should include both “the evidence relied upon [by the agency] and the evidence discarded.” Ethyl Corp. v. EPA, 541 F.2d 1, 36 (D.C. Cir. 1976), cert. denied, 426 U.S. 941 (1976).
B. Prejudgment of the Outcome of the Endangerment Proceeding: The emails also suggest that EPA has prejudged the outcome of this proceeding, to the point where it arguably cannot be trusted to fairly evaluate the record before it. Courts have recognized “the danger that an agency, having reached a particular result, may become so committed to that result as to resist engaging in any genuine reconsideration of the issues.” Food Marketing Institute v. ICC, 587 F.2d 1285, 1290 (D.C. Cir. 1978).
C. Violations of EPA’s Commitment to Transparency and Scientific Honesty: Finally, the emails suggest that EPA’s extensive pronouncements about transparency and scientific honesty may just be rhetoric. Shortly before assuming office, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson declared: “As Administrator, I will ensure EPA’s efforts to address the environmental crises of today are rooted in three fundamental values: science-based policies and programs, adherence to the rule of law, and overwhelming transparency.” Jan. 23, 2009, link. See also Administrator Jackson’s April 23 Memo to EPA Employees, “Transparency in EPA’s Operations”. These follow the President’s own January 21 memo to agency heads on “Transparency and Open Government”. And in an April 27 speech to the National Academy of Sciences, the President declared that, “under my administration, the days of science taking a back seat to ideology are over.”
Because of ideology, however, it was this back seat to which Mr. Carlin’s study was relegated; more precisely, it was booted out of the car entirely.
For these reasons, we submit that EPA should immediately make Mr. Carlin’s study public by entering it into the Endangerment docket, and that it should either extend or reopen the comment period in this proceeding to allow public responses to that study. It should do so, moreover, while publicly pledging that Mr. Carlin will suffer no adverse repercussions from agency personnel. Mr. Carlin is guilty of no wrongdoing, but the tenor of the emails described above suggests he may well have reason to fear reprisals.
Read the EPA internal emails, including photographs of the originals here.
Call your congressional representative. This is legally wrong and makes a mockery of the public comment process.
Tell them here: 202-224-3121.
Has anyone checked out The Examiner article linked by Ray at 13:40:09? The author claims to have spoken to a rep from the EPA who appears to have an explanation for this espisode. It’s worth a read, and a little further digging before we all jump to conclusions here.
I sent the following e-mail to my Congressman, Jay Inslee (D-WA):
“My prediction is that you will join the unemployed on December 31, 2010 if you vote in favor of Waxman-Markey or any bill that imposes cap and trade, a direct tax on carbon or any other form of emissions trading scheme, or if you vote in favor of any bill that directly or indirectly establishes a single-payer national health care system.”
Success will come only if enough democrats and republicans in Congress who favor these measures believe my prediction. Stop writing comments here and let your Congressmen know your views. The only thing they fear is loosing an election or getting caught in some form of a pay to play scheme.
If this idiocy continues, it is my intention to work outside the US in order to escape the onerous taxes and industry-choking regulations.
I do not intend to leave my city, however.
I spent the better part of a week researching and composing 3 separate comments to EPA (each from a different perspective). Now I find out my efforts were in vain. A great EVIL has infiltrated the leadership positions of our country.
Folks, the fix is in and there’s nothing that can be done. Obama is ramrodding all these things through because he knows in 2010 people will be fed up. However, none of this can be reversed once enacted. The electorate made their bed and will have to sleep in it; we’re going to be poorer and have less freedom one year from now, get used to it.
BTW Anthony, Dana Rohrabacher mentioned you in a speech last night on the House floor.
Look. Why would anyone be surprised? The American public by and large is poorly educated by the people who had the lowest ACT/SAT scores to get into university, and who are predominantly not very bright. The understanding of science by the American public is quite low.
The worldview of most Americans is based on television, celebrity magazines, and sports. Therefore they merely assume that people with credentials know what they are talking about, and assume that pretty talking heads communicate what people with credentials have agreed upon. You know, “consensus”.
So the fix is in and the aristocracy has determined how to pass massive tax increases, by selling it as “saving the children” from the future of massive ecological collapse caused by the evils of capitalism.
The frogs will be cooked slowly but they will be cooked.
hareynolds (13:11:12) :
I believe the actual quote, by Henrik Ibson, was “People usually have whatever form of government they deserve.”
Tom Fuller (14:33:32) :
In passing along verbatim that hastily cobbled-together compendium of canned bureaucratic talking-points, I assume your intention was irony? As for “the many opportunities,” I’d be interested to hear Carlin’s take. As long as you’re following this, why don’t you ask him?
Jim Papsdorf (15:28:35) :
If Mr. Carlin has floated the adaptation & mitigation ideas you mention, then he is NOT STRONGLY in the AGW camp. The eco-evangelicals are utterly hostile to any engineering/adaptive strategies, or any solutions that threaten their ecotopian fantasies. In fact, the entire AGW myth was simply an end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it trump card designed to force the issue. But it looks like they over-played their hand. If there’s a silver lining to all this, it’s that the greens will be discredited for possibly an entire generation.
However, Carlin’s ideas do reveal an Economist’s outlook, in that he’s considering effective, least-cost solutions based on pragmatism and not eco-fantasies.
This EPA kerfuffle is simply the latest in the sad debasement of Science by scientists, but now is not the time for weary cynicism – the AGW card-castle is trembling in the breeze and we can help hasten its collapse. Of course I will call and write my Congresscritters and demand some action, but maybe Anthony or others know some columnists who would love to shine a light on some intra-agency dirty politics? Didn’t WUWT feature a George Will column recently? This sounds like something he’d love.
Everyone needs to take a step back.
There are two issues here:
A) The undercutting of the process to allow public input in decision making, and
B) Squelching of scientific descent within the EPA.
So far, the evidence for option A) looks pretty damning. I wouldn’t be surprised if the EPA’s story changes as much as Mark Sanford’s has. As far as option B) goes, sorry guys, but I’m skeptical. Why hasn’t CEI produced the doc in question? If we’re going to be advocates for openness, than that standard goes both ways.
[snip–please follow instructions concerning cutting and pasting ~ ctm]
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/06/16/junk-science-week-terence-corcoran-decision-based-evidence-making.aspx
Sounds like Terence Corcoran of the Toronto National Post was right about the kind of decision making that is taking place in Washington.
This all sounds kind of familiar. The Iraqi war was decided first and then the evidence was picked to match the policy.
Was the demonizing of fossil fuels decided first and global warming and demonizing of carbon dioxide invented to match the policy?
[snip–please follow instructions concerning cutting and pasting ~ ctm]
Without comment:
http://planetgore.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MWVjMDU4NTRmYmYzNDhjNDQyZWU4YmZkYmU4MDBjNDA=
Let me give my opinion on this issue; science has been invaded and corrupted by politics and false philosophies that have flown away from science and reason. The real philosophy of science does not allow dogmatism and senselessness.
I can offer a well done investigation, with quite realistic results based on careful observations of real phenomena and/or experimentation; however, it would be rejected if it is not following the mainstream chosen by the editorial board of the publication, or if I have not published a paper in any of their “reliable” magazines, or if I am demonstrating that which they are saying is not true.
Whatever contradicts their viewpoint is rejected without any consideration, understanding for reliability the fact that the editors of such or that magazine belongs to the same academy or way of thought. I have read stupid articles in Science Magazine which have passed the peer review just because they mention somewhere that humans are changing the climate on Earth.
There is no chance of publishing in any “chief” scientific magazine because at the first signal from the article of being on the side which is opposed to their ideology, it will be rejected. That is the reason by which many scientists have opted for publishing in the Internet. Any publication in the Internet is valid if it has been submitted to impartial, not biased peer review. There is an organization called “Scientists Without Borders” to which the accepted members can ask for help on any problem related with science, including the peer reviews of papers by well known scientist from the whole world. However, they don’t accept any peer reviewed paper if it has not passed under the scrutiny of the mainstream.
You can follow unerringly a procedure taken from a book of physics using magnitudes which had been derived from your own measurements and experiments and they will not accept your results just because they are out of their ideology or just because their reviewers did not review your paper. At this pace, there will not be more scientists on this world except AGWers, even those who have never acquired a degree in sciences.
Yes, the world is changing; a dark era has been progressing since 1890. They are destroying science. Ecology is a branch of biology; ecology is a very beautiful factual science… They have converted it into a bunch of lies and assumptions. They have shifted from the real world to a mythical world.
NOAA, NASA, EPA, etc. will never fly again on the field of science and reason. Who could believe that Hansen was really arrested? Hansen has always played the role of being a martyr of the system. Just remember.
Thanks for reading…
“Suppression”
That would never happen…chuckle…chuckle…
If the administration had been honest in its statements regarding science, ideology and policy, it would have been a first for environmental activists.
If your congressman or senator is a democrat write, phone, email as many times as you can to try an dissuade them from supporting the EPA finding or cap and trade.
If they are republican do the same, but it won’t make a difference, because their votes are not relevant. This fight has been between democrats since Jan 2009.
Welcome to the USSA comrades…
Way too many bills are being rushed through by this regime without 1) due diligence or facts to back them up, or 2) a normal period for deliberation and debate. It is worrying that apparently most of our local congressmen and congresswomen (and therefore a good section of the general public) are completely oblivious to what is being signed into law in Washington.
Apparently democracy is going the way of climate science here – to the ignorant and naive it looks like democracy (science), but get too close and you realize it is simply an empty cardboard shell painted to look like democracy (science).
This really is very concerning.
If you have not sent your e-mails off to Senate/congress, include a request that Lisa Jackson, Administrator of EPA be removed from office. This is VERY typical of her. I do a lot of work in the environmental industry in New Jersey where she was the head of the NJ DEP before being kicked upstairs. Well, just before here elevation she was trying her damnedest to wrest complete control of the environmental industry into government hands. Her proposals to tghe legislature would have destroyed the entire multi-billion dollar per year professional scientist/engineer industry and simply required industry in the state to do whatever she and her stooges in the DEP wanted them to. NJ lucked out because it would have caused a mass exodus of businesses.
She is a command and control viper to the core and she will go to congress to testify shrilly about the endangerment.
Tom
Thanks for posting this. I’ve sent it along to some friends, but as many others here have noted the horse seems to have left the barn with the bill being voted on tomorrow.
An observation: The ancient Roman Empire knew that the only things required to stay in power was to keep the military occupied abroad, and the populace entertained. Unfortunately those conditions only last until the military gets sufficiently pissed, and the population gets bored.
Nothing to see here folks, move along, everything is alright….yes, i can see Pinokio nose…..
the lies get bigger and these agencies love it
I’m sick of these people…
A whole new “culture of corruption” is born.
Phil Nizialek (16:26:45) :
Has anyone checked out The Examiner article linked by Ray at 13:40:09?
A portion of it has been striken.
And as someone else said, it seems to miss the mark anyways.
I get the feeling that the EPA will get away with this. Why?
Because they will simply ignore the CEI demands, while the Media true to form, will report nothing….
It is now, “Too Big to Fail”, is the expression I’ve heard used as the general excuse for Government intervention.
The Great Silence continues. “The Debate is over.” “The Science is Settled.”
The Vanguard of the Neo Socialist revolution are kicking our butts and most of us have little idea….. It is no longer in the name of saving the Worker, but rather, In the name of saving the planet…. The ideology is still the same. The methodology is still the same.
Sounds depressing? Well the good news is…… They’ll run out of “our” money before they have enough political impetus to fulfill their ambitions.
Then there will be plenty of opportunity for people of charisma on both sides, to wield a mass of angry mallable people.
…. it’s nothing new. This road has been trod many times before. But I have a nagging feeling they are better at this than we are…. and as before, Socialism will win its victory, so that they may attain failure for us all. Once again.
Folks, I work at EPA and am unfortunate enough to actually know exactly what happened. Alan Carlin knows more about climate change science than most of the people on the EPA work group that wrote the endangerment proposal. The claim that he is simply an economist is a deep disservice to Alan and is patently false. Further, the work group refused to consider his arguments because they “don’t know how to weigh them against the IPCC report” – suggesting they won’t be able to evaluate the public comments either. Notably, others at EPA agree with Alan’s analysis which EPA will make public (so they say). If they actually release the report Alan sent forward, and don’t take his extremely critical statements out, it will embarrass the Agency badly. That will be a shame, but it is what the Agency has earned for itself.
I would like to give my name, but I don’t wish to be punished in the same manner as Alan.
This is a deeply sad set of events for EPA and for the nation.
REPLY: Doing a quick Google Search on the email he provided, I can vouch for the claim of this poster working with the EPA – Anthony
So much for the post-revelation spin.
This is very revealing.
Re: SunSword (16:59:02) :
No truer words have ever been written on this blog…
Well said.