This story is a joint effort between the San Francisco Examiner Environmental Policy blogger Thomas Fuller and WUWT.
Here is what started it all. An email as part of a package of emails posted as public comment in the EPA endangerment finding by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) who caught EPA administration red-handed in concealment of internal dissent as well as apparently proceeding with plans in advance of public comment.
From this PDF circulated by CEI, here is the most pertinent email:
Yesterday, Thomas Fuller, who writes for the Examiner in San Francisco, noted as many other WUWT readers did, a comment from “anonymous” posted on the WUWT thread “The EPA suppresses dissent and opinion, and apparently decides issues in advance of public comment”
“anonymous” wrote:
anonymous
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
After I confirmed the email, one of our moderators, Charles, confirmed the originating IP address. Discussion ensued, and Mr. Fuller reported in comments:
I contacted the EPA this morning and received an email response from them that seemed relevant–and open. I contacted the CEI and received nothing.
…
I’m a liberal Democrat who happens to lean towards the skeptic arguments regarding AGW. It will never be a completely comfortable fit for me amongst many of you. But I am trying to be an honest commentator on the facts. I’m a big boy and can handle criticism, but read some of what I’ve written first.
Mr. Fuller was skeptical of the claims made by “anonymous” which I fully understand and appreciate, he wrote:
…
I linked to Anthony’s article here because I trust him and this site. I still do. The Competitive Enterprise Institute did create an impression of Alan as a skeptic who could not get his opinion heard within the EPA. I’ve seen pretty convincing evidence that he not only got his opinion heard, he got some of it into the Endangerment report. It also became quickly evident that he is not a skeptic at all.
However, “anonymous” was concerned about retaliation within EPA, and both his email and IP addresses checked out.
“anonymous” replied to Mr. Fuller, and Charles offered some facilitating help:
anonymous
Re: Tom Fuller (18:08:13) :
I respect Tom’s willingness to listen to both sides in this matter. He simply is not privy to the facts. Alan was muzzled. Others who tried to get the work group to evaluate his arguments ran into a brick wall. It is not that Alan’s comments were flawed. It is that the people who were in charge wanted him taken out of the process and his report “disappeared”. This was “politics” pure and simple. The arguments were ignored for lack of expertise in climate science. Indeed, when an investigation was done to determine how many full time equivalents (bureaucratise for “people”) EPA has with actual first hand knowledge on how to use the kind of GCMs upon which the IPCC relied, the answer was half a person (a person half time). I’m not sure, but I don’t think that person was actually on the work group. I don’t recall seeing his name on it, in any case.
Tom, there are going to be a lot of questions about this transaction. I am not permitted to give details, but I expect Congressional inquiries will force most of the facts out. If they don’t, then I don’t really know what to say.
I’m prepared to go on background on this if you are serious about finding out the facts.
Reply: May I forward your email to Tom Fuller? ~ charles the moderator.
To which the reply was:
anonymous
Re: May I forward your email to Tom Fuller? ~ charles the moderator.
Only after Tom publically promises anonymity.
Reply: Ok ~ ctm
Mr. Fuller responded with:
Hi all,
Anonymous, if you do agree to speak with me, I promise I will keep your identity anonymous. That is without conditions.
Thanks for performing a public service.
Tom Fuller
San Francisco Environmental Policy Examiner,
Examiner.com
Reply: IP addresses and unpublished email confirmed. I believe anonymous has retired for the evening, but I will forward information ~ ctm.
I discussed the idea with Charles, and emails were exchanged, and we stood back and waited for the results.
The results were a surprise to Mr. Fuller, and he responded with this excellent article below, for which I’ve posted a link and a couple of excerpts to.
Please visit Mr. Fuller’s blog to give him some traffic and some kudos for excellence in journalism. I was pleased that team WUWT was able to assist, and it goes to demonstrate that reasonable people on opposite sides of an issue can work together to find truth. Also, let’s all give major props to WUWT’s “Charles the moderator” for his role as facilitator. – Anthony
The EPA’s internal nightmare over global warming: Part 1
A source inside the Environmental Protection Agency confirmed many of the claims made by analyst Alan Carlin, the economist/physicist who yesterday went public with accusations that science was being ignored in evaluating the danger of CO2.
The source, who chooses not to be identified for fear of retaliation, said that Carlin was rebuffed in his attempt to introduce scientific evidence that does not accord with the EPA’s view of global warming, which largely relies on IPCC reports. The source also saw Carlin’s report and said that it was ‘based on 8 points of peer-reviewed, recent and relevant scientific publications’ that cast doubt on the wisdom of regulating CO2 as a pollutant.
The EPA’s draft Endangerment Finding was initially written over a year ago during the Bush administration, and Lisa Jackson (the new head of the EPA) and her team wanted to get the Finding out on or near Earth Day, according to a schedule that was made public about a week before formal publication of the proposal. The draft was submitted to agency workgroups with only one week for review and comment, which is unprecedented, and received only light comments–except for Carlin’s.
…
Read the entire story here at the SF Environmental Examiner
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Good Lord! CEI has published a draft version of the Carlin Report and I’m simply stunned. The link to download the report was mentioned above, but here it is again:
http://cei.org/news-release/2009/06/25/cei-releases-global-warming-study-censored-epa
The good news is that Anthony Watts and his team are cited throughout the document. The bad news is that it could not have been written by a committed warmer. I would start looking very, very seriously for independent confirmation, preferably from Dr. Carlin himself, that this document is authentic. If it is authentic, it is devastating.
Sam Kazman, Competitive Enterprise Institute (18:37:28) :
Thanks Sam! This is good stuff!! No wonder a lot of people high up in AGW didn’t want this out.
Robert Wood (19:05:10) :
Thanks too to Gilbert @17:26:51
CARBONGATE – Excellent!
It is very heartening to me to see some folks at EPA speaking out for truth. Never forget that there are some really good people and great scientists in all these agencies, but they have the same fears as all of us, relative to retributions, etc. And they have to be feeling pretty low about some of what they see going on in this Administration (as well as in previous ones–but I think it may be much more blatant and important now).
Thanks to the honest folks that make America work!
Sorry – it’s thanks to Robert @ur momisugly (19:05:10)
CARBONGATE is yours!
Seems like at least Grist is going with the old, reliable “He’s a non-scientist, economist kook who has crazy ideas” play straight out of the book, along with derision for anyone, such as Mr. Fuller, who looks investigates at all.
http://www.grist.org/article/2009-06-24-scant-evidence-of-suppression/
If this is really the case, it seems the easiest way for the EPA to show that would be for them to make Dr. Carlin’s comments and report public for all to see and judge for themselves…
Brian P @17:44:52
Remember Watergate: the more they struggle, the more they trouble
Seems like at least Grist is going with the old, reliable “He’s a non-scientist, economist kook who has crazy ideas” play straight out of the book, along with derision for anyone, such as Mr. Fuller, considers investigating things.
http://www.grist.org/article/2009-06-24-scant-evidence-of-suppression/
If this ignorant-kook premise is really the case, it seems the easiest way for the EPA to show that would be for them to make Dr. Carlin’s comments and report public for all to see and judge for themselves…
WOW!!! Just read the Executive Summary of that draft report.
This 98 page report is headline stuff. A detailed EPA internal skeptical report.
Heroes All: Carlin, Fuller, Anthony and Charles, not to mention Deep Throat, the confirmation.
Hi all,
As the Examiner who wrote the story up, I need to apologise for not crediting this blog for doing so much of the original work. I’ve amended my story to start, Update: Because I was on deadline (no excuse) I didn’t credit Anthony Watts and his weblog Watts Up With That for a) alerting me to this issue in the first place, b) providing adequate background to help my understanding enough of the issue to proceed and c) facilitating contact with the source interviewed below. I have mentioned Mr. Watts and his weblog on numerous occasions (I’m not affiliated with them, by the way), but certainly not enough on this occasion. Watts Up With That, winner of the Science Blog of the Year, has once again provided an invaluable service to those interested in issues surrounding global warming.
REPLY: Thanks Tom, no worries. As a broadcaster, I understand deadlines. You are always welcome here. – Anthony
Sorry, left off another hero: Sam Kazman, Competitive Enterprise Institute
Good job News Team! You stay classy WUWT.
This is so close to the EPA crusade against Phospho-gypsum in Florida. All politics and very little science. When asked to reproduce their science, EPA couldn’t.
rephelan (19:14:52) : “I would start looking very, very seriously for independent confirmation, preferably from Dr. Carlin himself, that this document is authentic.”
Anthony, an interview?
I often find myself in disagreement with her, but Rosa DeLauro is a classy lady and probably one of the hardest working members of Congress. Nonethelss, this is the e-mail I sent this evening:
The following is a link to a page at the Competitive Enterprise Institute web site which contains a link to a purported internal report by Dr. Alan Carlin at the EPA.
http://cei.org/news-release/2009/06/25/cei-releases-global-warming-study-censored-epa
If this report is authentic it is a devastating indictment of the EPA, the IPCC and the under-pinnings of the Clean Energy and Security Act. I expect my representative to lead the effort to get to the truth of this matter and to either get the vote on this bill postponed or to vote against it.
I have long supported Congresswoman DeLauro with my ballot, but a vote in favor of this bill will change that.
Sincerely,
I encourage everyone to get this off to their congress person. You can get access to their e-mail addresses through this site:
http://www.webslingerz.com/jhoffman/congress-email.html
I submitted this thread to the Drudge ‘News Tips’. I encourage all of you to also. We need to stir up the storm on this one.
Drudge news tips is in the right column 3/4 down the page.
http://www.drudgereport.com/
Congratulations to all involved in genesis the Examiner article on the EPA CO2 debacle.
Caution for Anthony/WUWT: I predict the number of site hits is going to metastasize when/if this gets wider coverage in the liberal MSM.
Sent the alert to my Rep (D), but also 2 others (R) that will run with it.
Left a tip a Drudge.
Tomorrow I watch CSPAN.
After scanning the summary fo Carlin’s report, I can see why EPA wanted nothing to do with it.
Think back a year or so ago when an environmental group requested that EPA regulate CO2 and EPA refused. The case went to the Supreme Court who told EPA that they could not avoid making a technical determination of whether CO2 represented a danger, and remanded. EPA knows that if it were to start from scratch and conduct its own inquiry into the climate effects of CO2 it would take years. So their strategy is to piggy-back on the IPCC report and use the conclusions of that international organization as a technical basis for its own legal conclusion of endangerment.
The IPCC report, though extensive, is not all that transparent. For example, they assert that “expert judgment” is of a 90% probability that most of the warming is from CO2, but they don’t indicate who participtaed in the survey and how the 90% combined number was reached. That’s just one example. Steve McIntyre gives other examples where it is not possible to actually evaluate the science behind the conclusory statements made in the IPCC. But EPA, under their strategy, doesn’t have to deal with any of these messy details about model assumptions and raw data, etc. They just say “the experts concuded CO2 is dangerous.”
Along comes Carlin and points out that the IPCC data is not current and mentions specific findings that contradict the conclusions of the IPCC which were incorporated into EPA’s TSD without independent evaluation. But EPA can’t evaluate whether these new studies really do diminish the credibility of the IPCC conclusions without delving into all the messy details they want to avoid. Since they have no real way of addressing or rebutting Carlin’s new information, they opted to sit on it.
I think a grand bait-and-switch is going on here to con Congress into passinig the cap-and-trade scheme. I think “anonymous” is correct that EPA really hates the idea of regulating CO2 because its so pervasive in our economy that regulating it would be a bureaucratic and public relations nightmare. But EPA is under instructions to push this endangerment holding along because one of the provisions of the cap and trade legislation removes EPA jurisdiction to regulate CO2 under the Clean Air Act provisions that would reach down to, as “anonymous” put it, the schools and the churches. In essence, cap and trade would replace the existing regulatory scheme of the Clean Air Act with respect to CO2. Thus, Senators and legislators can vote for cap and trade as the lesser of the two evils.
In other words, this EPA endangerment ruling is a gambit to get cap and trade passed. That’s why they are in such a rush. Of course, if cap and trade doesn’t pass, EPA is not going to be able to undo this damage – they will have made an endangerment finding and they will be stuck with it.
paulID (18:37:57) :
paulID said: “you owe me a new monitor the current one has diet mountain dew sprayed all over it. good pic”
Thank you, but I wish you would not have confessed that publicly. The EPA HASMAT team should be at your door presently, I fear. They certainly cannot allow an open carbonation spill like that to go unanswered. I suggest that you be creative and try saying that you were doing it as a 1st Amendment opinion of a current news revelation. Currently the EPA is back on there heels on that topic and it might just work. 8^)
Robert Wood (19:05:10) :
CARBONGATE
If this pans out you will be famous.
I Just sent this stuff to my congress critters. Would suggest that everyone do the same.
This has the potential to bottle up congressional stupidity for some time to come.
Firstly, I am going to say C-mod, you rock!! Secondly, the bad news in this, and we must not let it stop us, is that The Prez has spent a (snip) load of money and has to make up for it somehow. From his viewpoint, the climate bill has to go through (accurate or not) or he will be in deep doo-doo (technical term). As a Canadian, it concerns me greatly, since we are so conjoined to the American economy that if you are sunk, we are sunk, too.
I would just like to say thankyou to Anthony, Charles, Tom, Alan and Anon. for a truly inspirational effort.
I wish I could get my friends to read all 98 pages of omission.
The Environmental Protection Agency is doing antiscience. Nevertheless, I opine that antiscience is a word incorrectly constructed: anti is a Greek root which means “against”, and scientia, which means knowledge, science. The word “antiscience” is wrongly constructed because the combination of Greek roots with Latin roots is not allowed by mixing a bond root with a free root (morpheme), in any language.
The correct word should be contra-science, which has been built with to Latin roots, a bond root and a free root: contra, which means “against”, and scientia , which means “science”. One way or another, EPA is doing contra-science.
Darell C. Phillips (20:43:37) :
“Currently the EPA is back on there heels on that topic…”
should be-
“Currently the EPA is back on their heels on that topic…”
Wow, I can’t spell tonight.