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Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) has called for leading climate scientists to face criminal charges for their role in “Climategate,” the scandal that has cast doubt on the validity of man-made global warming theories.
Just prior to an Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW) hearing on Tuesday, Inhofe released a minority report called “United States Senate Report Consensus? Exposed: The CRU Controversy (Climate Research Unit).”
“The minority staff found that some of the world’s leading climate scientists engaged in unethical behavior and possibly violated federal laws,” Inhofe said in his opening remarks at the hearing. The hearing was set to examine the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) financial year 2011 budget—which could reach $10 billion.
Climategate erupted in November 2009 after e-mails, data, and code were released onto the Internet. The e-mails raise questions of manipulation and fixing of data by climate scientists.
The minority report said many of the scientists appear to have, “manipulated data to fit preconceived conclusions; obstructed freedom-of-information requests, and dissemination of climate data; and colluded to pressure journal editors against publishing scientific work contrary to their own.”
Many of the e-mails were from scientist Phil Jones, director of Britain’s leading Climate Research Unit, part of Britain’s University of East Anglia. Jones was an integral part of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports—the body of research that many countries have been using as the basis of their policymaking and funding. He has since resigned and an investigation is underway, being led by Sir Muir Russell.
One e-mail, apparently from Phil Jones, talks of the potential to exclude some research contrary to the global warming theory.
“The other paper by MM is just garbage—as you knew. De Freitas again. Pielke is also losing all credibility as well by replying to the mad Finn as well—frequently as I see it. I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. K and I will keep them out somehow—even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!”
Lisa Jackson, EPA administrator, said at this week’s EPW hearing that the IPCC has not been “totally discredited in any way” by the Climategate scandal.
“In fact, I think it’s important to understand that the IPCC is a body that follows impartial and open and objective assessments,” she said.
Inhofe said many of the scientists involved in the scandal worked for the IPCC and helped compile the IPCC’s 2007 Fourth Assessment Report.
“That’s important, because this report is a primary basis for the EPA’s endangerment finding for greenhouse gases,” he said.
The IPCC said that global warming would melt the Himalayan glaciers by 2035; destroy 40 percent of the Amazon rain forest; drive 20 to 30 percent of species to extinction; and slash crop production by 50 percent in Africa by 2020—all of which Inhofe says has already been debunked.
“The EPA accepted the IPCC’s erroneous claims wholesale, without doing its own independent review,” Inhofe said. “So EPA’s endangerment finding rests on bad science.”
The minority report’s executive summary says the CRU controversy and recent revelations about errors in the IPCC’s most recent science assessment “cast serious doubt on the validity of EPA’s endangerment finding for greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. The IPCC serves as the primary basis for EPA’s endangerment finding for greenhouse gases.”
The report suggests that the EPA scrap the endangerment finding and start over again.
Jackson stood by the endangerment findings, saying, “Science can be a bit messy, the dust will settle.”
The EPA’s focus for the next 18 to 24 months is on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, improving water quality, and delivering improved environmental health and protection to communities, Jackson said.
The budget includes a requested increase of more than $43 million for additional regulatory efforts aimed at taking action on climate change. A request of $21 million will support continued implementation of the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Rule to ensure the collection of high quality data, Jackson said.
“We are also requesting $60 million for state grants to address new and expanded National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) as well as air monitoring requirements,” she said. “In addition, we’re proposing $1.3 billion for Superfund cleanup efforts across the country.”
The EPA will award nearly $17 million in Science to Achieve Results (STAR) grants to universities across the country to study the consequences of climate change on the air we breathe and the water we drink.
“EPA is engaging the academic research community, through these grants, to enable solutions that will both adapt to and mitigate the impact of climate change,” said Dr. Paul T. Anastas, assistant administrator for the Office of Research and Development.
The research funding ranges from a $239,782 grant to Pennsylvania State University for a project titled, “A Probabilistic Framework for Projections of Watershed Services in U.S. Headwaters under Climate Change Scenarios;” to a $900,000 budget for a grouping of four universities to examine, “Projecting Pollen Allergens and Their Health Implications in a Changing World.”
