Cheney Steamrolls EPA

After denying for months (e.g. lying) that the White House put pressure on the EPA to change findings released to the public on greenhouse gasses, a former EPA administrator has come forward, implicating the Vice President directly in such actions. Notes the AP:

"The Council on Environmental Quality and the office of the vice president were seeking deletions to the CDC testimony (concerning) ... any discussions of the human health consequences of climate change," Burnett has told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

. . . The letter by Burnett for the first time suggests that Cheney's office was deeply involved in downplaying the impacts of climate change as related to public health and welfare, Senate investigators believe.

Cheney's office also objected last January over congressional testimony by Administrator Johnson that "greenhouse gas emissions harm the environment."

An official in Cheney's office "called to tell me that his office wanted the language changed" with references to climate change harming the environment deleted, Burnett said. Nevertheless, the phrase was left in Johnson's testimony.

You can view Burnett's letter here.

8 July 2008