The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has announced that it will continue an investigation initiated last Congress regarding the hand of politics in the work of government climate change scientists.
The hearing will pursue allegations that the White House Council of Environmental Quality edited scientific reports and took other actions to minimize the significance of global warming, and committee chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and ranking minority member Tom Davis, R-Va., sent a letter to the White House requesting un-redacted" CEQ documents.
The hearings follow discussion that gained coverage in the news media about a year ago relating to the role of public affairs officers in managing policy messages when federal scientists and researchers speak publicly and give interviews, or not — primarily at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The documents requested encompass "all communications and other documents that were sent to or generated by, reference, or are in the electronic or paper files" of several individuals and are related to their activities with climate change; CEQ’s review of and suggested edits of materials produced by other federal agencies regarding climate change; and efforts by CEQ to manage or influence statements made by government scientists or expert representatives of media regarding climate change.
