Controversial EPA Ruling Linked to 'Climategate' E-mails

Wednesday, December 9, 2009 7:49 PM

By: David A. Patten

Republicans and conservative think tanks are calling for the Obama administration to revoke its declaration that carbon dioxide is a dangerous pollutant subject to EPA regulation on the grounds that the EPA's primary source of information for the finding was the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

An important source of data for the IPCC was the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in England, the source of the highly controversial "climategate" e-mails. IPCC officials deny that their data on climate change is in any way biased.

Newsmax has verified 34 references to IPCC information in the EPA's 25-page "Proposed Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases," which was published in the April 24 edition of the Federal Register (pages 18886-18910).

This is the document the EPA used to support its preliminary finding, which in turn provided the underpinning for the endangerment finding issued on Monday.

Climate Research United Director Phil Jones has stated that he regrets sending some of the e-mails. He has stepped down pending an investigation.

The e-mails, which were hacked and posted anonymously on the Internet, suggest that climate scientists may have presented data selectively to strengthen the case for global warming. One e-mail referred to a desire to "beat the crap" out of a climate-change skeptic. Another termed the lack of recent warming a "travesty." And another discussed using a "trick" to "hide the decline."

Jones has said he wrote the e-mails hastily but did not manipulate data.

The EPA's ruling that it is authorized under the Clean Air Act to regulate emissions of carbon dioxide, a byproduct given off whenever a hydrocarbon fuel is burned, is based on a "technical support document," or TSD.

"The TSD therefore relies most heavily on the major assessment reports of both the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the U.S. Climate Change Science Program," according to the EPA's finding.

An earlier version of the support document relied even more on IPCC data, according to the EPA's proposed endangerment finding.

That version was criticized, however, for not having enough recent U.S. data, so the EPA added in reports from the U.S. Climate Change Science Program. There are 11 references to the that program in the proposed endangerment finding.

The finding also states: "Even with more recent information available, the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report remains a standard reference, essentially serving as the benchmark against which new findings over the next few years will be compared. Therefore it also serves as a robust and valuable reference for purposes of this proposal."

News that the EPA admittedly relied "most heavily" on "robust and valuable" information from an organization that may be caught up in climategate triggered calls Wednesday for the administration to withdraw the endangerment finding altogether.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute think tank issued a news release Monday stating it is filing a lawsuit to block the finding because "EPA has ignored major scientific issues, including those raised recently in the Climategate fraud scandal."

Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., told Newsmax Wednesday afternoon that, considering the EPA's heavy reliance on IPCC information, President Obama should reconsider it.

“This revelation is precisely the reason that Congress should reassert its authority in this matter," Blackburn stated in an e-mail to Newsmax. "The chief executive is using suspect findings to push forward job-killing regulations on American industry rather than waiting on Congress to assess the science and mitigate the extraordinary economic damage these regulations will do.

"This is for the benefit of politicians in Copenhagen, not working men and women in the United States," Blackburn said. "The president should revisit the EPA’s finding as well as his approach to climate change.â€