Waxman seeks climate inquiry evidence (Hearings Live now)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070130/ap_on_go_co/congress_climate

Waxman seeks climate inquiry evidence

By H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press Writer 10 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - The Democratic chairman of a House panel examining the government's response to climate change said Tuesday there is evidence that senior Bush administration officials sought repeatedly "to mislead the public by injecting doubt into the science of global warming."


Rep. Henry Waxman (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., said he and the top Republican on his oversight committee, Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia, have sought documents from the administration on climate policy, but repeatedly been rebuffed.

"The committee isn't trying to obtain state secrets or documents that could affect our immediate national security," said Waxman, opening the hearing. "We are simply seeking answers to whether the White House's political staff is inappropriately censoring impartial government scientists."

"We know that the White House possesses documents that contain evidence of an attempt by senior administration officials to mislead the public by injecting doubt into the science of global warming and minimize the potential danger," Waxman said.

You never hear anything about it on cable news but you sure get a lot of "Coal is clean" ads and generic ads from the "Oil and gas industry." Could it be they are controling what the cable news companies report as news?

Money is more important to the republicans than life itself. Terrorism and our overreaction to it are a waste of time and money as it is a pinprick compared to what is coming down the road. Just wait until the antarctic and greenland ice caps start melting in earnest. We are in for a wild ride.

I watched the whole testimony of the four scientists present and while I've studied global warming for many years, I found their testimony to be shocking. Given that I know about the American Petroleum Industry's attempts to manipulate news regarding the science and what we hear, including Exxonmobil's millions of dollars to insure climate skeptics are well funded, I had no idea how sweeping were the many actions of the Administration's "gatekeepers" to keep the truth from the public.

Especially chilling was the testimony of Dr. Shindell (NASA/Goddard), a leading climate scientist, as he explained how documents were watered down, wording changed, etc., before given to the press for publication.
One Philip Cooney, Chief of Staff of the White House "Council on Environmental Quality." More info. on this guy here:

A 2002 Exxon memo recently obtained by Greenpeace through FOIA coaches one of the President's top environmental advisers Philip Cooney, chief of staff at the White House Council on Environmental Quality on how to "improve" administration research on climate change by emphasizing "significant uncertainties" in the science. The New York Times later revealed that Cooney, a former lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute which is generously funded by Exxon, made myriad changes to government climate studies designed to weaken their strong conclusions about the need to act on global warming. Typically Cooney would insert the words "significant and fundamental" before "uncertainties" in the reports. Cooney, a non scientist, helped suppress or alter several major taxpayer funded scientific studies on global warming including a decade-long study commissioned by this President's father. Cooney resigned two days after the Times broke the story. But don't feel badly. Within a week ExxonMobil announced it had hired him.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr/exposing-exxonmobil_b_39843.html

All in all, after the scientists told of the massive manipulation of their works (paid for by US taxpayers), to hide the truth, it was enough to make a grown woman weep.

the rest seem like lip service; Waxman would not have started it, unless he was going to get results.

I watched a tiny bit this morning.