Report: EPA cut corners on climate finding

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Guardian
Dina Cappiello


WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration cut corners when it produced a key scientific document underpinning its decision to regulate climate-changing pollution, an internal government watchdog said Wednesday.

The inspector general's report says the Environmental Protection Agency should have followed a more robust review process for a technical paper supporting its determination that greenhouse gases posed dangers to human health and welfare, a finding that ultimately compelled it to issue costly and controversial regulations to control greenhouse gases for the first time.

The EPA and White House disagreed with the report's conclusions. They said the greenhouse gas document did not require more independent scrutiny because the scientific evidence it was based on already had been thoroughly reviewed.

"The report importantly does not question or even address the science used or the conclusions reached," the EPA said in a statement. The environmental agency said its work had "followed all appropriate guidance."

The greenhouse gas decision — which marked a reversal from the Bush administration — was announced in December 2009, a week before President Barack Obama headed to international negotiations in Denmark on a new treaty to curb global warming. At the time, progress was stalled in a Democrat-controlled Congress on a new law to reduce emissions in the United S [...]



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