Cheney wanted cuts in climate change testimony
By H. JOSEF HEBERT
Associated Press
July 9, 2008
Page 2 of 2
He appeared to be an odd choice for the EPA post, which included liaison with the White House on climate issues. Currently a supporter of Barack Obama for president, he has contributed nearly $125,000 to Democratic candidates since 2000, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Burnett, an economist who had written a number of papers on government regulation while at the Center for Regulatory Study, a joint effort by the American Enterprise Institute and the Brookings Institution, first joined the EPA in 2004. He resigned two years later because of objections to an EPA rule on soot.
He was asked to return in 2007 by EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, who put him in charge of coordinating the agency's response to a Supreme Court ruling on whether to regulate carbon dioxide emissions.
In his letter, Burnett describes concerns at the White House, including in Cheney's office, about linking climate change directly to public health or damage to the environment.
Nowhere was that more apparent than in the heavy editing of the CDC testimony in October.
The White House, at the urging of Cheney's office, "requested that I work with CDC to remove from the testimony any discussion of the human health consequences of climate change," Burnett wrote.
"CEQ contacted me to argue that I could best keep options open for the (EPA) administrator (on regulating carbon dioxide) if I would convince CDC to delete particular sections of their testimony," he wrote.
But he said he refused to press the CDC on the deletions because he believed the CDC's draft testimony was "fundamentally accurate."
Burnett said Cheney's office also objected in January to congressional testimony by 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" but that it was kept as it was.
Burnett also described in greater detail than previously reported the White House's refusal in December to accept a draft EPA finding concluding that carbon dioxide, the leading greenhouse gas, is endangering human health.
After he sent the e-mail with the draft finding attached, he said he received a telephone call from the White House asking that he "send a follow-up note saying that the e-mail had been sent in error."
"I explained that I could not do that because it was not true," Burnett wrote.
Boxer said the draft finding was now "in limbo" and not available for public review.
More than a year ago, the Supreme Court directed the EPA to determine whether carbon dioxide emissions endanger human health and welfare and, if so, begin to regulate it under the Clean Air Act. That process is not likely to continue until the next administration.
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