US: White House suppressed climate change testimony

In a letter to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, former Bush administration climate advisor Jason Burnett alleged that the White House and Cheneys office intervened to edit the testimony of Dr. Julie Gerberding, head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who appeared before Congress last October.

In her testimony Gerberding told of the serious threats to health and safety posed by climate change, including severe weather events, health issues from air pollution, scarcity of food and water and the spread of water-borne diseases.

Burnett, one of the few Democratic appointees in the Bush administration, resigned his post in June citing differences with the White House over its decision to prevent the state of California from setting limits on greenhouse gas emissions by motor vehicles.

Gerberdings testimony was a response by the EPA to the 2007 Supreme Court ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA requiring the agency to decide if greenhouse gases posed a health risk and, if so, issue appropriate regulations. In a rebuke to the White House, the court majority stipulated that the EPA make its decision based on scientific evidence of potential harm to public health and welfare, not policy preferences.

A finding by the EPA that greenhouse gases posed a health risk would, under terms of the Clean Air Act, require the agency to set guidelines regulating greenhouse gas emissions by polluters, something bitterly opposed by the Bush administration. The White House has therefore done everything in its power to prevent testimony regarding the health and environmental hazards posed by greenhouse gases going on the public record.

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