bush agendas drive science policy too
while i’m picking on the administrations misuse of intelligence to drive an agenda, it just seems appropriate to throw in a brief mention of the union of concerned scientists and their report [pdf] on the bush administration’s misuse of science.
this was news itself a few days ago, but it picks up a little more traction when it becomes apparent that the pentagon is planning based on severe climate change scenarios.
no one can say with any certainty what constitutes a dangerous level of warming, and therefore what level must be avoided.
president george w. bush, bush disses global warming report [cbs]I read the report put out by the bureaucracy
it seems that some people at the pentagon have some idea what “constitutes a dangerous level.” it seems that the president didn’t read that report from that bureaucracy. (to be fair, maybe it wasn’t ready in 2001…)
climate science is one thing (and it takes some serious crunching to even have a decent hint), but the ucs report outlines concerns in a number of fields. anyway, the white house got a question about this report…
Q Scott, a group of prominent scientists, including some university presidents and Nobel laureates, signed a letter today complaining that the White House has systematically skewed science to fit its policy agendas. In particular, they accuse the administration of stacking federal advisory panels and suppressing EPA studies that don’t agree with policy objectives. Have you seen the letter, and can you respond —
MR. McCLELLAN: No, I haven’t, but I can assure you that this is an administration that makes decisions based on the best available science. And I would point to what we are doing in terms of the President’s Clear Skies initiative as a prime example. We’ve seen the success from the acid rain program of this market-based approach. And the President has put forward a Clear Skies initiative to cut power plant emissions by 70 percent. And that’s an initiative that is based on the best available science. And that’s what we do with all our policies in this realm.
surely the administration wouldn’t lie about that, so maybe it’s not really a political agenda, it’s just that scientific papers simply aren’t available in the white house.