E&C Democratic Leaders Slam Energy Department’s Corrupt Climate Report & Demand It Be Withdrawn

Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ), Energy Subcommittee Ranking Member Kathy Castor (D-FL), and Environment Subcommittee Ranking Member Paul Tonko (D-NY) sent a letter this week to Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Chris Wright slamming a DOE draft report entitled, “A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate,” and demanding that it be withdrawn.

“The Draft Report, prepared by the Climate Working Group (CWG), severely downplays the negative impacts of rising greenhouse gas emissions and threat posed by climate change, despite overwhelming scientific consensus,” the three Committee leaders wrote in their letter to DOE Secretary Wright. “This bogus Draft Report is part of the Trump Administration’s extremist campaign to replace sound science with a political agenda, all to manufacture a basis for the federal government to cease protecting Americans from the harms of planet-warming pollution.”

The lawmakers blasted the fact DOE handpicked five known climate-skeptics, representing a small minority of scientists with fringe beliefs, to write the Climate Working Group’s report. They noted that no one who worked on the report concurs with the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change, violating the requirement that advisory committees are fairly balanced and represent a range of disciplines and perspectives.

“This was a deliberate and pointed effort to silence the broad scientific consensus on climate change, and the echo chamber you created to draft this report violated the law governing federal advisory panels by disregarding a requirement that advisory panels be ‘…fairly balanced in terms of the points of view represented,’” Pallone, Castor, and Tonko wrote.

The Committee leaders called the draft report a “charade,” citing the fact it was developed in secret in less than two months, only to be unveiled on the same day that Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its proposal to rescind the Endangerment Finding. They wrote that EPA’s 2009 Endangerment Finding – unlike DOE’s report – rests on a vast body of scientific evidence and extensive public input including public hearings, over 380,000 comments, and peer-reviewed scientific research.

Pallone, Castor, and Tonko also pointed out the report lacked any public input or scrutiny, and – in yet another attempt from the Trump Administration to bury science – it includes a multitude of inaccuracies complete with cherry picked data and misrepresentations of prior scientific studies. Scientists have come forward since DOE’s draft report was released, revealing that their research was misused, taken out of context, or incorrectly cited. The lawmakers said it is therefore clear that the goal of the report was to deliberately mislead the American people and provide a flimsy pretext for EPA’s polluters over people agenda – despite the overwhelming evidence that climate change hurts Americans through negative health outcomes, reduced wages, and property loss.

“Dismissing the economic impacts of climate change and describing strong action to curb emissions as ‘futile,’ as the Draft Report does, recklessly leaves millions of American families vulnerable to the climate crisis. The Trump Administration cannot continue to ignore the fact that climate-related extreme weather events are costing Americans their lives and their livelihoods,” the three Committee leaders wrote.

Pallone, Castor, and Tonko concluded by demanding that the draft report be immediately withdrawn.

“Under your direction, the biased Climate Working Group concocted the one-sided Draft Report to ignore reality and reflect a small minority of scientists who deny the broad scientific consensus on the impacts and intensity of the worsening climate crisis. This dangerous and irresponsible Draft Report must be withdrawn.”

Full text of the comment letter is available HERE.

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