I guess this is an example of what my last blog was about. In that blog I talked about Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Eric Conway, an exposé on the efforts of industries such as tobacco and oil to obfuscate information on the dangers and consequences of their products: in the case of tobacco, cancer, in that of oil, global warming.
Nicolas Loris of the Heritage Foundation
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2011/11/New-EPA-Inspector-General-Report-One-More-Reason-to-Reject-Climate-Change-Regulation#_edn12
If you click the above link, you’ll find a piece by Nicolas Loris on the Heritage Foundation web site in which he tries to cast doubt on the work of the EPA and the science of global warming. Giving some context to this link, the Supreme Court, in their ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA found that CO2 and other greenhouse gasses are pollutants and as such the authority and the responsibility to regulate such pollutants fell to the EPA under its mandate under the Clean Air Act.
In response to the ruling, the EPA produced a Technical Support Document (TSD), a report on the science of increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere and the consequences that has for global warming, rising sea levels, and the acidification of the oceans.
Loris’ critique of the TSD centers on a procedural review of the TSD from the EPA Office of Inspector General (OIG). In doing the procedural review, the OIG reclassified the TSD from an Influential Scientific Assessment to a Highly Influential Scientific Assessment. These two kinds of assessments have differing processing procedures. The OIG found that the procedures for the TSD had not fully followed those of a Highly Influential Scientific Assessment under its reclassification.
Please bear with me a while longer. I know this is complicated. It is meant to be. And that is part of the problem.
The reason this process is so complicated is because big business and industry lobbyists back in the beginning of the George W. Bush administration were able to attach a rider on a spending bill that imposed burdensome regulations and red tape on the EPA and other government agencies that rely on science for their work. This rider, The Data Quality Act, is intended to generate reports upon reports, like the review by the OIG, and lead to analysis paralysis.
Loris says that the procedural review “should bring to light the problems with the EPA’s approach to greenhouse gas regulation: The EPA refuses to seriously consider broad dissenting science on the causes of climate change.” The procedural review found that certain procedures for a certain type of assessment were not fully followed. The procedural review did not find anything wrong with the science used in the TSD, nor did it find that the TSD lacked the requirements for rulemaking. By performing a mental bait and switch, changing the topic from procedures to science, Loris would have you believe otherwise.
At another point he claims that the people at the EPA “bypass the legislative process” in regulating greenhouse gasses. In Massachusetts v. EPA the Supreme Court ruled that the EPA had to regulate greenhouse gasses under the authority granted the agency under the Clean Air Act, a law passed by Congress. No legislative process bypassed here.
Loris would lead you to believe that the EPA is remiss in its responsibilities by heading one section of his critique EPA: Ignoring Dissenting Science. Yet, reading the substance of the section you find that a couple of the “dissenters” don’t disagree with the scientific conclusion that CO2 is warming our planet. They merely disagree as to the extent of the warming that will take place. Most importantly, Loris offers no science that has been performed that shows that the plant is warming for other reasons besides the increased presence of CO2 in our atmosphere. That’s right. No dissenting science. Zero. Zip. Nada.
I can see how this writing of Loris could, at first glance, sway some folks. But a good look at it, and understanding the context in which a procedural review was generated for an Environmental Protection Agency TSD, reveals it to be laughable.
Ref:
Technical Support Document for Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act December 7, 2009: http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/endangerment/downloads/Endangerment%20TSD.pdf
Procedural Review of EPA’s Greenhouse Gases Endangerment Finding Data Quality Processes Report No: 11-P-0702 September 26, 2011: http://www.epa.gov/oig/reports/2011/20110926-11-P-0702.pdf
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