Ranking Member Lofgren Condems Climate Working Group Sham
(Washington, DC) - The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) publicly released a large trove of records obtained as a result of their joint lawsuit against the Department of Energy (DOE). The lawsuit alleged that DOE violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) when it gathered a group of 5 notorious climate deniers to create the "Climate Working Group" (CWG) and charged the CWG in secret with preparing a report that claimed to debunk established climate science. After a judge ruled in their favor, EDF and UCS received the documents and emails, which include countless examples of the CWG's ideological bias, lack of scientific rigor, disregard for public and environmental health, and secret collusion with the Trump EPA in support of the repeal of the greenhouse gas Endangerment Finding. Among these records are internal emails between DOE political appointees and the CWG revealing indisputable proof that EPA colluded with the CWG and actively coordinated with it to turn the CWG's report into a pretext that EPA could use as a scientific basis to justify its repeal of the Endangerment Finding.
"These records are damning and reveal that this entire rulemaking process to rescind the Endangerment Finding was a sham,” said Ranking Member Zoe Lofgren (D-CA). “EPA policymaking must be undertaken in good faith and rooted in the best available science. Instead, these records show that EPA conspired in secret with a group of climate deniers to create a pretext for a decision that had already been made. The CWG's report has been widely debunked as unscientific and unreliable and should be formally withdrawn by DOE, but that is not enough. These revelations make clear that EPA's entire Endangerment Finding rulemaking is hopelessly tainted. The agency must withdraw its proposed rule immediately.”
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