House and Senate Republicans are asking the EPA to withdraw its proposed endangerment finding regarding carbon dioxide over the SwiftHack/ClimateGate issue:
As you are aware, the scandal involves a number of climate change scientists and institutions that have played prominent roles in the development of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports, most recently, the Fourth Assessment. EPA heavily relied on the IPCC’s findings and conclusions in its development and justification for the controversial proposed Endangerment Finding. Given the multiple regulatory efforts that hinge on the Endangerment Finding and consequently the integrity of the IPCC reports, it is imperative that EPA act swiftly and with transparency to analyze the numerous questions that have been raised by the disclosure of the emails.
Just yesterday, I showed that the American Meteorological Society, a top scientific organization, does not agree that the CRU affair, even in the worst interpretation, undermines the consensus on climate change:
For climate change research, the body of research in the literature is very large and the dependence on any one set of research results to the comprehensive understanding of the climate system is very, very small. Even if some of the charges of improper behavior in this particular case turn out to be true — which is not yet clearly the case — the impact on the science of climate change would be very limited.
It's simple: These Republicans (Sensenbrenner, Vitter, Issa, and others) are attempting to leap far beyond the legitimate implications of this scandal and use it for totally unwarranted political purposes.
