Greenpeace: Smoking-Gun Memo of WH-Exxon Collusion

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Greenpeace obtains smoking-gun memo: White House/Exxon linkConservative front group may have thanked White House for help insuing EPA Tue 09 September 2003http://www.greenpeace.org/international_en//news/details?item_id=308563Did conservative elements in the White House provoke an Exxon front group to sue EPA to suppress a report on climate change? That's the question that two State Attorney Generals have asked US AttorneyGeneral John Ashcroft to investigate, after Greenpeace uncovered aroutine email in a Freedom of Information Act request.In the email, Myron Ebell of the Exxon-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute writes to Phil Cooney, a senior official at the White House Council for Environmental Quality. He describes his plans to discreditan EPA study on climate change through a lawsuit. He states the needto "drive a wedge between the President and those in theAdministration who think that they are serving the president'sinterests by publishing this rubbish." He notes his group isconsidering a call for the then-head of the Environmental ProtectionAgency, Christine Todd Whitman, to resign, and openly suggests thatshe'd make an appropriate "fall gal" if the administration is seriousabout getting back into bed with conservatives opposing action onclimate change. His memo to the US government official begins "Thanks for calling and asking for our help." (You can view the entire memo here.)That statement, and the cosy, conspiratorial tone of the document was enough to make Richard Blumenthal, State Attorney General of Connecticut, and G. Steven Rowe, State Attorney General of Maine,demand an investigation by US Attorney General John Ashcroft intowhether Cooney or other officials in the Bush administration solicitedthe Competitive Enterprise Institute's filing of the new lawsuit, asthe memo certainly makes it appear.The Competitive Enterprise Institute received nearly a half million dollars in funding last year from Exxon/Mobil, the world's largest oilcompany.According to the two State Attorney Generals, the email obtained by Greenpeace "reveals great intimacy between CEI and [bushAdministration official Cooney] in their strategizing about ways tominimize the problem of global warming. It also suggests that CEQ [the Council of Environmental Quality] may have been directly involved in efforts to undermine the United States' official reports, as well as the authority of the EPA Administrator.We are concerned that the new litigation is an improper product ofthat close relationship, and we therefore ask that you investigatethis."Bush administration admits climate change realAt the end of May 2002, the United States submitted a report to theUnited Nations on Global warming. The report, the National Assessmentof the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change, was written by scientists from government, industry, universities and non-governmental organisations. While supporting President Bush's position of inaction against Carbon Dioxide emissions, it marked astark departure in its description of the problem. The report forecastmajor impacts on the continental United States as well as thesubmersion of barrier islands, and called for action to minimise theeconomic consequences of these events, while saying it was simply toolate to stop them through a program of rigorous emission reductions.But in the view of Exxon and its pals, the report's conclusion, that climate change posed a significant risk and was caused by man-made emissions, was at odds with their agenda to sell more oil, and the agenda that Bush has been pursuing on their behalf to question the reality of climate change and attempt to scupper the Kyoto protocol.The government report caused a media storm with headlines across theworld like "Climate Changing, US says in report" from the New YorkTimes, which clearly caused the call for help from the White House tothe CEI. When Exxon talks, Bush listensTwo days after the memo from Ebell was received, Bush repudiated the report as having come from "the bureaucracy." This was a further blowto embattled EPA chief Christine Todd Whitman, who announced her resignation in May of this year.The same administration that told us that "Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard gas, and VXagent" is still trying to say that "the science on climate change isinconclusive."It certainly isn't inconclusive to climate scientists. The National Academy of Sciences said in 2001 that "There is general agreement thatthe observed warming is real and particularly strong within the past twenty years." No credible scientist today questions that climate change is happeningor that atmospheric carbon dioxide is the major contributor. What's surprising is that despite Bush's refusal to submit the Kyoto treaty for ratification, his efforts to undermine other country'ssupport for the treaty, and his failure to take any meaningful action whatsoever on climate change, he still hasn't done enough for the CEI/Exxon agenda. CEI complains that:"[The Bush Administration] has managed, whether through incompetenceor intention, to create one disaster after another and then to expectits allies to clean up the mess."We'd actually concur with the first part of that statement. Unfortunately, by failing to act on climate change, the administrationis leaving it to future generations to clean up a much bigger messthan a few disgruntled oil companies.