WASHINGTON
(Reuters) -- A White House official, who previously worked for the American
Petroleum
Institute, has repeatedly edited government climate reports in a way that
downplays
links
between greenhouse gas emissions and global warming, The New York Times
reported
Wednesday.
Philip
Cooney, chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality,
made
changes
to descriptions of climate research that had already been approved by
government
scientists
and their supervisors, the newspaper said, citing internal documents.
The
White House declined comment on the report.
The
report said the documents were obtained by the newspaper from the Government
Accountability
Project, a nonprofit group that provides legal help to government
whistleblowers.
The
group is representing Rick Piltz, who resigned in March from the office that
coordinates
government
research and issued the documents that Cooney edited, the Times said.
The
newspaper said Cooney made handwritten notes on drafts of several reports
issued
in
2002 and 2003, removing or adjusting language on climate research.
White
House officials told the newspaper the changes were part of a normal
interagency
review
of all documents related to global environmental change.
"All
comments are reviewed, and some are accepted and some are rejected,"
Robert Hopkins,
a
spokesman for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy told the
the newspaper.
In
a memo sent last week to top officials dealing with climate change at a dozen
agencies,
Piltz
charged that "politicization by the White House" was undermining the
credibility and
integrity
of the science program.
Copyright
2005 Reuters.