Trump officials faulted climate panel for having only 'one member from industry'

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: Washington Post

Health & Science

Trump officials faulted climate panel for having only ‘one member from industry’

by Juliet Eilperin May 15 at 6:50 PM Email the author

[e-mail]

The Trump administration disbanded a federal advisory committee on climate change last year because of concerns that it did not have enough industry representatives, according to documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. ... An exchange among Commerce Department officials, which was released in response to a lawsuit by the advocacy group Center for Biological Diversity, sheds light on the demise of a panel aimed at helping policymakers and the private sector incorporate the government’s climate science into long-term planning.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross allowed the 15-person Advisory Committee for the Sustained National Climate Assessment — which included scientists and representatives from companies and local governments — to expire in August. The newly released emails and memos chart an intense debate between career and political officials last summer over whether the group’s two-year charter should be renewed.

George Kelly, then the deputy chief of staff at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, questioned the panel’s ideological makeup. ... “It only has one member from industry, and the process to gain more balance would take a couple of years to accomplish,” Kelly wrote in a June 13 email.

But some of NOAA’s senior career employees, who worked with members of the committee, said it helped inform a sweeping federal assessment of climate science, which is supposed to be issued every four years. The government is finalizing its fourth such assessment; the underlying climate science report for it was issued in November.
....

Juliet Eilperin is The Washington Post's senior national affairs correspondent, covering how the new administration is transforming a range of U.S. policies and the federal government itself. She is the author of two books — one on sharks and another on Congress, not to be confused with each other — and has worked for The Post since 1998.
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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/trump-officials-faulted-climate-panel-for-having-only-one-member-from-industry/2018/05/15/c2a458de-5874-11e8-b656-a5f8c2a9295d_story.html

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Retweeted by David Fahrenthold: https://twitter.com/Fahrenthold

Juliet Eilperin
?Verified account @eilperin
38m38 minutes ago

SCOOP: Trump officials let climate panel dissolve b/c it had "only one member from industry" and it would take too long to reshape, via #FOIA docs https://wapo.st/2rJst1P CC @CenterForBioDiv

Link to tweet

[Doodley]

1. Trump: If I don't like the facts, I can just get somebody else to change them.

[pecosbob]

2. 'and it would take too long to reshape'

in other words 'I would lose too much political capital by fighting to fill it with climate-deniers. Easier to just eliminate it.' Win-Win for Gump and industry...lose-lose for the environment and the people and the animals and the plants.

[packman]

3. In other words, not enough foxes in the hen house