Bush aide who doctored global warming documents joins ExxonMobil

[IndianaGreen]

Bush aide who doctored global warming documents joins ExxonMobil

By Joseph Kay

18 June 2005

A Bush aide who reportedly altered government climate reports to favor the interests of the oil industry has resigned from the administration to take a job at ExxonMobil, the world’s largest energy company and most fervent opponent of carbon emissions regulations. For the aide, Philip Cooney, the move completes a cycle in which he has served the interests of the oil giants both in and out of government.

The New York Times reported June 8 that, during his tenure as chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), Cooney repeatedly altered government scientific reports to deemphasize the link between carbon emissions and global warming, and cast doubt on the science of climate change.

<snip>

Many of the changes were of a similar character—subtle rewordings that cast greater doubt on the conclusiveness of scientific understandings of climate change. On one occasion, he deleted a paragraph describing projected effects of global warming on glacial melting, on the grounds that the paragraph strayed “into speculative musings/findings.”

Cooney has no scientific training. Before taking the post of chief of staff at the CEQ, he worked as a lawyer and lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute, the main oil industry lobbying group, which is heavily funded by Exxon. The API has worked consistently to promote doubts about the validity of climate change research and has opposed legislation that would require the energy industry to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/jun2005/coon-j18.shtml

[Kool Kitty]

1. Oh, you gotta love it.

Seems like he's always worked for Exxon-Mobil. Now he's probably going to get a printed paycheck, instead of just going to the back door and having them hand him an envelope of unmarked bills.