The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is using its cynical request to put climate science “on trial” as an excuse to spread discredited information, confuse the public, and block critically needed federal action to curb the emissions that cause global warming. Even in his National Journal post apologizing for his “Scopes monkey trial” analogy, the Chamber’s Bill Kovacs still repeats debunked arguments about climate science.

As public understanding of climate science has broadened and deepened, climate contrarians have had to adjust their talking points to maintain any semblance of credibility. In other words, they keep moving the goal posts. For years, they denied that climate change was happening. Then they denied that human activity – particularly burning fossil fuels -- is causing it. Now they deny that heat-trapping emissions, which are rapidly and radically changing the climate, are harmful to public health.

The Chamber’s tactic is reminiscent of how the tobacco lobby blocked regulation for decades by sowing doubt about the very real threat posed by smoking cigarettes. Indeed, some of the same players involved in the tobacco industry campaign are working alongside the Chamber and its allies in their fight against a responsible national policy on climate change.

The truth is that climate change threatens public health on multiple fronts. A June report by the U.S. National Climate Impacts Assessment made it clear that heat waves, pathogens, rising sea levels and more all put our health at risk. But the Chamber of Commerce somehow feels it has the standing to dismiss the extensive body of peer-reviewed climate science. Moreover, a growing number of the Chamber’s own members across the country don’t support its shortsighted and irresponsible efforts to block national policy to reduce heat-trapping emissions. It’s high time for these members to call on the Chamber to cease and desist.

Climate science already has received a thorough review over a number of decades. Thousands of scientists worldwide have published their studies showing the effects of climate change in journals that are subject to the scrutiny of other experts. And the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, with the participation of thousands more scientists, has conducted four thorough assessments of all available published science related to climate change. The overwhelming scientific consensus is human activity is causing the climate to change, and that we are already experiencing its effects around the globe, including severe health threats.

What the Chamber and Sen. Inhofe are really interested in is a debate that never ends. That’s why they repeat objections and questions that have been answered. In some cases, they have resorted to fabrication to further their never-ending “debate.” To cite two blatant examples:

• Documents uncovered in a lawsuit show that in 1995, the Global Climate Coalition, which included the Chamber and other industry groups, was told by its science advisers that it was spreading false information about climate change. Regardless, the coalition until it disbanded in 2002, continued to deny the consensus of the world’s climate scientists.
• Sen. Inhofe’s office has publicly misrepresented scientists’ public statements and research conclusions regarding climate change, apparently without ever contacting those scientists.

It’s time for the Chamber, Sen. Inhofe and their fellow travelers to stop trying to mislead the public. We have no more time to waste – we need to address this threat now.

EPA should not grant the Chamber of Commerce's request for an extraordinary on-the-record proceeding concerning the agency's expected endangerment finding.

Rather than engage in this time consuming process of little value, the agency should move forward with much needed regulatory action that was grossly delayed by the political calculation of the last administration, even as the science connecting greenhouse gas emissions to severe environmental consequences has continued to mount. After the endangerment finding is made, EPA should begin putting together a regulatory cap-and-trade program, so that, should Congress fail to pass meaningful legislation this year, the U.S. will not lose any more time in addressing the catastrophic risks posed by climate change. This is a proposal detailed in the Institute for Policy Integrity’s (IPI) detailed legal analysis of the Clean Air Act called “The Road Ahead.”

The Chamber purports not to disagree with "science behind global climate change," but somehow opposes EPA's endangerment finding based on scientific “uncertainties.” In doing so, its petition relies heavily on a document it cites as “OMB Comments on Proposed Endangerment Finding” but which in fact turn out to be a largely debunked collection of comments from officials thoughout the administration—some holdovers from the Bush years in the early days of the Obama transition. OMB Director Peter Orszag made clear that this document did not reflect OMB’s position. Rather, OMB has found that the "proposed finding is carefully rooted in both law and science."

The U.S. Supreme Court has also made extremely clear in its decision in Massachusetts v. EPA that unless EPA was prepared to deny the science, it had to move forward with an endangerment finding. The Chamber continues to complain about scientific uncertainties associated with greenhouse gases and climate change, but these uncertainties do not justify inaction at EPA. If the agency were to fail to move forward with regulation, then the agency would be at risk of violating the law. In its current move, EPA is simply carrying out a direct legal obligation, as clearly laid out by the Supreme Court.

Instead of trying to delay regulatory action, the Chamber should be trying to ensure that the agency can cut greenhouse gas emissions with the smallest negative economic impact. IPI has a petition before the agency that aims to do just that. While the agency has been moving forward with certain command-and-control style regulations mandated by law, IPI asks the agency to use its powers under the Clean Air Act to create a regulatory cap-and-trade program that require emissions reductions, but gives businesses maximum flexibility. The first step should be a cap-and-trade on vehicle fuels.

There is a reason formal rulemakings like the one requested by the Chamber, are extremely rare. Law professor Edward Rubin, who recently finished his term as dean of Vanderbilt Law School, had this to say about the types of on-the-record proceedings requested by the Chamber:

"[F]ormal rulemaking has turned out to be a null set. . . . In a complex regulatory setting, with multiple parties, multiple issues and assiduous attorneys, the direct, cross, redirect and recross examinations of hundreds of witnesses by dozens of parties on dozens of issues produces interminable and often terminal delay. The notorious example is the hearing, held pursuant to the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, to determine whether the peanut content of peanut butter should be 87.5% or 90%, which spanned a nine-year period and produced a 7,736 page transcript. Because the impracticalities of formal rulemaking are well known, Congress rarely requires this technique, and courts avoid interpreting statutes to require it, even in the rare cases where the statute seems to do so."

If formal trial-like rulemakings are too cumbersome to deal with peanut butter, it is pretty clear they are not a good idea for an issue as complex as climate change. For this reason, EPA relies almost exclusively on notice-and-comment rulemaking which, though less cumbersome, contains extensive opportunities for public participation.

If the Chamber truly "supports sensible and ambitious" action on climate change, it should be moving to create better regulation, not trying to stop the agency from following the direction of the Supreme Court or bog EPA down in unnecessary and cumbersome formal proceedings.

You need a secret decoder ring to unravel Bill Kovacs' illogical pretzel in his National Journal blog, as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce launches the most ambitious effort in years to undermine scientific progress on climate change while simultaneously claiming to be a believer in that same science.

Here's the secret to understanding the two different faces of the Chamber on global warming: Mr. Kovacs and the Chamber leadership will do anything to stop legislation and regulations that are aimed to rein in runaway greenhouse gas emissions, and they have resorted to an anti-science agenda that is not supported by most of the Chamber’s own business members.

How else do you explain Mr. Kovacs' debate with himself? On the one hand, the Chamber is trying to force EPA to ignore the years of careful scientific work by the agency and other scientists that take us to the threshold of real action to begin reducing emissions. They want EPA to stage a "trial" on climate science. As Mr. Kovacs told the Los Angeles Times last week: "It would be evolution versus creationism. It would be the science of climate change on trial." On the other hand, Mr. Kovacs maintains in today's blog that the "Chamber supports sensible and ambitious congressional and international action on global climate change."

So which Chamber are we really dealing with today? The official Chamber whose members want "ambitious" action on global warming, or the Chamber run by Mr. Kovacs and other obstructionists who want EPA to pretend that global warming doesn't threaten public health, welfare and the environment?

Mr. Kovacs wants EPA to put the science of global warming on trial. But the real trial today should be for the Chamber’s business members to demand more accountability from the Chamber’s staff as they spend millions of dollars to derail clean energy initiatives and drag today’s debate on climate change solutions back into yesterday’s debate on climate science. Companies including Wegmans Foods, Nike, IBM, 3M, Eastman Kodak, FedEx, UPS, Charles Schwab, Xerox, Anheuser-Busch, CVS, Entergy, Duke Energy, Dow Chemical, Siemens, State Farm, USAirways, Pfizer, Harrah's, Kimberly-Clark, New York Life Insurance Company, and Alcoa have executive staff who sit on the Board of Directors of the Chamber of Commerce. Many of these companies have taken steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and join the fight against global warming, and some advocate for the type of legislation that the Chamber is trying to kill.

It's time for these companies to weigh in with the Chamber and stop this anti-science, anti-action nonsense. The customers of many of these companies would be surprised, and no doubt alarmed, to find that a portion of the money they spend might be sent on to support the Chamber of Commerce, which has disclosed $17 million in lobbying for the first half of this year alone. Last week, a Washington Post poll found that the public supports the efforts of President Obama and Congress on energy by a two-to-one margin (57% to 29%). When asked specifically about the American Clean Energy and Security Act passed in June by the House, but opposed by the Chamber, 71% of the public support the measure, according to another recent national poll by Zogby.

It's disappointing, but not surprising, that the Chamber refuses to disclose who its other business members are beyond its Board of Directors. More than 10,000 small businesses, including 650 members of the Chamber, recently sent letters to the Chamber asking them to stop lobbying against the clean energy jobs plans moving through Congress. More businesses, of every size, should follow.

The answer is obvious: of course.

How can one have true legislative debates on issues related to climate change without there being a defense of data, and ana defense of the analysis of the data.

There should be others involved as well, including the UN, NGOs, industries, universities, think tanks, national laboratories, and other groups that have done research on these issues. Let's open the floodgates of debate and knowledge from all angles. Some people may not like the results that the EPA has developed. Maybe they can learn from this.

The EPA does some good work, contrary to all of the browbeating it gets from many on The Hill. It is a source of truly excellent data on many issues.

The data they will present will hardly be "straw men".

Maybe, if the EPA does this right, they may actually start getting through to some of the people on The Hill who are still ostrich-like stuffing their heads into the sand in order to not see the complex realities we face in climate change.

Climate change issues have become almost theologial on many sides. It is surely time to bring data, science, analysis, and more into the political fray. Only then will there be any solid meaning to the legislative debates.

Without solid backup the debates become 99% friction and 1% thinking.

The American people deserve better.

Chamber members might benefit from viewing climate change as a fat-tailed risk of catastrophic damages. In this context, it is difficult to argue against the language of "reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare" required by EPA. The Scopes trial-like "prove it" seems inane relative to the actual risk-management-like "hedge it" -- and managing risk is something Chamber members know well. Our peer-reviewed paper values climate policy as an option on avoiding fat-tailed climate damages. At a minimum, it provides an additional framework for any endangerment debate.

If the Obama Administration is serious about science guiding policy, EPA will grant the Chamber’s petition for a hearing on the science of climate change. And, a public hearing should be structured to comply with the standards of scientific evidence established by the Supreme Court in its Daubert v Merrill Dow Pharmaceutical decision. The ramifications of EPA regulation of greenhouse gases and potentially land use are significant enough to justify a re-examination of the scientific foundation for regulatory action.

An objective hearing would demonstrate that the weight of scientific evidence on climate change does not support an endangerment finding that human activities are causing climate change and that it will harm human health and the environment. An asserted scientific consensus on the role of human activities in climate change is based on a judgment by the IPCC in its Summary for Policy Makers that human activities are mostly responsible for warming in recent decades and that continued warming could lead to serious environmental damage later this century. However, that conclusion is not supported by the weight of evidence in the IPCC’s assessment report which clearly shows that the extent of scientific uncertainty makes any such finding nothing more than professional conjecture. The IPCC identifies nine components of radiative forcing but concludes that a high degree of scientific understanding exists for only two of them. Given such a limited understanding of the climate system, attribution conclusions and projections are model derived conjecture; not scientific facts.

Indeed, in 2001, the National Academy of Sciences concluded that projections of future climate change were subject to revision, upward or downward, as more knowledge was gained. Nothing has occurred in science since then to make that conclusion obsolete.

The so called “human finger print, increased water vapor in the lower atmosphere, has not been detected and the climate models which are the foundation of the asserted consensus are not reliable and have not been validated. In deed, if any one of the IPCC’s scenarios is run through its ensemble of models, there is as much variability in results as produced if anyone scenario is run through all of the models. Such variability is evidence of a lack of scientific understanding about such factors as clouds, solar impacts, ocean currents, natural variability, aerosols, and other important variables.

The warming that occurred between 1976 and 1998 has been the basis of concern and proposed action to limit greenhouse gas emissions but research by Dr. Roy Spencer of the University of Alabama suggests that that warming was due to the Pacific Decadal Oscillation which could be the cause of a lack of significant warming over the past decade. The fact that no significant warming has occurred since 1998 and that climate models over predict global temperatures without adjustments are compelling reasons for reassessing what we really know about the climate system and the state of scientific knowledge. A hypothesis about human attribution should not be sufficient for an endangerment finding and regulations related to it.

Methinks Bill Kovacs, and the Chamber, doth protest too much, in back-pedalling from their call for a second Scopes trail.

Kovacs now says, “My “Scopes monkey” analogy was inappropriate and detracted from my ability to effectively convey the Chamber’s position on this important issue.”

Inappropriate – I don’t think so. Indeed, Well, I couldn’t have put it better than the Chamber itself did, in saying that what it wants would be the Scopes trial of the 20^th century – a second abuse of the judicial process to impede public understanding of science. And only a Scopes trial – a bogus exercise in which science is suppressed – would serve the Chambers’ goals.

As Kovacs originally told the LA Times, "It would be evolution versus creationism. It would be the science of climate change on trial."

The Chamber seems to have conveniently forgotten that the Scopes trial was not an effort to ensure that there was scientific peer review of Darwin’s theory – it was an effort to overturn a Tennessee law which prohibited the teaching of evolution not as bad science, but as a threat to religion. It was the only court case in American history where someone was actually convicted of the crime of teaching a scientific theory.

Scopes, the teacher who volunteered to violate the law as a test case, was convicted and fined $100, although the Tennessee Supreme Court set the fine aside later. Far from being a fact based effort to educate the public about evolution, the trial was a sham. The journalist who coined the term “monkey trial”, H.L. Mencken, actually paid part of the expenses of the defense. The efforts by the defense, led by Clarence Darrow, to introduce scientific witnesses were rejected by the judge. William Jennings Bryan, who prosecuted Scopes, argued that evidence about the scientific validity of evolution was irrelevant because teaching it was immoral and challenged the Bible. The only defense evidence the jury was permitted to hear was Darrow’s briefly cross-examination of Bryan on the reasonableness of a literal interpretation of the Bible. Even that was cut short by the judge, so at the end of the day the jury heard virtually nothing of the defense case, and was instructed by the judge to ignore all of the arguments the defense made.

Even though the jury was skeptical that the law was constitutional, they followed the judge’s instructions and found Scopes guilty. This, of course, shed absolutely no light on the question of the validity of Darwin’s theory of evolution, as witnessed by the fact that eighty years later American public education continues to be bedeviled by the controversy.

As Darrow put it, his purpose during the trial was “of preventing bigots and ignoramuses from controlling the education of the United States." Unfortunately, it appears that the Chamber of Commerce has allowed itself to be hijacked for the purpose of ensuring that ignoramuses can continue to control US energy and climate policy for at least a few more years. One has to wonder why the idea of such a public testing of the facts was never raised during the last eight years, during a period in which the scientific issues about global warming were, at least, somewhat less certain than they are today.

Let’s remember that there has already been a thorough scientific vetting of the issue – the UN’s IPCC panel of the world’s leading climate scientists. The Chamber dismisses this panel, and seems to believe that a single Administrative law judge would do a better job than thousands of scientists. Sadly, the Chamber also seems to overlook that it has had already a trial, on the record, of these very issues – Masschusetts vs. EPA that was resolved by the United State’s Supreme Court against the Chamber. The Supreme Court ruled that if CO2 causes climate change, it is a pollutant under the Clean Air Act and can be regulated by EPA – indeed must be regulated unless EPA finds a scientific reason against such action. In fact, the Court ruled that the previous decision by the Bush Administration not to regulate CO2 – the position supported by the Chamber -- lacked “any reasoned explanation.”

Mr. Kovacs claims in his response in this blog that “The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is not denying or otherwise challenging the science behind global climate change. “ Would that it were true. Remember Mr. Kovacs original statement -- if the Chamber’s petition were granted, "It would be the science of climate change on trial." Somehow putting science on trial seems to me to fit the normal definition of “challenge.”

The Chamber in this blog also claims that the remaining issue which requires a rehearing is whether climate change constitutes “harm” under the Clean Air Act – this is what is pretends it wants an Administrative law judge to determine. But this issue was resolved in the plain language of the Clean Air Act itself – any pollutant which harms the climate is, by definition, harming the public welfare. And the Supreme Court also decisively dealt with this issue, holding that “the harms associated with climate change are serious and well recognized.”

The Chamber concedes that it is not arguing over whether CO2 contributes to climate change. Instead it asserts that “endangerment in the Clean Air Act context is a bureaucratic turn of a phrase; one can be against an endangerment finding and still supportive of strong, effective action to reduce carbon emissions.” As a policy matter, perhaps. But as a legal matter, not since Massachusetts vs. EPA. If the Chamber were really conceding that CO2 changes the climate, then it had no business filing this petition, because the Supreme Court has already ruled that “EPA can avoid promulgating regulations only if it determines that greenhouse gases do not contribute to climate change.”

I simply don’t believe the Chamber’s lawyers didn’t read and understand the Supreme Court ruling. They are simply ignoring it – as the Bush Administration did for two years.

Let’s also remember the history. The Chamber asked for no such Administrative Law review when the Bush Administration declined to regulate CO2 – even though large parts of the Administrative record on the basis of which that decision was made were kept secret from the public and the Congress.

Nor does anyone seriously believe that if an Administrative law judge were to review the proposed ruling that CO2 endangers the climate, and uphold it, this would change the Chamber’s policy objections to effective federal action. This entire exercise is, quite simply, a stall – and a badly framed one.

One monkey trial was enough. It is now the Chamber that is making a fool of itself, much as Williams Jennings Bryan did eighty years ago. It’s members should rescue their organization’s reputation by publicly burying this idea before it does them more harm.

I begin by answering these questions with questions: Why would anyone oppose a full, open, transparent hearing to determine whether evidence supporting the most consequential regulatory decision of our time—affecting schools, hospitals, farms, apartment buildings, restaurants, nursing homes, and thousands of other sources—is up-to-date, accurate, and reflective of the best available scientific research? And why wouldn’t the Obama Administration, and its supporters in the environmental community, faced with a decision potentially imposing billions of dollars of costs on consumers and small businesses, favor a process that ensures maximum public participation and stakeholder input?

The answer is simple: in dismissing the Chamber’s petition as “frivolous,” EPA has made clear that, even before finalizing its regulation and considering thousands of public comments, it has already decided the question of endangerment. And in so doing, it has ignored, either deliberately or through omission, reams of scientific data, which the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has rigorously identified, undermining the case that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare.

EPA has also made clear that it doesn’t want to hear dissenting voices on this important question. This runs contrary to President Obama’s speech last December, in which he expressed his views on scientific integrity in the administrative process. As he said, “It’s about listening to what our scientists have to say, even when it’s inconvenient — especially when it’s inconvenient.”

Notably, EPA was presented recently with “inconvenient” research by Dr. Alan Carlin, a 38-year employee of the agency. Dr. Carlin, in impressive detail, explained that the agency’s endangerment finding rests on out-of-date and incomplete scientific data. He requested that the agency conduct an independent review, yet his superiors denied his request, and suppressed his report.

Once this was revealed, I, along with Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), launched an investigation into how the report was suppressed, and into the larger question of the process EPA used to review and analyze scientific data relevant to an endangerment determination. For guidance, I asked Dr. John Christy, Alabama’s state climatologist, and a former IPCC and CCSP lead author, to review Dr. Carlin’s work. Here’s what he found: “Dr. Carlin advocates a simple and scientific approach. He asks the question (in essence), ‘Have all other explanations besides greenhouse gases been carefully examined and eliminated as causes for what has occurred?’ The answer is no, and thus the scientific process has not been carried out on this issue. I believe an independent, objective assessment would find evidence that natural variations are large and can explain much of what the recent climate has done.”

I should note that Dr. Christy’s assessment is widely shared within the scientific community. This is not a mere assertion, but a fact, which I have documented in a number of Senate Floor speeches, and on my website: there are hundreds of well-credentialed scientists raising legitimate questions about the science EPA is using.

If, as EPA’s dismissive reaction to the Chamber’s petition implies, the science of global warming is settled, then an open, public hearing on the issue could only clarify and reinforce EPA’s view, thereby strengthening its case on endangerment. And any evidence presented contrary to EPA’s view—which, EPA presumably believes, would be immediately recognizable as erroneous—could be dispensed with in summary fashion, ensuring a quick hearing, and allowing EPA to meet its legal obligations. Yet EPA will have none of it, instead declaring ex cathedra that it alone possesses absolute certainty on the most complicated regulatory issue in the agency’s existence.

Dr. Christy eloquently expressed his opposition to this anti-intellectual mindset: “And, as important, it is hubris to assume our knowledge is so complete and so accurate that we can model the full variability of a system with its millions of degrees of freedom—many unknown to us--and produce an accurate forecast.” In the humble spirit of questioning scientist, Dr. Christy calls for “a truly objective and independent examination of all of the data.”

The Chamber clearly stands on the side of open debate, airing all views, regardless of where they fall—an approach that, as experience has shown, produces sound decision making and policies grounded in facts and real-world observations. Therefore, EPA has nothing to lose but everything to gain by granting a public hearing. Yet it is saying no to transparency, no to greater public input, and no to the best available science.

EPA Administrator Jackson said earlier this year, “The American people will not trust us to protect their health or their environment if they do not trust us to be transparent and inclusive in our decision-making. To earn this trust, we must conduct business with the public openly and fairly.” By rejecting the Chamber’s request, on an issue of monumental importance to the American economy, do these words really have any meaning?

Well it certainly seems like the Chamber’s supplemental petition for an “on the record” hearing on endangerment struck a nerve this week.

Before responding to the National Journal’s question, let me clarify a few things. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is not denying or otherwise challenging the science behind global climate change. Many of the news articles on our petition the past few days made that claim. They are not correct.

The anti-business lobby quickly jumped on these news articles without actually reading the substance of the Chamber’s petition, casting us as climate “deniers.” That is certainly unfortunate, but not unexpected. For many of these special interest groups, dogma trumps facts, and they’ve been calling us deniers for years, even though the Chamber supports sensible and ambitious congressional and international action on global climate change.

My “Scopes monkey” analogy was inappropriate and detracted from my ability to effectively convey the Chamber’s position on this important issue.

With that said, what the Chamber is doing is requesting that EPA conduct a formal on-the-record hearing on the evidence underlying its finding of endangerment. EPA wants to use the Clean Air Act to regulate CO2 emissions from cars. Before it can do this, EPA must first find, as a matter of law, that U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from new motor vehicles endanger U.S. public health and welfare. Because EPA has proposed that man-made greenhouse gas emissions cause or contribute to rising global temperatures, to make the endangerment finding EPA must now establish that the rising temperatures threaten public health and welfare—that is their burden of proof. EPA is, by all accounts, on the verge of answering this question in the affirmative. We don’t think the evidence EPA set forth meets the legal criteria to support such a finding, and we think a judge would agree with us.

Normally, such issues could be worked out through an ordinary informal rulemaking process (i.e., notice and comment). However, this rulemaking has been anything but ordinary.

First, the proposed endangerment finding acknowledges that the Administrator’s decision must be based on sound science, not speculation. Then it proceeds to run through a laundry-list of “uncertainties” that not only undermine its finding but also that the Administrator simply plans to ignore. Examples include:

• “[T]he scientific literature does not provide definitive data or conclusions on how climate change might impact aeroallergens and subsequently the prevalence of allergenic illnesses in the U.S.” (74 Fed. Reg. at 18,901.)

• “[I]t is currently difficult to ascertain the balance between increased heat-related mortality and decreased cold-related mortality.” (Id.)

• “[C]learly attributing specific regional changes in climate to emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities is difficult, especially for precipitation.” (Technical Support Document (TSD) at ES-3.)

• Increased hurricane intensity is “likely,” but changes in frequency of hurricanes “are currently too uncertain for confident projections.” (TSD at ES-4.)

• “Carbon dioxide can have stimulatory or fertilization effects on plant growth. There is debate and uncertainty about the sensitivity of crop yields to the direct effects of elevated CO2 levels.” (Id. at 17.)

• “Several yet unresolved questions prevent a definitive assessment of the effect of elevated CO2 on other components of the carbon cycle in forest ecosystems.” Id. at 90.

• Finally, EPA states that “there are many inherent uncertainties associated with characterizing both the observed and projected risks and impacts to public health and welfare due to current and projected greenhouse gas concentrations.” (74 Fed. Reg. at 18,903.)

Is it unreasonable to think that these uncertainties should be resolved before moving ahead with the sweeping, invasive program of regulation the Clean Air Act would compel?

Second, and equally troubling, is EPA’s ignorance of any evidence that calls into question its conclusions on endangerment. We all know by now the saga of Alan Carlin, the EPA whistleblower whose internal report criticizing the data behind the endangerment finding was ignored because, according to Dr. Carlin’s boss, it does “not help the legal or policy case” for endangerment. It now appears EPA officials are considering scrapping the role Carlin’s office has in scientific analysis of agency rulemakings. Dr. Carlin is learning first-hand that the word “reprisal” contains the letters E, P and A.

EPA’s docket also shows that other federal agencies recognized shortcomings in the proposed endangerment finding. For instance, OMB called EPA to task for “applying a dramatically expanded precautionary principle,” noting that “the impact of climate-sensitive diseases may be minimal in a rich country like the U.S.” Further, OMB questioned why EPA focused so heavily on ozone effects from climate change when EPA already had existing Clean Air Act regulations in place designed to regulate ozone.

The facts listed above, when considered in their entirety, point to an inescapable conclusion: the informal rulemaking process has broken down here. The process to date has not been open and transparent, nor has it been conducted with scientific integrity, free from politics, ideology, and ex parte consultations. That is why the U.S. Chamber is asking for a formal on-the-record hearing: to bring into the open the reasoning behind this finding.

The Chamber has been sharply criticized by EPA and environmental groups for making such a request. I am at a loss to explain why this is so. It is beyond debate that this endangerment finding will have serious economic consequences for the U.S., as the finding will trigger several far-reaching Clean Air Act programs for stationary and mobile sources alike, and apply them to greenhouse gases. Shouldn’t everyone want a major decision like this to be decided on the basis of all the available science, in an open and transparent way? This is especially significant because President Obama himself issued an Executive Memorandum on his second day in office calling for transparency in government and in the scientific process.

I am sure at least one of the respondents to today’s blog question will assert that, because the Chamber is against an “endangerment finding,” it must mean that we don’t support the environmental objectives behind reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This once again confuses “endangerment” with “climate change.” Endangerment in the Clean Air Act context is a bureaucratic turn of a phrase; one can be against an endangerment finding and still supportive of strong, effective action to reduce carbon emissions. Indeed, the Chamber’s platform of technology, efficiency, and a global approach would actually do more to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions than a finding of “endangerment” by EPA ever could. And under the Chamber’s approach, we could achieve these benefits while creating American jobs and avoiding severe economic disruption.

As to the question of whether this is merely a delay tactic, I assure you it is most certainly not. In fact, we combed the entire public docket, and all comments filed, before filing our supplemental petition this week. Less than 3 percent of the 5600 public comments to EPA’s endangerment docket included scientific data or a significant discussion of scientific data, and fewer than 100 parties provided extensive scientific information on important scientific questions. Such a small number of potential witnesses could be dealt with in a short timeframe. The Administrator herself has the authority to mandate a “term of reference” for completion of the hearing—say, 100 days—and set real, binding time limits on resolving the matter. So time is not an issue.

The EPA should welcome the opportunity to convert this massively important regulatory decision to one based on the record of the science by allowing a thorough and public examination of the entire record, rather than hide from doing so. The Chamber’s petition is meant to help move the debate forward.

Finally, for those who plan to respond to this blog post, I ask that you first read the Chamber’s petition. You can access it here. Read the executive summary, if that is all you have time for. But please do everyone reading this blog the favor of knowing what we are talking about here before responding, whether the response is for or against the Chamber’s petition.