Bush admin. suppressed global warming report

A coalition of conservation groups filed suit on Nov. 15 against the Bush administration over its refusal to complete a National Assessment of the impact of global warming on the environment, economy, human health and human safety. The assessment, due in November 2004, is required by the Global Change Research Act of 1990. Plaintiffs in the lawsuit are the Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace. The lawsuit seeks to compel the US Climate Change Science Program to issue the national assessment, which should contain the most recent scientific data on global warming and projections for its future impacts. Without the report, decision makers and the public "are without one of the most important tools to grapple with this complex, potentially overwhelming and yet all important issue," the complaint said. "This administration has denied and suppressed the science of global warming at every turn," said Julie Teel of the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the attorneys arguing the case. The last National Assessment was issued by the Clinton administration in October of 2000. Environmentalists have accused the administration of trying to suppress dissemination of the previous assessment, which predicted a dramatic rise in catastrophic storms, floods, droughts and heat-related deaths. Rick Piltz, former senior associate with the Climate Change Science Program, resigned in March 2005, declaring that the White House's suppression of the 2000 assessment and subsequent refusal to produce a 2004 assessment comprise "the central climate science scandal of the Bush administration." The Government Accountability Office, Congress' investigative agency, found in February 2005 that the administration had failed to comply with the congressional reporting mandate. Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), one of those who had requested the accountability office's report, said that the lawsuit is necessary. "It's the right time to push Washington to grapple with this issue," he said in a Nov. 14 statement. "We can't respond to climate change if we can't make the government comply with the laws already on the books." Scientific research continues to indicate that rapid climate change from human production of greenhouse gases threatens our economy, public health, water availability and biological diversity. James Hansen, NASA's leading climate scientist, has warned that just 10 more years on current greenhouse gas emissions trajectories will produce large-scale, disastrous climate impacts.