By H. JOSEF HEBERT
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) -
Vice President Dick Cheney's office pushed for major deletions in congressional testimony on
the public health consequences of climate change, fearing the
presentation by a leading health official might make it harder to
avoid regulating greenhouse gases, a former EPA officials
maintains.
When six pages were
cut from testimony on climate change and public health by the head of the Centers for
Disease Control last October, the White House insisted the changes
were made because of reservations raised by White House advisers
about the accuracy of the science.
But Jason K. Burnett, until last month the senior
adviser on climate change to Environmental Protection
Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson, says that Cheney's office was
deeply involved in getting nearly half of the CDC's original draft
testimony removed.
"The Council
on Environmental Quality and the office of the vice president were seeking deletions to the CDC
testimony (concerning) ... any discussions of the human
health consequences of climate change," Burnett has told the
Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
The three-page
letter, a response to an inquiry by Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., the panel's chairwoman, was
obtained Tuesday byThe Associated Press. Boxer planned a news
conference later in the day.
Burnett, 31, a
lifelong Democrat who resigned his post last month as associate deputy EPA administrator
because of disagreements over the agency's response to
climate change, describes deep political concerns at the White
House, including in Cheney's office, about linking climate change
directly to public health or damage to the environment.
Scientists
believe manmade pollution is warming the earth and if the process is not reversed it will cause
significant climate changes that pose broad public health problems
from increases in disease to more injuries from severe weather.
Senate and House
committees have been trying for months to get e-mail exchanges and other documents to
determine the extent of political influence on government scientists, but
have been rebuffed.
The letter by
Burnett for the first time suggests that Cheney's office was deeply involved in downplaying the
impacts of climate change as related to public health and welfare,
Senate investigators believe.
