Scientists group says Bush administration ignores, distorts research

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration distorts scientific findings and seeks to manipulate expert advice to avoid information that runs counter to its political beliefs, says a group of prominent U.S. scientists.

The Union of Concerned Scientists contends in a report released Wednesday that "the scope and scale of the manipulation, suppression and misrepresentation of science by the Bush administration is unprecedented." "We're not taking issue with administration policies. We're taking issue with the administration's distortion . . . of the science related to some of its policies," said the group's president, Kurt Gottfried.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said he had not seen the report but that the administration "makes decisions based on the best available science."

White House science adviser John Marburger said he found the report "somewhat disappointing . . . because it makes some sweeping generalizations about policy in this administration that are based on a random selection of incidents and issues."

Marburger acknowledged that the complaint was signed by a wide assortment of prominent scientists, including Nobel Prize winners and recipients of the National Medal of Science.

That, he said, is "evidence we are not communicating with them as we should and I'll have to deal with that."

F. Sherwood Rowland, a Nobel Prize winner for his studies of ozone in the atmosphere, was particularly critical of the administration's approach to climate change.

He said the consensus of scientific opinion about global warming is being ignored and that government reports have been censored to remove views not in tune with Bush administration policies.

The union's report came at the same time the National Academy of Science was releasing its own study that commends the administration's plan to study climate but also expresses concern that the research was underfunded and not being pursued vigorously enough.

Asked if they had seen any political interference in the climate program, Thomas E. Graedel of Yale University, chairman of the academy committee, said his group did not look for that. But, he added, he had not seen anything that would suggest the research plan had such political concerns.

A commission member, Anthony L. Janetos of the John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment, noted that the climate program involves high level members of the administration.

That's a two-edged sword, Janetos said. It means scientists are dealing with people who can make decisions and provide resources, but it also creates a challenge in maintaining scientific credibility.

Among the examples cited in the union's report:

- A 2003 report that the administration sought changes in an Environmental Protection Agency climate study, including deletion of a 1,000-year temperature record and removal of reference to a study that attributed some global warming to human activity.

- A delay in an EPA report on mercury pollution from some power plants.

- An allegation that the Bush administration pressed the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to end a project called Programs that Work, which found sex education programs that did not insist only on abstinence were still effective.

On the Net: Union of Concerned Scientists: ucsusa.org

Office of Science and Technology Policy: ostp.gov