Cheney wanted cuts in climate testimony

  Washington DC, 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 official maintains.

When six pages were cut from testimony on climate change and public health by the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last October, the White House insisted the changes were made because of reservations raised by White House advisers about the accuracy of the science.

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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 first obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press.

At a news conference, Boxer said the heavy editing of the CDC testimony last October was "not haphazard" but part of broader efforts to downplay the consequences of climate change. She said the goal was to assure EPA's response to a Supreme Court directive to examine whether to regulate carbon dioxide "would be as weak as possible."

White House Deputy Press Secretary Tony Fratto said that the White House stands by the explanations given for the CDC testimony deletions last October.

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