Lawmaker seeks details on effort by White House to edit climate files

Climate documents, testimony at issue

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., is shown in this photo. Washington Post photo by Bill O'Leary
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., is shown in this photo. Washington Post photo by Bill O'Leary

WASHINGTON -- House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., demanded on Tuesday that the heads of two federal intelligence agencies provide documents detailing how White House officials sought to edit -- and then suppress -- written testimony saying that human activities are warming the planet and that the climate changes underway pose a grave national security threat.

Schiff's move came in response to the news, first reported Friday by The Washington Post, that White House officials barred the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research from submitting written testimony last week to his panel warning that human-caused climate change is "possibly catastrophic."

Officials from the White House's Office of Legislative Affairs, Office of Management and Budget and National Security Council initially tried to cut more than a third of the testimony, which cited federal government findings on how burning fossil fuels had driven recent climate change. After the State Department refused to make the changes, the legislative affairs office blocked the agency from entering the document into the record but allowed bureau senior analyst Rod Schoonover to testify last Wednesday before the committee.

In a letter to State Assistant Secretary Ellen McCarthy, who oversees the bureau, Schiff said members of his panel wanted to learn more details about the interactions between White House aides and the State Department. He also sent a similar letter to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which had sent its own analyst to last Wednesday's hearing along with the Office of Naval Intelligence.

"If these reports are accurate, I applaud your Bureau for standing by its analysts and the integrity of its analysts and the integrity of their work in the face of political pressure, but the Committee remains gravely concerned about the events surrounding Dr. Schoonover's withheld written testimony," he wrote to McCarthy.

The letter demands that the department submit testimony from McCarthy or another senior official addressing the basis for the written testimony and communications with White House officials about the review process it underwent in the run-up to the hearing, along with documents detailing those communications and the edits suggested by the White House. It requests that the documents be delivered by June 21.

Neither the White House nor the State Department could be immediately reached for comment Tuesday.

The document prepared by the bureau, which was obtained by the Post, outlines the implications of what the U.S. and other nations face if the world does not seek to cut greenhouse gas emissions significantly in the near future. It outlines the kind of tipping points that could be triggered at any time, including the massive release of carbon now frozen in the earth and the sudden collapse of coral reefs and entire insect populations.

"Absent extensive mitigating factors or events, we see few plausible future scenarios where significant -- possibly catastrophic -- harm does not arise from the compounded effects of climate change," the document said.

In a statement, Schiff noted that the Bureau of Intelligence and Research has stood out for its independence in the past. In 2002, when President George W. Bush commissioned an intelligence assessment of Iraq's weapons capability in the run-up to his administration's invasion of Iraq, the bureau disputed the idea that Saddam Hussein had an ongoing secret nuclear weapons program.

"The role of the Intelligence Community, and those who work at its seventeen agencies, is to tell truth to power, irrespective of prevailing political winds," the congressman said. "Reports that the White House sought to muzzle objective, science-based testimony on the urgent climate crisis and its potential national security impacts is deeply troubling and requires immediate investigation to ensure that it doesn't happen again."

Separately on Tuesday, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., entered the bureau's written testimony into the congressional record during a House Judiciary Committee hearing.

A Section on 06/12/2019

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