Philip Cooney

Philip A. Cooney (born July 16, 1959) is a former member of the administration of President George W. Bush. Before serving in the federal government, he was a lawyer and lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute.

Personal

Cooney holds a bachelor's degree in economics. He and his wife and children have lived in Alexandria, Virginia and Southlake, Texas.

Career

American Petroleum Institute

Prior to working for the Bush Administration, Cooney was a lawyer and lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute (API), an industry group representing the American petroleum industry [http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn11074-us-climate-scientists-pressured-on-climate-change.html]

Bush administration

Cooney joined the George W. Bush administration when he was appointed chief of staff of the Council on Environmental Quality. Cooney, who received criticism for having a nonscientific background as leader of an environmental policy bodyFact|date=April 2008, resigned in 2005, shortly after it was reported that he had altered government climate reports to downplay scientific consensus about climate change. [cite web|author=Andrew Revkin|title=Bush Aide Softened Greenhouse Gas Links to Global Warming|url=http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/08/politics/08climate.html|date=8 June 2005|accessdate=2008-04-23]

Post-White House

On June 10, 2005, Cooney announced his resignation, two days after the story of his tampering with scientific reports broke. [cite web|author=Andrew Revkin|title=Editor of Climate Report Resigns|url=http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/10/politics/11cooney.long.html|date=10 June 2005|accessdate=2008-04-23] A few days later, it was announced that Cooney would go to work for the oil company ExxonMobil starting in the fall; ExxonMobil declined to describe the nature of Cooney's new job. [cite web|author=Andrew Revkin|title=Ex-Bush Aide Who Edited Climate Reports to Join ExxonMobil|url=http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/15/science/14cnd-climate.html?_r=1&oref=slogin|date=15 June 2005|accessdate=2008-04-23]

Controversies

Government climate reports

In early 2005, Rick S. Piltz resigned from his position as a senior associate in the U.S. Climate Change Science Program and revealed that Cooney had been editing government climate reports to emphasize doubts about global warming. According to Piltz's resignation letter, Cooney edited documents to "create an enhanced sense of scientific uncertainty about climate change and its implications." [cite web|author=Rick S. Piltz|title=On Issues of Concern about the Governance of the Climate Change Science Program|url=http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag-w/2005/jun/policy/figures/Piltz_Memo.pdf|date=1 June 2005|pages=pp. 10-11|accessdate=2007-06-08] In June of that year, after this scandal, Cooney resigned from his position in the Bush Administration as was previously planned as he had already accepted a job at ExxonMobil, gaining this company the antipathy of some people. On June 3 2002, Myron Ebell wrote a memo [cite web|url=http://www.greenpeace.org/international/assets/binaries/ceimemo.swf|title=Phil, thanks for calling and|author=Myron Ebell|date=3 June 2002|accessdate=2007-06-08] to Cooney that was obtained by Greenpeace through an FOI request in 2003 [cite web|url=http://www.greenpeace.org/international/news/investigation-of-exxon-front-g|title=Greenpeace Obtains Smoking-gun Memo: White House/Exxon Link|date=9 September 2003|author=Greenpeace|accessdate=2007-06-08] , explaining how they were going to deal with the publication of the Climate Action Report 2002 by attacking EPA chair Christine Todd Whitman, adding that he was helping to "drive a wedge between the President and those in the Administration who think they are serving the president's best interests by publishing this rubbish."

On August 11 2003, Maine Attorney General Steven Rowe and Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal in a press release [cite press release|url=http://www.maine.gov/ag/press_release_pop_up.php?press_id=167|title=MAINE, CONNECTICUT AGs CALL ON ASHCROFT TO INVESTIGATE WHITE HOUSE ROLE IN LAWSUIT|author=Steven Rowe|accessdate=2007-06-08] [cite press release|url=http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandlers/index.cfm?id=4391&method=full|title=Bush White House Charged With Conspiracy With Private Think|date=11 August 2003|author=Steven Rowe|accessdate=2007-06-08] called on United States Attorney General John Ashcroft cquote|to investigate whether officials at the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) solicited a conservative Washington think tank to sue the federal government in order to invalidate a government document warning of the impacts of global warming.

The two state attorneys general obtained an email document through a Freedom of Information Act request that revealed a great intimacy between CEQ and the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) on strategizing about ways to undermine the United States' official reports and the authority of its officials.

[...] It appears that certain White House officials conspired with an anti-environmental special interest group to cause the lawsuit to be filed against the federal government.

On 24 September 2003, Senator Joseph Lieberman sent a formal letter to the White House asking for details of these ties, and the nature of the help Cooney had received. He also wanted to know about the lawsuit the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) had filed on 6 August 2003 against the administration under the little-used Data Quality Act to invalidate the National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change, which formed the basis for many of the conclusions in the Climate Action Report. Lieberman charged that the suit was apparently an attempt to have the National Assessment (and therefore the Climate Action Report) withdrawn. [cite press release| url=http://www.senate.gov/~gov_affairs/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Detail&Affiliation=R&PressRelease_id=496&Month=9&Year=2003
date=24 September 2003| title=Lieberman seeks White House contacts regarding global warming lawsuit CEQ, think tank discussed how to "clean up this mess"|accessdate=2007-02-23|publisher=Joseph Lieberman]

On 8 June 2005, The "New York Times" reported that it had obtained internal White House documents which proved that Cooney had unilaterally edited the national climate change reports during 2002 and 2003 to water down its conclusions. As the article reports,

While never denying Cooney's editing of the documents, the White House claimed that such changes were part of the normal adjustments in language to government documents and that the documents were passed through multiple agencies while editing the document.

Philip Cooney and his role in editing climate change reports were referenced in the documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth" (Al Gore).

During a March 2007 congressional hearing, Cooney conceded his role in altering reports to downplay the adverse effects of man-made emissions on the planet's climate. "My sole loyalty was to the President and advancing the policies of his administration," he told the United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. [cite news|url=http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21418971-2703,00.html|title=Climate science was doctored|author=Robert Lusetich|date=March 21, 2007|publisher=The Australian] [cite web|url=http://www.whistleblower.org/content/press_detail.cfm?press_id=838&keyword=|title=House Probe Turns to Role of Cheney's Office|date=20 March 2007|accessdate=2007-06-08]

ee also

*Climate change denial
*Manufactured controversy
*Misinformation

References

External links

* [http://oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=1214 Committee Examines Political Interference with Climate Science, March 19, 2007, with Cooney's testimony]
* [http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Philip_A._Cooney Philip A. Cooney at sourcewatch.org]
* [http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/08/politics/08climate.html?ei=5090&en=22149dc70c0731d8&ex=1275883200&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss New York Times report on Cooney's resignation]
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4075986.stm BBC News report on Cooney's resignation]
* [http://www.senate.gov/~gov_affairs/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Detail&Affiliation=R&PressRelease_id=496&Month=9&Year=2003 Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, press release September 24, 2003]
* [http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/entity.jsp?entity=philip_a._cooney_1 Philip Cooney timeline]
* [http://www.newsmeat.com/washington_political_donations/Philip_Cooney.php Cooney's political donations at newsmeat.com]
* [http://youtube.com/watch?v=jc4OzpgTOhk 60 minutes, Cooney's censorship of scientists]