AP: Cheney's Office sought redactions of CDC Testimony on health effects of global warming:

Seeking to play down the effects of global warming, Vice President Dick Cheney's office pushed to delete from congressional testimony references about the consequences of climate change on public health, a former senior EPA official claimed Tuesday.

The official, Jason K. Burnett, said the White House was concerned that the proposed testimony last October by the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention might make it tougher to avoid regulating greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere.

Burnett's assertion, which he made in a July 6 letter to Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, conflicts with the White House explanation at the time that the deletions reflected concerns by the White House Office of Science and Technology over the accuracy of the science.

Burnett, until last month a senior adviser on climate change at the Environmental Protection Agency, wrote 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 wrote.

At a news conference, Boxer maintained that the heavy editing of the testimony given by CDC Director Julie Gerberding last fall was the first part of ''a master plan'' aimed at ''covering up the real dangers of global warming and hiding the facts from the public.''

Straight out of central casting. More here.

Posted by Laura at July 8, 2008 08:09 PM