WASHINGTON — Members of Vice President’s Dick Cheney’s staff censored congressional testimony by a top federal official on the health threats posed by global warming, a former Environmental Protection Agency official said Tuesday.
In a letter to Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., former EPA deputy associate administrator Jason Burnett said an official from Cheney’s office ordered that six pages be edited out of the testimony of Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in October.
Gerberding had planned to say that “CDC considers climate change a serious public health concern,” among other passages. White House officials said then that they questioned the scientific basis of aspects of Gerberding’s draft testimony.
Boxer, who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said the administration feared Gerberding’s testimony would force it to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels.
“The Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) and the Office of the Vice President (OVP) were seeking deletions to the CDC testimony,” Burnett wrote. “CEQ requested that I work with CDC to remove from the testimony any discussion of the human health consequences of climate change.”
CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said any changes to Gerberding’s written testimony were made “during the normal editing process” and she “spoke openly and fully without constraint” during her oral testimony before the Senate.
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