Amazingly this report is actually available at the White House web site!!!

This is one of the most amazing reports that I have ever read. We all suspected that it was true. Here it is in Black and White, published as a congressional report!

As someone who served as a government scientist with the National Park Service, I saw first-hand how my former colleagues in the Park Service were manipulated by the Bush Administration and paraded out in front of the press to appear to support the Administration’s so-called “Clear Skies” Initiative. A month after the misleading announcement of this “imitative” would improve air quality, I read independent reports which concluded that this “imitative” would in fact have the affect of weakening the Clean Air Act and thus inflicting damage not only to the National Parks but also to human health.

The report documents that the Bush Administration has used every trick in the book to circumvent the process in which objective scientific information is utilized in important government policy decisions.

The result is that individuals, industries, and other special interests who have contributed heavily to the Bush Administration have become wealthier while the National Security, public health, and economic security of the United States have been reduced.

The manipulation of the scientific facts, the science process, and scientific community is one of the major disgraces of the Bush Administration.

I have summarized the findings below and attached the full report.

Stephen

http://www.house.gov/reform/min/politicsandscience/pdfs/pdf_politics_and_science_rep.pdf

• Abstinence education, where performance measures were changed to make unproven “abstinence-only” programs appear effective;
• Condom use, where information about condom use and efficacy was deleted from CDC’s web site
• Global warming, where reports by the Environmental Protection Agency on the risks of climate change were suppressed;
• Missile defense, where Defense Department officials presented misleading information on whether a functional system could be quickly deployed;
• Wetlands policy, where comments from scientists at the Fish and Wildlife Service on the destructive impacts of proposed regulatory changes were withheld.

Across this wide range of issues, the report identifies the three principal ways in which the Bush Administration has pursued its agenda

1. by manipulating scientific advisory committees,
2. by distorting and suppressing scientific information, and
3. by interfering with scientific research and analysis.

• Appointing Unqualified Persons with Industry Ties
• Appointing Unqualified Persons with Ideological Agendas.
• Stacking Advisory Committees.
• Opposing Qualified Experts.

Distorting and Suppressing Scientific Information

• Including Misleading Information in Presidential
  Communications.
• Presenting Incomplete and Inaccurate Information to Congress.
• Altering Web Sites.
• Suppressing Agency Reports.

• Scrutinizing Ongoing Research.
• Obstructing Agency Analyses.
• Undermining Outcome Assessment.
• Blocking Scientific Publication.

An article published in the Nashua Telegraph on December 23, “Scientists: Loon study disproves Bush policy” should be cause for alarm. The article stated that a recent scientific study found that loon eggs in southeastern New Hampshire had the highest mercury levels of any tested in eight states. Fortunately, the study found, eggs from the same ponds have recently shown a significant decline in mercury, apparently because of state-mandated changes at municipal waste incinerators in the area. Kudos to the local politicians in New Hampshire and the region for taking such a positive stand on environmental protections.

Unfortunately we cannot provide any praise for politicians at the Federal level. In the 30+ years in which I have been involved in environmental research and education, never have I seen the public interest more threatened by current or proposed rollbacks in environmental protections by the Federal government. (more…)

Letters to the Editor
The Nashua Telegraph
17 Executive Drive

Hudson, NH 03051
Dear Editor:

According to an article in Telegraph this week, this year’s flu outbreak is the worst for kids in 30 years. Another article in the Telegraph reported how the flu vaccine in short supply across N.H.

This morning’s New York Times notes that the CDC has characterized the influenza outbreak as a “likely epidemic”. Dr. Julie Gerberding, the CDC director, said 42 children have died from the flu this season. Dr. Gerberding said the deaths are “very sobering and very worrisome” and that more than half the deaths involved children under 5.

My question is could this epidemic and many of these children’s deaths have been prevented? As reported in the Denver Post, Dr. Steve Berman, past president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, has said that kids are dying because of irresponsible, short-sighted, bad public policy. “We have chronically underfunded our vaccine infrastructure, and now we’re paying a terrible price for that neglect,” Dr. Berman is quoted as saying.

It is my understanding that the Republican Congress and the Bush Administration actually cut the Immunization Program of the Center of Disease Control by over $100 million dollars this year.

I have been reading congressional testimony from last summer where some Democrats virtually predicted this flu epidemic with statements such as “The Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations bill leaves our health care system, our schools, our children and our communities at risk.” (Congressional Record, House, July 10, 2003).

As reported in the Washington Post, Vice President Cheney warned this week that “the major threat” facing the nation is the possibility that terrorists could detonate a biological or nuclear weapon in a U.S. city. Cheney said, “It’s one of the most important problems we face today.”

If the President and the Congress have not taken adequate steps to protect our children from a natural outbreak of the flu, how can we have any confidence that our leaders have put into place and properly funded an adequate health and emergency response system capable of handling biological or nuclear terrorist attacks on American cities?

Stephen C. Nodvin

This letter was published in the Nashua Telegraph on December 15, 2003 as part of a collection responses from members of the “Telegraph Reader Advisory Network” in response to the capture of Saddam Hussein on December 13, 2003:

Clearly this is wonderful news. In the 1991 Gulf War, with only 100 miles to go, I felt it would have been the correct thing to do to go in and finish the job and end the Saddam regime. After all, Saddam Hussein had clearly and without any provocation attacked and overtaken its weaker neighbor, Kuwait. He also had clearly threatened other neighbors, including Saudi Arabia and Israel. The threats to these neighboring countries impacted the national security of the United States.

I felt that immediately after the first Gulf War, it was a failure on our part not to have initially protected the Kurds in the north and the Shiites in the south of Iraq. If the U.S. and its partners had marched into Baghdad in 1991 and taken Saddam out then, it would have saved many thousands of lives and the hardships that the Iraqis suffered during the ensuing 12 years.

Given those facts, there was nothing that had changed over many years in Iraq during 2003 when President George W. Bush decided to invade Iraq and pursue Saddam. The “reason” that the current Administration gave for the current invasion of Iraq, the presence of weapons of mass destruction, was based upon faulty or erroneous information.

It probably was time to end the Saddam regime and I supported the buildup of troops in the region to confront Saddam and make him and his regime finally comply with years of U.N. resolutions.
However, it is clear now that there was no “imminent threat” to the U.S. from Iraq. I believe that with the buildup of forces in the region with a true coalition of our allies (including our many partners in Europe – NATO, the U.N., etc.), we would have eventually reached the same conclusion in terms of the overthrow of Saddam and his regime but without the number of American casualties that we have suffered and without the rift that was created between the U.S. and our best allies.

After all, if the unified strength and the great show of force that we and our NATO allies demonstrated in the 1980s and early 1990s could have led to the fall of the Soviet Empire, could not a unified show of strength by the U.S. and all of our allies in 2003 have eventually led to the fall of the thug Saddam and his regime?
But the facts now are that we did invade Iraq and we now have captured Saddam. I think that this capture has opened a tremendous opportunity for the United States to show to the world the true spirit of America and at the same time significantly reduce the risks to American soldiers and the costs to the American public.

America should approach the victory of the capture of Saddam with humbleness and not arrogance. It is now time to take the high road, to put past disagreements aside, and go back to our allies in Europe and the rest of the world and ask them to join us to internationalize the democratization and rebuilding of Iraq.

The Europeans have taken the right steps. As reported today in the Washington Post: German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who won re-election a year ago on a tough anti-war platform, sent a effusive telegram of congratulations to President Bush. “It’s with great delight that I learned of Saddam Hussein’s capture,” Schroeder wrote. “I congratulate you on this successful operation. Saddam Hussein caused horrible suffering to his people and the region.

French President Jacques Chirac, Germany’s chief partner in the coalition that opposed the war, also expressed delight. “This is a major event which should strongly contribute to the democratization and the stabilization of Iraq, and allow the Iraqis to once more be masters of their destiny in a sovereign Iraq.” If the French and the Germans can respond in such a positive manner, certainly we Americans can be magnanimous enough to be willing to once again work closely with the western democracies who most closely share our common ideals.

Saddam Hussein’s capture will most greatly affect the situation in Iraq, as well as the situation here at home, if our president were to take this opportunity to reach out to our allies in Europe and elsewhere to truly internationalize the reconstruction effort. The violence in Iraq would be reduced much more quickly, the transition to democracy would be expedited, the costs in terms of American lives and dollars would be drastically reduced, we would restore our good relationships with our European allies, and we would set a tremendous example for the Arab and Muslim worlds. The U.S. could regain much respect in the world and our own safety and national security at home would be improved.

I won’t take independent credit for my conclusions here as much of what I have described was outlined today by Senator John Kerry on Fox News Sunday.

I have always felt that we should have approached Saddam Hussein in 2003-2004 as we did in 1990-1991 . . . in coalition with our best allies. Senator Kerry is the one presidential candidate that best represents my views on Iraq and Saddam Hussein.

Stephen C. Nodvin of Nashua

In the most definitive work published to date, scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) published a research article today (5 December 2003) in the journal Science stating that “The main source of global climate change is human-induced changes in atmospheric composition.” And that “These perturbations primarily result from emissions associated with energy use”

Drs. Thomas R. Karl and Kevin E. Trenberth from the NOAA National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, NC and and NCAR in Boulder, CO, respectively, go on to state “that it is clear that these changes will be increasingly manifested in important and tangible ways, such as changes in extremes of temperature and precipitation, decreases in seasonal and perennial snow and ice extent, and sea level rise. Anthropogenic climate change is now likely to continue for many centuries. We are venturing into the unknown with climate, and its associated impacts could be quite disruptive.”

On NPR’s Talk of the Nation Science Friday today, Karl and Trenberth described how greenhouse gasses such as carbon dioxide have a residence time in the atmosphere of at least 100 years. Therefore, they concluded that the lack of serious action on efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will result in consequences lasting multiple generations. In fact, the scientists felt that the seriousness of the global change issue was far greater than that of budget deficits. After all and as we have seen, the nation’s budget status, and whether we have a surplus or deficit, can change dramatically in only a few years in response to economic conditions and changes in government fiscal policies. However, the scientists pointed out, once carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses are released to the atmosphere, the releases cannot simply be reversed and the global impacts of those emissions will be felt for multiple generations.

Stephen Nodvin