Secretary of Energy Chris Wright assembled a Climate Working Group (CWG) this Spring to prepare a report on the state of climate science. The report, A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate, was published in late July. It was prepared by five noted scientists: Dr. Steven Koonin; Dr. Judith Curry; Dr. John Christy; Dr. Roy Spencer; and, Dr. Ross McKittrick. The report focused on the known knowns and the known unknowns regarding climate science.
The report met with shock and outrage on the part of many members of the consensed climate science community since it questioned much of the climate alarmist narrative. Carbon Brief solicited comments regarding the report from authors whose work was cited in the report, clearly seeking negative comments. The Associated Press submitted a list of questions to cited authors, clearly seeking to politicize the report. The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) sued DOE, asserting that the preparation of the report violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACT), in that one of the authors had apparently not filed the paperwork required under FACT.
The Climate Working Group has been disbanded in response to the lawsuit. Some commentators have attributed the procedural failure to bureaucratic sloppiness. However, the procedural failure appears more like “Deep State” sabotage. The CWG had only 5 members. Presumably the DOE compliance team was able to count to 5 when the forms were submitted to the members of the CWG and also when the forms were returned to DOE. Someone(s) in the DOE compliance team apparently approved the report preparation to proceed even though all of the required forms had apparently not been submitted. It is also possible that one of the forms had been “disappeared”. Someone(s) in the DOE compliance team apparently also notified UCS and EDF that the required FACT filings were incomplete, establishing the basis for their lawsuit.
The CWG report supported the EPA effort to reassess the 2009 EPA Endangerment Finding regarding CO2. EPA did not comply with the Clean Air Act (CAA) requirements regarding Endangerment Findings. The CAA requires development and publication of a National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) after an Endangerment Finding. No NAAQS has been issued for CO2 in the 16 years since the Endangerment Finding. This represents a clear failure to comply with the applicable law by EPA. There has been no outcry regarding this failure from the consensed climate science community, nor has a lawsuit been filed by organizations such as the UCS and EDF.
Clearly, development and enforcement of a NAAQS for a “well mixed trace gas” such as CO2, the majority of which is emitted into the atmosphere by other nations, predominantly China, would be extremely challenging, if even possible. However, this suggests that CO2 should not have been the subject of an Endangerment Finding. The endangerment has not appeared in the ensuing 16 years. It was based then, and remains based, on the projections of climate models which have not been verified or validated. The societal benefits of increased atmospheric CO2, on the other hand, are current, demonstrated and documented.
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