The White House statement, issued by John H. Marburger, director
of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, came in response
to a February 18 UCS report, Scientific Integrity in
Policymaking, signed by 62 of the nation's preeminent
scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates. But the Marburger
statement, according to UCS, lacked any substantive arguments,
included inaccurate statements, and sidestepped several
important issues.

"The White House document fails to refute the serious
allegations that the Bush Administration has engaged in
activities that undermine scientific integrity in policy
making," concludes the 13-page UCS analysis. "It is unfortunate
that the administration is not taking the concerns of the
scientific community seriously, as these issues have significant
consequences for the public's health and well-being."[1]

The UCS document analyzes the White House defense of charges
that it is manipulating science in areas such as climate change;
mercury emissions; air pollution; abstinence-only education;
breast cancer; HIV/AIDS; airborne bacteria; Iraq's aluminum
tubes; endangered species; forest management; peer review;
workplace safety and childhood lead exposure. A full copy of the
report can be seen at www.ucsusa.org.

"UCS stands by the findings and conclusions of its report," the
analysis states, repeating the scientists' initial conclusion
that the White House "frequently attempted to undermine
scientific integrity" when "scientific knowledge has been found
to be in conflict with its political goals."

For example, the White House document simply dismisses as
"false" a UCS allegation that the Bush Administration tried to
"force revisions to the climate change section of the
Environmental Protection Agency's draft Report on the
Environment," a document designed to explain government
decision-making to the American public.

But the UCS has ample evidence of the administration's efforts
to do so, including a leaked EPA memo, published statements by
then-EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman (who opted to
remove the climate change section entirely rather than print the
distorted version), and a front-page story that ran in the New
York Times.

The Bush Administration has repeatedly tried to introduce
uncertainty into the area of climate change science, the UCS
analysis found, even though the world's leading scientists long
ago agreed that human activities -- notably those that produce
greenhouse gas emissions -- are largely responsible for the
recent warming of Earth's surface temperature. In fact, the
analysis points out, President Bush himself explained the
process of human-caused climate change in great detail during a
June 11, 2001 Rose Garden speech -- but has repeatedly backed
away from those statements since then.

"In the absence of a constructive, and candid response from this
administration, it is left to scientific associations and
scientists, members of Congress, the media, and others to
further pursue these allegations of abuse of scientific input to
policymaking, and to press for institutional and legislative
reforms aimed at preventing such abuses by future
administrations," the analysis concludes.

###

SOURCES:
[1] "Analysis of White House Claims," Union of Concerned
Scientists, Apr. 19, 2004.