EPA DROE Email 6.25.03 (c)

EPA DROE Email 6.25.03 (c)

• 1.
  Phil Cooney 06/25/2003 09:39:34 AM Record Type: Record To: Dana M. Perino/GCJCQEOP@EOP cc: bcc: Records Management@EOP Subject: Re: FYI: One more story on climate flap Mr it's at'mm.mediaresearch.org --wNas mentioned in todays c lips. PIl Dana M. Ferino 06/2512003 09:29:01 AM *. Dana M. Perino 06/25/2003 09:29:01 AM Record Type: Record To: Thiu Cooney/CCEQIEOP@EOP cc: bcc: Subuect: Re: FYI: One more story on climate flap 4 do you know where this, ran? Phil Cooney Phil Coonev 06/25/2003 09:26:38 AM Record Type: Record To: See the distribution list at the bottom of this message co: Subject: FYI: One more story on climate flap More Greenhouse Gaseousness by L. Brent Bozell IIl June 24, 2003 The Jayson Blair fiasco has not affected the power of Ihe New York Times. The Newspaper of Record still can start an avalanche of liberal spin on television, its frnt page can still launch a thousand ships with cannons trained on any conservative influence that surfaces in the Washington policy arena. On June 119, the Times devoted part of its front page to a leak from a disgruntled environmental bureaucrat.
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  The scoop? TheEnvironmental Protection Agency'Is orthcoming report on 'the state of the -environment had been edited by the White House, and "a long section describing risks from rising global temperatures has been whittled to a few noncommittal paragraphs." So what? Our government churns tons of paoper each year for Washington reporters to consider or ignore. Even those tons of paper edited by the White House reusually too massive to trouble the scholars of the press. What is new about an executive branch report bein reisd by the chief executive's team? It's just a report, not a bill before Congress, or an executive order, or a ne se fregulations. If you were a liberal environmentalist, you'd think othrws. Which explains the network reaction. ABC, CBS, CN, NBC, and CNBC all lunged for the Times scooplet- How predictable: leak something to liberal reporters in advance, and suggest that the White House is in disarray and conflict due to obnoxious conservatives, and you're headed for the spotlights at a mile a minute. To hear the networks tell this tale, there aren't liberals and conservatives in this policy battle. There aren't scientific boosters of global warming theory on one side and sientific skeptics on the other. No, liberalism for the purposes of this news cycle was packaged as the essence of n~npartisanship, idealism, sound science, the public interest, and the well-being of small children and bunnies. The conservative perspective was, naturally, the opposite: partisan, unscientific, cynical, bought and paid for by Lrrogant corporate polluters. It's all in a night's work of fairness and balance. ABC's Barry Serafin groaned that "*Environmentalists are angry about what they regard as science pushed aside by politics." Dan Rather laid it on thick, saving the greens were "taking the President to task for what they say was the cynical changing of a major report on goal warming. They say it was altered to put hardball partisan politics over bard independent science." At NBCDvi Gregory was already counting the liberals (they weren't called that. of course) as winners: "The flap over thskwreport gives new ammunition to auministration critics, ooth here and abroad, who contend the President has ignored the threat of global warming to appease corpoorate ,ociluters opposed to more environmental regulation.4 In case you thought those stories were a little too tame, there was CNN's 'NewsNight" at 10. Anchor Aaron Brown began: "Once upon a time a scientist named Galileo isaid the Earth was rouna and the political leaders of the time said 'no, no Galileo it's flat.' And Galileo got life under house arrest for his little theory." Today, he proclaimed, the "vast majority" of scientists say global warming is real and "if the charges leveled against the White House are true, an important environmental question is being twisted or ignored for the sake of politics.' If newscasts were cars, CNN would be facing a recall. Galileo did not argue the world was round, not fiat. He was condemned for suggesting the earth revolved around the sun, not the other way around. Liberals love casting themselves as Galileo, as 'they have also done repeatedly in the arguments ever cloning and stem cell research. They are Science; conservativesl Unreason. But reporters are supposed to project objectivity, not endorsements of one scientific/political cause andi denunciations of the other as an industry-funded fraud. Nearly every news story touts the "scientific consensus" behind the need for big energy taxes and regulations, as if assembling a numerical majority, not the testing of hypotheses, was the basis of sound science.
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  It is possiblethat the scientists that will be proven correct - the Galileo stand-ins for the 21st century - are the scientists skeptical of the doom-and-gloom assessment. More ihan 17,000 scientists have signed a petition against the proposed Kyoto Accord. Don't forget that the Senate voted 95 to 0 during the Clinton years to reject the Treaty's onerous burdens the United States while 'developing' nations faced no energy limitations. That's an entirely different consensus. But the media are too warm and comfy in the green lobby's pocket to consider a more objective, less demonizing portrait of competing environmental visions. T1hey would like to pretend it's only President Bush and his conservative pollution-loving kiends that ever need to face the harsh winds of controversy over the prospect of global warming. They aren't ma i~ng news stories. They're making political cartoons. MeSs3ace Sent To: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Dana M. PerinoICEQfEOP@EOP James Connaughton/CEQ/ECP~EOP Debbie S. Fiddejke/CEOI1EOP@ECP Bryan J. Hannegan/CE(DiEOP~EOP Karneran L. ODneyIGEQIEOP@ECP Kenneth L. Peel/CEQIECP@EOP. Joel 0. Kaplan/WHO/EOP~Exchange~gOP Jay P. LefkowitzCPD/ECP~Exchange~FEOP Kevin M. O'Donovan/OVP!ECP@Exchang e@EOP David Halo~ern/OSTPIE'DP@EOP Kathie L. Olsen/OSTP/EOP@EOP Robert C. McNally/OPDIEOP@EOP Allison Boyd/CPD1EODP(.Exchiange@EOP Matthew KochtA'HO/EOP@EOP