U.S. Told to Issue Global Warming Plans
Pastor Dale Morgan
Aug 22, 4:51 PM EDT
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U.S. Told to Issue Global Warming Plans*
By TERENCE CHEA
Associated Press Writer
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- A federal judge ordered the Bush administration to
issue two scientific reports on global warming, siding with
environmentalists who sued the White House for failing to produce the
documents.
U.S. District Court Judge Saundra Armstrong ruled Tuesday that the Bush
administration had violated a 1990 law when it failed to meet deadlines
for an updated U.S. climate change research plan and impact assessment.
Armstrong set a March 1 deadline for the administration to issue the
research plan, which is meant to guide federal research on climate
change. Federal law calls for an updated plan every three years, she
said. The last one was issued in 2003.
The judge set a May 31 deadline to produce a national assessment
containing the most recent scientific data on global warming and its
projected effects on the country's environment, economy and public
health. The government is required to complete a national assessment
every four years, the judge ruled.
The last one was issued by the Clinton administration in 2000.
The administration had claimed that it had discretion over how and when
it produced the reports - an argument the judge rejected Tuesday.
"The defendants are wrong," Armstrong wrote in the 38-page ruling.
"Congress has conferred no discretion upon the defendants as to when
they will issue revised Research Plans and National Assessments."
The plaintiffs - the Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the
Earth and Greenpeace - said the ruling was a rebuke to an administration
that has systematically denied and suppressed information on global warming.
"It's a huge victory holding the administration accountable for its
attempts to suppress science," said Kassie Siegel, an attorney for the
Center for Biological Diversity, one of the plaintiffs that filed suit
in Oakland federal court in November.
Bush administration officials were still reviewing the ruling Tuesday
and could not comment on it directly, said Kristin Scuderi, a
spokeswoman for the U.S. Office of Science and Technology Policy, which
was named in the lawsuit.
But the administration is complying with the law, Scuderi said. The U.S.
Climate Change Science Program is working on 21 separate reports on
global warming's projected effects on the U.S and has started to prepare
a new research plan, she said.
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On the Net:
U.S. Climate Change Science Program: http://www.climatescience.gov/
Center for Biological Diversity: http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/