US:US VICE-PRESIDENT Dick Cheney intervened to stop a senior official testifying last year over the public health problems caused by climate change, according to a Bush administration whistleblower.
In a letter released yesterday, the former climate adviser at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Jason Burnett, said Mr Cheney's office pushed to delete "any discussion of the human health consequences of climate change" from testimony by America's senior disease control official.
During his first six years in office US president George Bush expressed scepticism about whether climate change was manmade and it was only last year, in the face of international and domestic pressure, that he signalled a more flexible approach and policy concessions.
At the G8 in Japan this week, he agreed the US would join other countries to try to halve greenhouse gases by 2050. But in private there is still strong scepticism inside the White House.
The new row is over testimony on climate change given last October by the head of the US Centres for Disease Control (CDC). It was cut from 14 to six pages.
When CDC officials anonymously told the media that the White House had "eviscerated" the document, removing any mention of specific diseases caused by pollution, a spokeswoman for Bush said the deletions were made to reflect scientific uncertainty
But Burnett (31), who resigned last month after the EPA blocked California from setting strong emissions limits, said the deletions were ordered to "keep options open" for the agency to deny that climate change endangers public health in response to a supreme court ruling.
"We know that the administration's efforts have been about covering up the real dangers of global warming and hiding the facts from the public," said Barbara Boxer, a Democratic senator and chairwoman of the environment committee, who received Burnett's letter. "This cover-up is being directed from the White House and the office of the vice-president." - (Guardian service)