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Volume 3: Process Issues Raised by Petitioners

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Volume 3: Process Issues Raised by Petitioners EPA’s Response to the Petitions to Reconsider the Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act Volume 3: Process Issues Raised by Petitioners U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Atmospheric Programs Climate Change Division Washington, D.C. 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page 3.0 Process Issues Raised by Petitioners............................................................................................5 3.1 Approaches and Processes Used to Develop the Scientific Support for the Findings............................................................................................................................5 3.1.1 Overview..............................................................................................................5 3.1.2 Issues Regarding Consideration of the CRU E-mails..........................................6 3.1.3 Assessment of Issues Raised in Public Comments and Re-Raised in Petitions for Reconsideration...............................................................................7 3.1.4 Summary............................................................................................................19 3.2 Response to Claims That the Assessments by the USGCRP and NRC Are Not Separate and Independent Assessments.........................................................................20 3.2.1 Overview............................................................................................................20 3.2.2 EPA’s Response to Petitioners’ Arguments ......................................................21 3.2.3 Summary............................................................................................................27 3.3 Issues Concerning the Integrity of Peer-Reviewed Literature.......................................27 3.3.1 Overview............................................................................................................27 3.3.2 Allegations Regarding Reviews of Manuscripts................................................28 3.3.3 Allegations Regarding Journal Publication Practices........................................35 3.3.4 Allegations Regarding Efforts to Remove Editors and Boycott Journals..........48 3.3.5 Allegations Regarding Objectivity of the Peer-Reviewed Literature................55 3.3.6 Allegations of Intimidating Scientists and Those With Dissenting Views........66 3.3.7 Summary............................................................................................................75 3.4 Issues Concerning Freedom of Information Act Requests ............................................76 3.4.1 Overview............................................................................................................76 3.4.2 Allegations of Withholding Key Data and Information ....................................77 3.4.3 Allegations of Improper Conduct With Regard to UK FOI and U.S. FOIA Laws...................................................................................................................93 3.4.3.1 General Allegations ...............................................................................93 3.4.3.2 Specific FOI Request Regarding the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report...................................................................................................102 3.4.3.3 Allegations of Improperly Influencing University FOIA Officials ......109 3.4.4 Summary..........................................................................................................110 References............................................................................................................................................112 2 ACRONYMS AGU American Geophysical Union AIC Akaike information criterion ANPR Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking AOCGCM atmosphere-ocean coupled general circulation model APA Administrative Procedure Act AR autoregressive AR4 IPCC Fourth Assessment Report BIC Bayesian information criterion CAA Clean Air Act CCSP Climate Change Science Program CO2 carbon dioxide CR Climate Research CRCES Center for Research on the Changing Earth System CRU Climatic Research Unit DCPS07 Douglass, Christy, Pearson, and Singer, 2007 E.O. Executive Order FCC Federal Communications Commission FOI Freedom of Information FOIA Freedom of Information Act GHG greenhouse gas GRL Geophysical Research Letters HadCRUT Climatic Research Unit temperature record ICO Information Commissioner’s Office IJC International Journal of Climatology IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IQA Information Quality Act NRC National Research Council LIA Little Ice Age MBH Mann, Bradley, and Hughes MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology MM McIntyre and McKitrick NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration NH Northern Hemisphere QSR Quaternary Science Reviews RCS regional curve standardized RMS Royal Meteorological Society RSC Royal Society of Chemistry RSS Royal Statistical Society RTC Response to Comments RTP Response to Petitions SAB Science Advisory Board TSD Technical Support Document UEA University of East Anglia UHI urban heat island 3 USGCRP U.S. Global Change Research Program WMO World Meteorological Organization 4 3.0 Process Issues Raised by Petitioners 3.1 Approaches and Processes Used to Develop the Scientific Support for the Findings 3.1.1 Overview Several petitioners (the Coalition for Responsible Regulation, the Commonwealth of Virginia, the Ohio Coal Association, Peabody Energy, the State of Texas, the Southeastern Legal Foundation, and Arthur Randol) take issue with the process and approach EPA used in developing the scientific support for the Endangerment Finding. Many of these arguments are a repetition of arguments submitted during the public comment period for the Proposed Findings. These include claims that EPA did not independently judge the underlying science, violated the Information Quality Act (IQA, also referred to as the Data Quality Act), violated the law by failing to post the underlying data and scientific studies in the docket, and did not convene a truly independent external peer review. The sole arguably new argument made by some petitioners (the Ohio Coal Association, the Pacific Legal Foundation, and Peabody Energy) is the claim that EPA ignored public concerns about the implications of the e-mails involving scientists at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom. The petitioners claim that statements made in the CRU e-mails cast doubt on the validity of underlying data relied on by EPA’s Endangerment Finding, and argue that EPA’s response to this issue is inadequate in the record for the Endangerment Finding. Based on our review, petitioners’ claims regarding the implications of the CRU e-mails are wrong. In late 2009, EPA carefully reviewed many of the e-mails and responded to the issues that were presented to us shortly before the Endangerment Finding was completed. Since that time, we have reviewed all of the e-mails in light of additional issues raised by petitioners. Based on this review, we reaffirm that petitioners’ claims and the information they submit do not change or undermine our understanding of how anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases cause climate change and how human-induced climate change generates risks and impacts to public health and welfare. The information provided by petitioners does not change any of the scientific conclusions that underlie the Administrator’s Findings, nor do the petitions lower the degrees of confidence associated with each of these major scientific conclusions. The science issues raised by petitioners, which we respond to in Volume 1 of this document, do not undermine the core understanding of climate change, which is based on multiple lines of evidence from independent sources. For example, petitioners allege that the surface temperature record produced by CRU is flawed, but our review indicates that the surface data is sound and that the surface temperature record trends are corroborated by satellite temperature records and the impacts we see on the ground, such as glacier retreat and lengthening of the growing season. With respect to the arguments already raised during the rulemaking leading to the Endangerment Finding, the petitioners do not provide any new information to bolster arguments previously submitted. For reasons elaborated below, we conclude that the responses provided in the Findings and the Response to Comments (RTC) document are still robust. 5 In this section, we summarize and respond to the new argument being raised by the petitioners regarding EPA’s initial response to comments about the implications of the CRU e-mails. We then review the petitioners’ resubmitted arguments (originally addressed in Volume 1 of the RTC document) in light of any new evidence provided in the petitions for reconsideration. 3.1.2 Issues Regarding Consideration of the CRU E-mails Comment (3-1): A few petitioners (the Coalition for Responsible Regulation, the Ohio Coal Association, the Pacific Legal Foundation, and Peabody Energy) allege that EPA did not properly consider the implications of the CRU e-mails on the validity of the underlying data on which the Findings rest and that EPA did not provide an adequate response to the late comments that were raised concerning the e-mails. The Ohio Coal Association states that although allegations about problems with the CRU data had come to light prior to the Administrator signing the Findings, EPA did not
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