EPA Science Integrity Panel Says Pruitt Climate Denial Is Permissible

"A complaint was filed after Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency administrator said on CNBC that carbon dioxide isn’t a main cause of global warming."

"An internal review by the Environmental Protection Agency has found that its administrator did not violate its scientific integrity policy when he contradicted a fundamental tenet of climate science by denying that carbon dioxide pollution is the principal agent of global warming.

The policy 'explicitly protects differing opinions' held by any agency employee, including Administrator Scott Pruitt, on any matter of science informing agency policy decisions, said a review panel convened by the EPA's Scientific Integrity Committee.

The panel addressed its finding to the Sierra Club, which had filed a complaint after Pruitt, whose views of climate science often skirt around the mainstream consensus on the causes and the urgency of the climate crisis, said in a television interview that he 'would not agree' that carbon dioxide 'is a primary contributor to the warming that we're seeing.'

'The freedom to express one's opinion about science is fundamental to EPA's Scientific Integrity Policy even (and especially) when that point of view might be controversial,' wrote Thomas Sinks, an agency science official, in a letter to the Sierra Club."

John H. Cushman Jr. reports for InsideClimate News August 2, 2017.