http://www.nytimes.com/1989/05/08/us/scientist-says-budget-office-altered-his-testimony.html

May 8, 1989

Scientist Says Budget Office Altered His Testimony

By PHILIP SHABECOFF

WASHINGTON, May 7--The White House's Office of Management and Budget has changed the text of testimony scheduled to be delivered to Congress by a top Government scientist, over his protests, making his conclusions about the effects of global warming seem less serious and certain than he intended.

The testimony had been prepared by Dr. James E. Hansen, director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, for delivery Monday before the Senate Subcommittee on Science, Technology and Space, Congressional sources said. Dr. Hansen confirmed that the testimony had been changed.

In his original testimony, he said that computer projections of climatic changes caused by carbon dioxide and other gases released into the atmosphere would cause substantial temperature increases, drought, severe storms and other stresses that will affect the earth's biological systems.

The text of his testimony was edited by the budget office to soften the conclusions and make the prospects of change in climate appear more uncertain, Dr. Hansen said in an interview.

The budget office and other officials in the White House have been urging a go-slow approach to policies dealing with global warming, called the greenhouse effect by scientists. Those officials have opposed the State Department and Environmental Protection Agency, which have been urging President Bush to take the lead in mobilizing the international community to meet the threat of rapid climate change. The Administration is deeply split over whether to endorse an international treaty that would require action to deal with global warming, high-ranking executive branch officials said.

Senator Albert Gore, Democrat of Tennessee and chairman of the subcommittee, who had been told by Dr. Hansen of the alterations in the testimony, said that White House officials were attempting to change science to make it conform to their policy rather than base policy on accurate scientific data.

''They are scared of the truth,'' Mr. Gore said. He charged that the testimony was censored to support those in the Office of Management and Budget and other parts of the Administration who are seeking to keep the United States from proposing an international treaty to ameliorate the now widely anticipated global warming trend.

Mr. Gore said that at a future hearing ''I intend to ask O.M.B. officials who have substituted their scientific judgments for those of atmospheric scientists to come in and testify about the basis for their conclusions. I want to determine their qualifications, the climate models they have used, the amount of study they have given to the subject and the evidence that they found most persuasive. And I intend to pursue this at great length.''

Budget Office Review Is Routine

A spokeswoman for the budget office reached Saturday said that she made repeated attempts to seek an explanation but that no one from the office was available to respond to questions about the changed testimony. She also said that the only press official who will agree to have her name used in connection with budget office statements is Barbara Clay, who was among those not available.

The Office of Management and Budget routinely reviews testimony to be presented to Congressional committees by officials to make sure that Federal policy conforms to the President's budget.

The United States heads an international panel assigned the task of preparing a policy response to the global warming trend. The panel is scheduled to make recommendations at a meeting sponsored by the United Nations in Geneva this week.

Secretary of State James A. Baker 3rd and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator William K. Reilly are said to be urging that the United States take the lead on a convention to meet the threat of global warming. But officials in the White House, including the Office of Management and Budget, as well as in the Department of Energy, are urging a wait-and-see approach, saying the scientific information and data on economic effects of a remedial action are inadequate.

Dr. Hansen's testimony, before it was changed, would have given strong support to the position that while there are still many uncertainties, enough is known now about the general and even regional effects of the global warming trend to start acting now to mitigate and prepare for those effects. Dr. Hansen concluded, for example, ''We believe it is very unlikely that this overall conclusion - drought intensification at most middle- and low-latitude land ares, if greenhouse gases increase rapidly - will be modified by improved models.''

At the end of the section of his testimony dealing with regional effects of global warming, however, the Office of Management and Budget, over Dr. Hansen's objections, added this paragraph: ''Again, I must stress that the rate and magnitude of drought, storm, and temperature change are very sensitive to the many physical processes mentioned above, some of which are poorly represented in the G.C.M.'s [general climate models]. Thus, these changes should be viewed as estimates from evolving computer models and not as reliable predictions.''

Scientist Criticizes Change

Dr. Hansen said in an interview that the additional paragraph served to ''negate'' the entire point of that part of his testimony, which was that scientific understanding has now reached the stage where ''we can begin to draw significant conclusions about droughts, storm, temperature - conclusions which are unlikely to change as the models and observational data become more detailed.''

Another change required the testimony to say that the relative contribution of human and natural processes to changing climate patterns ''remains scientifically unknown.'' In fact, Dr. Hansen said, he and his colleagues at NASA who helped prepare the testimony ''are confident that greenhouse gases are primarily'' of human origin.

''It distresses me that they put words in my mouth; they even put it in the first person,'' Dr. Hansen said, adding that he had tried to ''negotiate'' with the budget office over the wording but ''they refused to change.''

''I should be allowed to say what is my scientific position; there is no rationale by which O.M.B. should be censoring scientific opinion,'' Dr. Hansen insisted. ''I can understand changing policy, but not science.''

While there is strong consensus within the scientific community that the greenhouse effect is real, there have been a substantial number of challenges to Dr. Hansen's contention that long-term global temperature trends show a high probability that it is already taking place. Dr. Hansen's testimony that the global warming trend is already occurring was presented to Congress last July and attracted widespread attention.

While the O.M.B., in its function of coordinating policies within the executive branch, reviews and edits such testimony, the research findings of Government scientists are subject to peer review, not to change by the policy-oriented budget office. Dr. Hansen's testimony was based on his and his colleagues' research, which had been subjected to such peer review.

Mr. Reilly, asked about what proposals the United States would take to the Geneva meeting on global warming, said ''the United States Government would be very positive and very involved.'' As for United States sponsorship of an international treaty, he said, ''We are still looking at whether a convention is desirable and what it should contain.''

A number of foreign leaders have been urging the United States to take the lead on global action to meet the threat of global warming, recalling President Bush's campaign pledge to exert such leadership.

Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland of Norway, who discussed the issue with the President last week, said in an interview on Friday: ''A United States leadership role is essential. The United States has to step forward in this process.''