EPA ‘strongly disagrees’ with inspector general climate finding

The Environmental Protection Agency is pushing back against an inspector general report that alleges EPA's peer review of a document that helps form the basis for climate change rules wasn’t robust enough.

The agency and environmental groups are also moving quickly to rebut climate skeptics and opponents of emissions controls who may seek to use the new IG report — which we covered in detail here — as ammunition.

“The report importantly does not question or even address the science used or the conclusions reached — by the EPA under this and the previous administration — that greenhouse gas pollution pose a threat to the health and welfare of the American people. Instead, the report is focused on questions of process and procedures,” EPA said in a statement Wednesday.

The report doesn’t wade into the validity of the science EPA relied on to craft its 2009 “endangerment finding” that greenhouse gases threaten humans, a finding that’s the legal basis for EPA’s climate change regulations.

The IG report does conclude that EPA didn’t meet the White House Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) guidelines for peer-review of the scientific “technical support document” (TSD) that supported the endangerment finding.

But both EPA and OMB disagree with the inspector general's conclusion. Here’s more of EPA’s reaction Wednesday:

While we will consider the specific recommendations, we disagree strongly with the Inspector Generals’ findings and followed all the appropriate guidance in preparing this finding.  EPA undertook a thorough and deliberate process in the development of this finding, including a careful review of the wide range of peer-reviewed science.

Since EPA finalized the endangerment finding in December of 2009, the vast body of peer reviewed science that EPA relied on to make its determination has undergone further examination by a wide range of independent scientific bodies. All of those reviews have upheld  the validity of the science.

Much of the report turns on whether the document is a “highly influential scientific assessment” under OMB’s guidelines — that’s the IG’s view — or “influential scientific information.”

“Although EPA believes the technical summary document is ‘influential scientific information’ (ISI) and not a ‘HISA,’ we actually believe that we nearly met all the criteria for HISA and went above and beyond for ISI,” EPA said.

Environmental groups, in statements Wednesday, emphasized that the IG didn’t question the science EPA relied on in determining that greenhouse gasses threaten humans. EPA relied on scientific assessments from the National Research Council and other bodies.

“The process matters, but the science matters more and in this endangerment finding, the science is accurate. Climate change is a threat to public health and welfare, and the peer-reviewed scientific assessments EPA used back up that claim,” said Francesca Grifo, director of the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Scientific Integrity Program.

The IG report also notes that EPA followed its statutory requirements in issuing the endangerment finding.

“Let’s be clear on what this report does not do: it does not call into question any of the underlying science. And the report affirmed that EPA complied with the law when making the Endangerment Finding,” said Steve Hamburg, chief scientist at Environmental Defense Fund, in a statement.