SAN FRANCISCO - A federal judge ordered the Bush administration to issue two scientific reports on global warming, siding with environmentalists who sued the White House for failing to produce the documents.U.S. District Court Judge Saundra Armstrong ruled Tuesday that the Bush administration had violated a 1990 law when it failed to meet deadlines for an updated U.S. climate change research plan and impact assessment.
Armstrong set a March 1 deadline for the administration to issue the research plan, which is meant to guide federal research on climate change. Federal law calls for an updated plan every three years, she said. The last one was issued in 2003.
The judge set a May 31 deadline to produce a national assessment containing the most recent scientific data on global warming and its projected effects on the country's environment, economy and public health. The government is required to complete a national assessment every four years, the judge ruled.
The last one was issued by the Clinton administration in 2000.
The administration had claimed that it had discretion over how and when it produced the reports — an argument the judge rejected Tuesday.
"The defendants are wrong," Armstrong wrote in the 38-page ruling. "Congress has conferred no discretion upon the defendants as to when they will issue revised Research Plans and National Assessments."
The plaintiffs — the Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace — said the ruling was a rebuke to an administration that has systematically denied and suppressed information on global warming.
"It's a huge victory holding the administration accountable for its attempts to suppress science," said Kassie Siegel, an attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the plaintiffs that filed suit in Oakland federal court in November.
Bush administration officials were still reviewing the ruling Tuesday and could not comment on it directly, said Kristin Scuderi, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Office of Science and Technology Policy, which was named in the lawsuit.
But the administration is complying with the law, Scuderi said. The U.S. Climate Change Science Program is working on 21 separate reports on global warming's projected effects on the U.S and has started to prepare a new research plan, she said.
By TERENCE CHEA, Associated Press Writer
1 comment:
Did you know the consensus on CO2 caused global warming is breaking down?
Did you know that according to satellite measurements global temperatures have been flat or slightly declining for the last 8 to 10 years?
Did you know that solar scientists predict we are heading into a little ice age?
Did you know that the atmosphere is not a green house but a Heat pipe?
Sceptics:
US Senate says
Canada Says
Friends of Science
Did you know that in the last year a little over 1/2 the climate papers were sceptical of a runaway greenhouse via CO2?
Did you know that for the last 600,000 years or so warm periods last about 1,000 years or less? Did you know that the recent 10,000 years of warmth is unprecedented in recent climate history?
Did you know that food is really hard to grow under ice?
We should be more concerned about glaciers covering the Mid West than more CO2 which is good for plants. You like plants don't you? They "eat CO2" why would you want to stave the plants? BTW if CO2 goes below 200 ppmv and a lot of varieties of plants stop growing?
Compared to CO2 in geologic history current CO2 levels are dangerously low.
Did you know that in geologic history there is no connection between high CO2 levels and warming?
There are plenty of reasons to use our resources efficiently. CO2 is not one of them.
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