The Heartland Institute today shipped copies of the Climate Change Reconsidered series of reports to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt. An accompanying letter from Heartland Institute President Tim Huelskamp, Ph.D., advises Pruitt to use the 3,000-plus page report containing some 10,000 footnotes to comply with a federal court order to provide “documents that support the conclusion that human activity is not the largest factor driving global climate change.”

Beryl Howell, chief judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, ordered EPA on June 1 to back up a statement Pruitt made in a CNBC interview shortly after taking office that “carbon dioxide created by human activity is not the primary driver of global climate change.” She was enforcing a Freedom of Information Act request a group called Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) filed the day after that television interview.

“We have no doubt that PEER, with the assistance of the judge, is trying to box you in and embarrass you,” Dr. Huelskamp wrote Pruitt. “After all, you were only on the job for a few days and you could not possibly have reviewed all the documents EPA possessed before your confirmation – which would all toe the unscientific, alarmist dogma that marked the Obama years. Fortunately, you do not have to look far to find ‘documents that support the conclusion that human activity is not the largest factor driving global climate change.’”

The Heartland Institute several years ago submitted the Climate Change Reconsidered series to the agency, including digital versions when EPA has called for comments on rulemaking. Climate Change Reconsidered is a years-long scholarship project by the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), led by prominent climate scientist Dr. S. Fred Singer. The Heartland Institute publishes and distributes NIPCC’s work.

“In the event an Obama-era ideologue at EPA disposed of or destroyed those volumes, we have enclosed them in this package for your use in answering Judge Howell’s order,” Dr. Huelskamp wrote. “In fact, the Climate Change Reconsidered series stands on its own as the work of a ‘Red Team’ that has been working to critique and correct the work of the ideological alarmists on the ‘Blue Team’ for more than a decade.”

The Heartland letter contains a list of hardly exhaustive examples from the peer-reviewed literature to bolster Pruitt’s point, including:

• empirical data on past temperatures contradicting the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) claim that climate observations during the twentieth century are either unprecedented or provide evidence of an anthropogenic effect on climate. (Climate Change Reconsidered, 2009)
• research by a growing number of scientists who say variations in solar activity, not greenhouse gases, are the true driver of climate change. (Climate Change Reconsidered, 2009
• research published in peer-reviewed science journals indicating the model-derived temperature sensitivity of Earth accepted by the IPCC is too large. (Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science, 2013)
• proof that four specific forecasts made by global climate models have been falsified by real-world data from a wide variety of sources and that there has been no significant global warming for some 20 years. (Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming, 2015)

You can read the whole letter below, or in PDF form on Heartland’s website.

For more comments or to book a Heartland guest on your program, please contact Director of Communications Jim Lakely at media@heartland.org and 312/377-4000 or (cell) 312/731-9364.

START LETTER

June 7, 2018

Administrator Scott Pruitt
Environmental Protection Agency
Office of the Administrator 1101A
1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20460

Dear Administrator Pruitt,

We understand that on June 1 Beryl Howell, chief judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to back up a claim you articulated in a CNBC interview shortly after taking office. In that interview you stated human emissions of carbon dioxide are not “a primary contributor to the global warming that we see.”

The day after that interview, a group called Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request demanding “EPA documents that support the conclusion that human activity is not the largest factor driving global climate change.”

We have no doubt that PEER, with the assistance of the judge, is trying to box you in and embarrass you. After all, you were only on the job for a few days and you could not possibly have reviewed all the documents EPA possessed before your confirmation – which would all toe the unscientific, alarmist dogma that marked the Obama years. Fortunately, you do not have to look far to find “documents that support the conclusion that human activity is not the largest factor driving global climate change.”

The Heartland Institute several years ago submitted the Climate Change Reconsidered series to the agency – four massive volumes and two smaller reports amounting to more than 3,000 pages from the peer-reviewed literature showing how humans are not causing catastrophic global warming. This years-long work of scholarship by the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) – led by Dr. S. Fred Singer, one of the most-prominent and important climate scientists in the world – serves as a needed check on the politicized reports regularly put out by American and multi-national government bureaus. The Chinese Academy of Sciences thought so highly of NIPCC’s work that it translated and published an edition in Mandarin.

Heartland has submitted these volumes in digital form during EPA comment periods in the past, and we are certain physical copies were also sent to the agency.

In the event an Obama-era ideologue at EPA disposed of or destroyed those volumes, we have enclosed them in this package for your use in answering Judge Howell’s order. In these volumes you will find scientific evidence that:

• demonstrates the limitations of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) attempt to forecast future climate conditions by using computer climate models. (Climate Change Reconsidered, 2009)
• reviews empirical data on past temperatures and finds no support for the IPCC’s claim that climate observations during the twentieth century are either unprecedented or provide evidence of an anthropogenic effect on climate. (Climate Change Reconsidered, 2009)
•  summarizes the research of a growing number of scientists who say variations in solar activity, not greenhouse gases, are the true driver of climate change. (Climate Change Reconsidered, 2009)
•  challenges the IPCC’s claim that CO2-induced global warming is harmful to human health. (Climate Change Reconsidered, 2009)
•  shows research published in peer-reviewed science journals indicates the model-derived temperature sensitivity of Earth accepted by the IPCC is too large. (Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science, 2013)
•  explains how the sun may have contributed as much as 66% of the observed twentieth century warming, and perhaps more. (Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science, 2013)
•  illustrates how there has been no significant increase in either the frequency or intensity of storms of any kind in the modern era. (Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science, 2013)
•  outlines the benefits of more CO2 in the atmosphere to all life on earth. (Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts, 2014)
•  the findings of hundreds of peer-reviewed research analyses suggest a much better future is in store for Earth’s aquatic life. (Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts, 2014)
•  warmer temperatures lead to a decrease in temperature-related mortality, including deaths associated with cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, and strokes. (Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts, 2014)
•  articles and surveys most commonly cited as showing support for a “97% scientific consensus” in favor of the catastrophic man-made global warming hypothesis are without exception methodologically flawed and often deliberately misleading. (Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming, 2015)
•  four specific forecasts made by global climate models have been falsified by real-world data from a wide variety of sources. In particular, there has been no global warming for some 20 years. (Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming, 2015)
•  melting of Arctic sea ice and polar icecaps is not occurring at “unnatural” rates and does not constitute evidence of a human impact on the climate. (Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming, 2015)
•  the best available data show sea-level rise is not accelerating. (Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming, 2015)

In fact, the Climate Change Reconsidered series stands on its own as the work of a “Red Team” that has been working to critique and correct the work of the ideological alarmists on the “Blue Team” for more than a decade. Feel free to cite this material, which contains more than 10,000 footnotes, in your response to the judge or in any other public setting.

At your service in this matter,

The Honorable Tim Huelskamp, Ph.D.
President
The Heartland Institute

END LETTER