Politics Trumps "Sound Science"

An aide to President Bush repeatedly altered government enviromental reports to play down links between emissions and global climate change.

Philip Cooney used to work for the oil industry, fighting federal limits on greenhouse gases. He was the "climate team leader" for the American Petroleum Institute.

Now he's the Chief of Staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

Since joining the White House in 2001, the lobbyist turned bureaucrat made handwritten changes to the work of the government's top scientists to alter the meaning of their reports in ways that benefited the energy industry. (NYT)