Lawsuit Pries Loose a ‘New Climate Data Scandal’

By Published on December 22, 2015

A non-profit watchdog group’s lawsuit against the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration may have spurred the agency to release documents to a congressional committee that reveal a “new climate data scandal.”

Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit Dec. 2, 2015, against NOAA “regarding methodology for collecting and interpreting data used in climate models,” the group said Tuesday.

The House Committee on Science, Space and Technology subpoenaed the same documents earlier this year, but NOAA refused to hand the records over until a few days after Judicial Watch filed its lawsuit.

“We have little doubt that our lawsuit helped to pry these scandalous climate change report documents from the Obama administration,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said. “Given the lawless refusal to comply with our FOIA request and a congressional subpoena, we have little doubt that the documents will show the Obama administration put politics before science in advance of global warming alarmism.”

The documents revealed a “new climate data scandal,” Judicial Watch said in announcing the suit.

“Information provided to the committee by whistleblowers appears to show that the study was rushed to publication despite the concerns and objections of a number of NOAA employees,” according to the committee.

Committee Chairman Lamar Smith wrote recently that “NOAA often fails to consider all available data in its determinations and climate change reports to the public.”

The Texas Republican also noted that a recent NOAA study made adjustments to historical temperature records, which led the findings to refute a nearly two-decade pause to global warming.

The Judicial Watch’s lawsuit was filed after the Department of Commerce, which governs NOAA, failed to respond to an Oct. 30 Freedom of Information Act request seeking communications between NOAA’s officials regarding how climate data is collected, analyzed and used.

Smith subpoenaed the agency for the same documents on Oct. 13, and sent a total of four letters to NOAA requesting the information.

 

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