Pruitt Will Launch Program to 'Critique' Climate Science

U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is leading a formal initiative to challenge mainstream climate science using a "back-and-forth critique" by government-recruited experts, according to a senior administration official.

The program will use "red team, blue team" exercises to conduct an "at-length evaluation of U.S. climate science," the official said, referring to a concept developed by the military to identify vulnerabilities in field operations.

"The administrator believes that we will be able to recruit the best in the fields which study climate and will organize a specific process in which these individuals ... provide back-and-forth critique of specific new reports on climate science," the source said.

"We are in fact very excited about this initiative," the official added. "Climate science, like other fields of science, is constantly changing.  A new, fresh and transparent evaluation is something everyone should support doing."

The disclosure follows the administration's suggestions over several days that it supports reviewing climate science outside the normal peer-review process used by scientists.  This is the first time agency officials acknowledged that Pruitt has begun that process.  The source said Energy Secretary Rick Perry also favors the review.

Executives in the coal industry interpret the move as a step toward challenging the endangerment finding, the agency's legal foundation for regulating greenhouse gases from cars, power plants and other sources.  Robert Murray, CEO of Murray Energy Corp., said Pruitt assured him yesterday that he plans to begin reviewing the endangerment finding within months.

"We talked about that, and they're going to start addressing it later this year," Murray said in an interview.  "They're going to start getting a lot of scientific people in to give both sides of the issue."

But another person attending the meeting said Pruitt resisted committing to a full-scale challenge of the 2009 finding.  The administration source also said Pruitt "did not promise to try to rescind the endangerment finding."

Climate scientists express concern that the "red team, blue team" concept could politicize scientific research and disproportionately elevate the views of a relatively small number of experts who disagree with mainstream scientists.

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