As has been widely reported in the blogosphere, NASA has announced new staff guidelines for communicating findings to the media. NASA administrator Michael Griffin promised the rules in February after staff, most notably James Hansen, brought a NASA public affairs gag order to the attention of the media.

From the Washington Post:

The new eight-page policy, written by an internal team of scientists, lawyers, public affairs specialists and managers, states that NASA scientists are free to talk to members of the media about their scientific findings and even express personal interpretations of those findings — the heart of the controversy that has engulfed the agency since January.

It also makes clear that scientists are not required to have a public affairs officer with them when they speak with members of the media, though Griffin emphasized yesterday in comments broadcast to NASA employees that he believes such behavior is unwise.

The new policy is available here (PDF).

Further proof that the tide is turning against bogus science, Senators Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ), Daniel K. Inouye (D-HI), and John F. Kerry (D-MA) demanded greater scientific oversight in a letter written to James Mahoney on Wednesday. The senators requested the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and Deputy Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration put procedures in place to maintain the scientific integrity of future federal climate science reports, specifically the “Our Changing Planet” reports.

The letter (excerpted below) and press release are available on-line.

Dear Dr. Mahoney:

As you are well aware, the annual “Our Changing Planet” report and other federal climate science reports have been tainted by allegations of political interference and altered scientific findings in recent years. … [W]e are writing to urge you to take immediate, extraordinary steps to repair public confidence in these reports and protect their scientific integrity.

In particular, the Fiscal Year 2003 edition of the annual “Our Changing Planet” climate change report and the 2003 “Strategic Plan for the United States Climate Change Science Program” were tainted by allegations of political interference and editing that altered those reports’ robust scientific findings.

We are writing specifically to request that you empower the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) with an oversight and auditing role in the preparation of the upcoming “Our Changing Planet” report. The NAS could certify to the public that the final version of the Fiscal Year 2007 report accurately reflects scientific findings, not political wishful thinking. …

Global warming is one of the most serious challenges we face, and Congress mandated reports summarizing the results of federal climate research to provide a solid scientific basis for public policy. Political interference has now tainted these reports and diminished their usefulness to Congress and the American people.

We applaud the senators’ efforts to take the “political wishful thinking” out of government scientific documents.

President Bush yesterday publicly regretted the manner in which his administration walked away from Kyoto and his campaign promise to regulate carbon emissions, though not the acts themselves. After a speech to Freedom House in Washington DC, he took an audience question on the U.S. role in combating global warming. Like Iraq/Al Qaeda he continued to prove incapable of acknowledging global warming without instilling doubt. From Greenwire (subscription required):

Bush acknowledged the threat of global warming, while also noting what he said are uncertainties about the role of humans in changing climate. He said the debate is less important than larger questions about improving the environment in developing nations and U.S. energy security.

“First of all … the globe is warming,” Bush said. “The fundamental debate, is it manmade or natural? Put that aside. It is in our interests that we use technologies that will not only clean the air, but make us less dependent on oil.”

Rafe Pomerance, former Clinton administration State Department official and Climate Policy Center founder, told Greenwire “It doesn’t reflect any better coordination of their technology program. They in fact leave the scientific uncertainty in place. That’s not the position of the scientific community.”

An optimist could look at the president’s statement as an attempt to move forward with greenhouse gas mitigating strategies without upsetting his political base. In a perfect world we would also have a president whose comments were in-line with the scientific community. Barring that, we’ll be guardedly optimistic in stating that actions speak louder than carefully chosen, science muddying words.

Just as climate change is yielding more intense hurricanes, the climate change cover-up is yielding more intense popular media coverage. In fact, if you caught any news this past Sunday, it was hard to miss.

“NOAA hiding truth about hurricanes, scientists say” from Sunday’s Providence Journal

“Was Confusion Over Global Warming a Con Job?” from ABC World News Tonight

“The Tipping Point” from the special climate change issue of Time.

And for the Sunday Morning quarterbacks, they got into it on ABC’s This Week (be sure to download the video).

Oh, The Skeptical Environmentalist author Bjørn Lomborg isn’t dead, we just haven’t thought about him in awhile. But since his tome comes up with some frequency in science-confusing circles, we wanted to call your attention to the Pacific Institute article “Where’s Waldo? A Review of The Skeptical Environmentalist” written by Dr. Peter Gleick and published by the Union of Concerned Scientists in 2001. Gleick’s main critiques (e.g. “Biased optimism,” “Selective choice of problems,” “Hidden value judgments”) are almost universal themes of bad science.

Download “Where’s Waldo? A Review of The Skeptical Environmentalist” (PDF)

Two weeks ago we highlighted (and submitted testimony on) proposed changes to the EPA’s soot National Ambient Air Quality Standards for Particulate Matter. The science integrity issue: EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson’s decision to ignore recommendations from the independent Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee in EPA’s draft rules, a move believed by many to be unprecedented. Well, the rules are still open to comment, and CASAC submitted its comment letter (PDF) yesterday.

The science panel’s letter — signed by all 22 of its members — repeated previous suggestions that EPA set tight new limits for both microscopic fine particles and more coarse levels. It said EPA should drop PM annual levels to between 13 and 14 micrograms and take the 24-hour threshold to between 30 and 35 micrograms. Source: Greenwire (requires subscription)

Thanks to Greenwire for calling our attention to this quote from the concluding paragraph of the letter:

“We recognize that the setting of a NAAQS goes beyond the scientific data base into the realm of public policy. However, the efforts of the Agency’s scientific staff as well as the CASAC in providing a sound scientific basis must, fundamentally, be the foundation of these standard-setting decisions.”

And EPA has already responded:

“The EPA will carefully consider this additional CASAC advice as it reviews public comments on the proposed PM standards. Controlling particle pollution to protect public health is a major priority for the Bush administration.” Source

A final rule is due in September. You can read the Institute’s comments on the rule here (PDF). PM is a major concern in West Oakland, West Contra County, and other areas suffering from diesel emissions. Learn more about the Institute’s work to combat PM in California.

For those of you who have a subscription service that utilizes RSS, RSS 2.0, or Atom Feeds, Integrity of Science has added those site feed services. Sign up today!

Looking for something to do with kids this weekend? The soon-to-premier “Ice Age II: The Meltdown” has allegory potential, and Jon Vitti, the film’s writer, has contributed to The Simpsons, King of the Hill, and Saturday Night Live. From IMDB:

Diego, Manny and Sid return in this sequel to the hit Ice Age. This time around the Ice Age is over and is starting to melt, which will destroy their valley. So they must unite and warn everyone about the situation.

If you prefer guaranteed satire in a climate cartoon, check out Mark Fiore. You may not know the San Francisco Chronicle cartoonist and animator by name, but you’ve probably received one of his political animations in your in-box. We recently caught “Your Guide to Global Warming.” Your host, Flamey McGassy, is the smiling cartoon embodiment of a heating planet. He thanks climate doubters, Detroit, the fossil fuel industry, and of course, the silencing of climate scientists:

A Good Scientist is a mute scientist, I always say …

You can view the cartoon here (requires Flash player).

This month, Scientific American’s blog solicited comment from readers that considered themselves global warming skeptics. In the first post they asked self-defined skeptics to write in. In the second post they published the results. Interesting reading.

The Bush Administration’s attack on science has made it to the bathroom reading pile. The New Yorker (“Political Science,” March 13) and The New Republic (“Jurassic President,” March 20 & 27) have put forward two interesting theses on just what makes the Administration ticked off at science, and vice versa.

Michael Crowley’s “Jurassic President” comes to the subject from the angle of the now famous meeting between Michael Crichton and President Bush, and the climate change science as conspiracy theory book that brought them together. Crowley puts forth the theory that Crichton’s “influence on the president is even greater than Crichton’s harshest critics imagine.”

During his career, Crichton has relentlessly propagandized on behalf of one big idea: that experts–scientists, intellectuals, reporters, and bureaucrats–are spectacularly corrupt and spectacularly wrong. … Crichton’s oeuvre has promoted, for an audience of millions, a damning critique of expertise. And the Bush administration has put this critique into action, trampling the opinions of government scientists, exorcising trained economists, muzzling the press, and stifling State Department wonks. Crichton, in other words, primed America for the Bush era. Source

In its conclusion, Crowley notes the irony in Crichton now playing Congressional climate change expert.

Michael Specter forwards a different thesis in his New Yorker story. The Bush Administration’s “war on the laboratory” is motivated by corporate donations, Bush’s world view (which is not always driven by his faith), and a management style that values loyalty above all else. We hope that someone on Chairman Boehlert’s staff has read Specter’s historical context and pan-agency analysis of the Administration’s actions. His conclusion: the Administration’s assault on science is unprecedented in scale and scope, it is indicative of the Administration’s willingness to put values and conclusions ahead of facts, and eight years of this behavior is bad for science, government, and the U.S. economy. It is gripping, maddening reading.

Click here for an interview with Michael Specter on this article.

Finally, we missed Sunday night’s 60 Minutes story on NASA’s James Hansen, but you can view the transcript to “Rewriting the Science” here, and Think Progress has an excerpt.