Comments on Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking Regulating Greenhouse Gas Emissions under the Clean Air Act as Solicited by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Much of the scientific evidence put forth by the EPA staff in the proposed ANPR and its supporting Endangerment Technical Support Document (TSD) is in error, is incomplete or is misleading. There appears to be a significant omission of climate science data published after 2006. This is in violation of the Information Quality Act requirements. EPA acknowledges the likelihood of this problem as it asked for “best available science.”

The OMB guidelines note the Act applies to the “creation, collection, maintenance, and dissemination of information.” The basic standard of care is that information must be “accurate, clear, complete, and unbiased.” Stricter and even more rigorous quality standards apply when the information is “influential,” meaning it will “have a clear and substantial impact on important public policies...”

EPA has adopted the same provisions in its guidelines, adding that “influential” data must involve “the best available science and supporting studies conducted in accordance with sound and objective scientific practices.” (EPA Guidelines at §§5.1, 6.1-6.2, 6.4.)

These guidelines also apply to models. The EPA’s Council for Regulatory Environmental Modeling (CREM) has the responsibility for assuring that any model used by EPA complies with the IQA. In several specific comments below, we note none of the extant models illustrated in the IPCC AR4 WG1 report reproduce behavior of the last decade coupled to recent ocean-based shorter-term modeling.