Stephen McIntyre Comments on the Proposed Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases

1. The Proposed Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases Under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act (the Finding) and its associated Technical Support Document (TSD) are “highly influential scientific assessments” and are therefore required to comply with section III of the OMB Peer Review Guidelines and accompanying Information Bulletin (OMB 2002; 2004) and the EPA Guidelines for Ensuring and Maximizing the Quality, Objectivity, Utility and Integrity of Information Disseminated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA 2002) (the “EPA Guidelines”), which include by reference other EPA policy manuals, including the EPA Quality Manual (EPA 2000) and the EPA Peer Review Handbook (EPA 2006a).

2. The EPA elected to rely “heavily” on “existing” scientific assessments carried out by external parties. EPA guidelines and policies establish procedures which EPA is required to comply with, prior to utilizing scientific assessments carried out by external parties, including international bodies. These procedures include the submission of the scientific assessment by the external party to EPA together with its peer review record and the evaluation of the submission by EPA officials to evaluate the scientific content and the external party’s peer review process. The TSD failed to state that EPA complied with these procedures and there is considerable evidence that EPA did not do so.

3. Although the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has a peer review process, their peer review process does not comply with the OMB and EPA policies for influential scientific assessments in many important respects, including, without limitation, non-compliance in the provision of data to reviewers and transparency. Had the EPA actually carried out the examination of IPCC peer review policy that is required prior to EPA use, it would undoubtedly have identified these and other shortcomings.

4. Further, the peer review process of the TSD itself failed to comply with relevant OMB Guidelines.