Aide Who Debased Reports Finds Job at Exxon

This is a follow up on a very un-treehugger story we covered a couple of days ago. In a shocking and unexpected turn of events (who'd have thought!), that same aide - Philip Cooney - who resigned as chief of staff of the White House's Council on Environment Quality (look at the second point in the middle column!) because he was caught doctoring global warming reports will start a new career at Exxon next autumn. "This is one of the fastest revolving doors I have seen," said Henry Waxman, a Democratic Congressman. We recommend that you read our recent post about that company, and please consider protesting with your wallet by not buying gas from them.

Kert Davies, the US research director for Greenpeace, said: "The cynical way to look at this is that ExxonMobil has removed its sleeper cell from the White House and extracted him back to the mother ship."

It emerged last week that Mr Cooney, who has a law degree and no scientific training, watered down scientific papers on climate change and played up uncertainties in the scientific literature.

He had previously worked for the American Petroleum Institute, a lobby group that was vocal in countering the virtual consensus by scientists that manmade emissions are warming the planet.

A White House spokeswoman told the Associated Press his resignation was "completely unrelated" to the disclosure in the New York Times two days earlier that he had made changes in several government climate change reports issued in 2002 and 2003.

::The Guardian, ::Times Online, ::Ex-Oil Lobbyist Softened US Climate Research