Sep 11 2008
42 USC 8911: Comprehensive study of projected impact on atmospheric levels of fossil fuel combustion, etc.
Comprehensive study of projected impact on atmospheric levels of fossil fuel combustion, etc.
Below is an almost exact copy of Annex 3 of Changing Climate (1983) regarding who commissioned the report. I don’t know why it wouldn’t be exactly the same. The date was June 30, 1980; before Reagan took office. I’ll try to get a scanned copy up soon.
42 USC 8911
(a) Implementing agreement between Director of Office of Science and Technology and National Academy of Sciences; contents; conduct; status report by President respecting negotiations of Office (1) The Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy shall enter into an agreement with the National Academy of Sciences to carry out a comprehensive study of the projected impact, on the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, of fossil fuel combustion, coal-conversion and related synthetic fuels activities authorized in this Act, and other sources.
Such study should also include an assessment of the economic, physical, climatic, and social effects of such impacts.
In conducting such study the Office and the Academy are encouraged to work with domestic and foreign governmental and non-governmental entities, and international entities, so as to develop an international, worldwide assessment of the problems involved and to suggest such original research on any aspect of such problems as the Academy deems necessary. (2) The President shall report to the Congress within six months after June 30, 1980, regarding the status of the Office’s negotiations to implement the study required under this section. (b) Final report by Office and Academy; contents; prior clearance or review of work of Academy; recommendations A report including the major findings and recommendations resulting from the study required under this section shall be submitted to the Congress by the Office and the Academy not later than three years after June 30, 1980. The Academy contribution to such report shall not be subject to any prior clearance or review, nor shall any prior clearance or conditions be imposed on the Academy as part of the agreement made by the Office with the Academy under this section.
Such report shall in any event include recommendations regarding - (1) how a long-term program of domestic and international research, monitoring, modeling, and assessment of the causes and effects of varying levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide should be structured, including comments by the Office on the interagency requirements of such a program and comments by the Secretary of State on the international agreements required to carry out such a program; (2) how the United States can best play a role in the development of such a long-term program on an international basis; (3) what domestic resources should be made available to such a program; (4) how the ongoing United States Government carbon dioxide assessment program should be modified so as to be of increased utility in providing information and recommendations of the highest possible value to government policy makers; and (5) the need for periodic reports to the Congress in conjunction with any long-term program the Office and the Academy may recommend under this section. (c) Information from other Federal agencies and departments The Secretary of Energy, the Secretary of Commerce, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Director of the National Science Foundation shall furnish to the Office or the Academy upon request any information which the Office or the Academy determines to be necessary for purposes of conducting the study required by this section. (d) Separate assessment by Office of interagency implementation requirements The Office shall provide a separate assessment of the interagency requirements to implement a comprehensive program of the type described in the third sentence of subsection (b) of this section.
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3 Responses to “42 USC 8911: Comprehensive study of projected impact on atmospheric levels of fossil fuel combustion, etc.”
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So… Oreskes is wrong about who commissioned this study.
It doesn’t mean she is wrong about everything, but it does call it into doubt -W
Commisioned seems the wrong word; the CHicken Little/Pangloss paper has the detailed history, accurate as far as I can tell.
Some ambiguity comes from p.28, footnote 15, which says:
On June 15, 1981 the NRC formally charted the new committee with the task of reviewing and updating the conclusions of the Charney report, “in light of subsequent research and independent studies of similar scope,” under the provisions provided by the Energy Security Act.
P.32 mentions a Second meeting of the committee, April 3, 1981.
P.22 says:
“While the formal charge to the new committee was not forumulated until June of the following year, a committee was already in place by october 1980 with Niernenberg as its chair.”
Hence, the committee was set up under Carter, but didn’t get it’s explicit orders until later, under Reagan, with someone who’d been on Reagan’s transition team.
I’m not sure what the right wording is to describe all that tersely.
Dr. Mashey here is the quote from the Oreskes article published on Times on line.
“So Reagan commissioned a third report about global warming from Bill Nierenberg, who had made his name working on the Manhattan Project developing America’s atom bomb.”
What part of this sentence would you say is the truth even with the very stretched version you are working on. Did Reagan commission the report, or did the US Congress? Did Reagan select Bill Nierenberg or did the NAS? Was the report “from” Bill Nierenberg or from the NAS?
And by the way Dr. Nierenberg’s work on the Atom bomb was hardly how he “made his name.” He was not a central figure in that story. Other than the fact that for some this would be a negative it is hard to see why it was included here. But that is not the point.
If you want to say that Oreskes et al got it right in their paper that is fine. But I can’t see how you can defend this article. Some seem to be falling back on the argument that Oreskes didn’t write the article. I believe that she was responsible. My evidence is that her name is on it. What is your evidence?
By the way the charge to the committee that is included in report itself is the one that Atmoz has published here it is directly from the congressional legislation. There is no evidence that there were any changes to the charge after that.