The k2p blog

The US Inspector General has issued a report of an investigation into how the Department of the Interior manipulated and altered a 30-day report from the National Academy of Engineers. It was in response to the explosion of British Petroleum’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig on April 20th 2010, that the Department of the Interior declared a moratorium on deepwater drilling, which it extended for six months on  May 27th claiming support from the 30 day report. But the executive summary implied – falsely – that the moratorium decision had been peer-reviewed by the National Association of Engineers. The President’s Climate Change Advisor Carol Browner was the key figure involved in altering the language to make the false implication.

What is disturbing is not that politicians make political decisions but it is their cowardice in standing for their own views when they distort and manipulate what professional engineers and scientists say to imply – falsely – that there is objective support for their views.

The cover letter addressed to Secretary Salazar begins:

The Office of Inspector  General (OIG) completed its investigation into the allegation that senior U.S. Department of  the Interior (DOl) officials, in an effort to help justify their decision to impose a 6-month moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf  of  Mexico, misrepresented that the moratorium was reviewed and supported by a group of  scientists and industry experts.

The scientists and industry experts who peer reviewed the safety recommendations contained in the 30-Day Report to the President, relative to deepwater drilling operations in the Outer Continental Shelf, expressed concern that the Executive Summary to the 30-Day Report – which contained a policy decision by the Secretary of  the Interior to  recommend a 6-month moratorium on deepwater exploratory drilling – was worded in a manner that implied that the experts had also peer reviewed and supported this policy decision. 

All DOl officials interviewed stated that it was not their intention to imply that the
moratorium had been peer reviewed by the experts, and that when the experts ‘ concern was brought to their attention, they promptly issued an apology to the experts via conference call, letter, and personal meeting. 

That the executive summary was to be a political document with a pre-determined conclusion is apparent from the investigative report:

… Black then explained that the decision to invoke the moratorium on current deepwater drilling projects was a policy decision made by Secretary Salazar and President Obama. Black further stated that there were some discussions about various parameters of a potential moratorium with the peer reviewers; the moratorium recommendation, however, as ultimately issued by DOI, was never peer reviewed by the experts.

According to Black, Secretary Salazar sent a Decision Memorandum to President Obama outlining the findings in the Report and his recommendation for a 6-month moratorium on current deepwater offshore drilling prior to meeting with the President on the evening of Wednesday, May 25, 2010.  Black said that he was not a part of that meeting, but that after the meeting Secretary Salazar told him that the President wanted to “sleep on [the idea of the moratorium]” overnight before making a final decision. Accordingly, Black said that Secretary Salazar instructed him to draft two different Executive Summaries to the Report; one including the decision to invoke the moratorium and a second not including the moratorium. Black said that the next morning Secretary Salazar directed him to begin working closely with a member of Carol Browner’s staff at the White House to draft the Executive Summary to include the moratorium.

Black said that he initially drafted the Executive Summary, which included, at the behest of Salazar, the mention that the recommendations contained in the Report were peer reviewed by experts outside of the Government. Black said that Salazar felt it was very important to have the recommendations undergo the peer review process and he wanted this stressed in the Executive Summary.

After he drafted the Executive Summary, Black sent it to a member of Browner’s staff at the White House. According to Black, Browner was concerned that the Executive Summary did not summarize the recommendations and the associated timetables well enough; therefore, Browner’s staff drafted some of the text to be included in the Executive Summary themselves. After several iterations between him and Browner’s staff, Black said that he received a final version of the Executive Summary from the White House “around 2 or 3am” the morning it was ultimately finalized. After receiving the final product from the White House, Black said that he reviewed the final draft; he did not have any issues with the text added by the White House.

A registered Professional Engineer was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2005 due to his work on offshore safety; the engineer was asked to participate in a peer review of the Report’s recommendations. Following issuance of the final Report and the concomitant Executive Summary, the engineer sent a letter to Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and U.S. Senators Mary Landrieu and David Vitter, expressing concern that his name, along with other peer reviewers, was used by Secretary Salazar to justify the 6-month deepwater drilling moratorium. The letter was co-signed by several other peer reviewers.

“A group of those named in the Secretary of Interior’s Report, “INCREASED SAFETY MEASURES FOR ENERGY DEVELOPMENT ON THE OUTER CONTINENTAL SHELF” dated May 27, 2010 are concerned that our names are connected with the [deepwater drilling] moratorium as proposed in the executive summary of the report. There is an implication that we have somehow agreed to or “peer reviewed” the main recommendation of that report. This is not the case.” [emphasis is included in the original letter]

Tags: Carol Browner, Deepwater Horizon, Department of the Interior, distortion of science, drilling mratorium, Inspector General, Salazar, United States Secretary of the Interior

This entry was posted on November 17, 2011 at 11:14 am and is filed under Alarmism, Politics, scientific misconduct. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.