Cuts in climate testimony fire up debate

USA TODAY, July, 2008 by Robert Davis

WASHINGTON -- Some of the government's top scientists were forced by Vice President Cheney's office to downplay the health dangers of global warming when testifying before Congress, a former senior EPA official said Tuesday.

The White House denies any coverup, and the agencies involved say they still got their message across.

Jason Burnett, 31, who resigned last month as the Environmental Protection Agency's associate deputy administrator, refused to name who forced the deletion of health concerns.

The testimony was part of an October Senate hearing on the impact of global warming.

Before the hearing, Cheney's office and the White House's Council on Environmental Quality wanted "any discussions of the human health consequences of climate...