Press Briefing by Dana Perino

Business Wire, Oct 24, 2007

And we have experts and scientists across this administration that can take a look at that testimony and say, this is an error, or this doesn't make sense. And so the decision on behalf of CDC was to focus that testimony on public health benefits -- there are public health benefits to climate change, as well, but both benefits and concerns that somebody like a Dr. Gerberding, who is the expert in the field, could address. And so that's the testimony that she provided yesterday, and I would refer you to her comments in Atlanta today, as well.

Q Can you just describe what the problem was? I mean, was it going too far? Were these alarmist --

MS. PERINO: No, I think what it is, is when you take -- when you try to summarize what is a very complicated issue and you have many different experts who have a lot of opinions, and you get testimony less than 24 hours before it's going to be given, you -- scientists across the administration were taking a look at it, and there were a decision that she would focus where she is an expert, which is on CDC.

Anybody who wants to look at what the President thinks about climate change looks -- needs to only look back three weeks ago to when he gave a major address on climate change when he invited all 15 of the major economies of this world to come together to work on a solution -- work on a path to get to a solution to help the growth of greenhouse gas emissions. And we have an open book on the subject.

Q But would it have been outside her purview to say that the CDC considers climate change a serious public health concern?

MS. PERINO: No, I think that -- she has said that before. And in fact, she just -- she was telling us that she has co-authored a -- one of the folks there at CDC has just co-authored a major paper that ran in a publication about that very issue. So CDC is on record saying that climate change is a public health concern, and we agree.

Q What is the current U.S. assessment of Fidel Castro's health, and did that play any role at all in the timing for the President's speech today?

MS. PERINO: Well, what we do know is he's still alive. We don't have any other information about the state of his health or how he's feeling. But clearly we are nearing -- he's nearing the twilight years, the end of his life, and because of that, we see a groundswell of support growing in Cuba for democracy. And what the President will do today is stand up for those deprived of their fundamental rights in Cuba.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights should apply to everybody and everyone in the Western Hemisphere. People of Cuba don't necessarily get to have those benefits. And the President will stand up today and say that we are not asking countries to endorse our embargo policy, but we are asking them to seriously consider helping those people get to a democracy. There are many countries who have been helpful that -- with that in the past. To name a few, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland has been very supportive. But they -- pro-democracy activists in the UK and France and Germany have also supported human rights in Cuba, and the President will have a very strong speech in just about 20 minutes.