WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) - A transparency watchdog has sued the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) over its alleged failure to provide documents involving a two-hour panel that categorized opposition to climate change initiatives as "disinformation" and "delay-ism."
Energy Policy Advocates (EPA) filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia alleging violations of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
“This is extremely interesting because essentially what the Office is doing is putting together counterintelligence about the people they disagree with on the science and they are not even telling anything about it,” said Robert Michaels, a retired California State University (CSU)-Fullerton economics professor.
A White House press release posted online states that OSTP Deputy Director for Climate and Environment Jane Lubchenco led the Feb. 24 remote roundtable, which consisted of White House leaders, 17 scientists, and communications experts.
"The request sought certain described correspondence of two named officials, Eric Lander and Jane Lubchenco, over an eight-week period of time, on any email account used at any time for work-related correspondence, that was sent to one or more of six or five named outside parties, respectively," wrote EPA attorney Matthew D. Hardin in the May 5 complaint. "This request pertained to an OSTP event on countering climate change denial and delay in which the Office brought in political activists to discuss social science which might explain political opposition to their demands."
It was widely reported that Lander, who was once President Biden’s top science adviser resigned after reports of bullying lower-ranking staff.
The OSTP was established by Congress within the executive branch in 1976 to advise presidents and their staff on the effects of science and technology on domestic and international affairs, however Schmidt Futures - a charity controlled by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt - indirectly paid the salary of the current senior advisor Marc Aidinoff for six weeks, according to media reports.
“The idea that somebody at a company that makes incredibly intrusive software is supposed to be guiding us in this bothers me,” Michaels told Legal Newsline. “It's a really clever way of end running the facts if those facts are in disagreement with the administration's consensus.”
As previously reported by Politico, Tom Kalil remained on Schmidt’s payroll while working pro bono as an OSTP consultant for four months after having served as deputy director for policy at OSTP under former President Obama. After concerns about ethics were raised, Kalil left.
The FOIA request submitted by EPA included queries about work-related email correspondence pertaining to members of the OSTP panel who were charged with discussing climate change denial and delay.
“There might also be risks to the premature hastening of policies that are not well formulated based on facts and it's fundamentally misleading that they don't even consider that there are uncertainties,” Michaels said. “There are a lot of smart people and respected scientists who are saying ‘think twice about this’ and if we don't think twice about it, we're basically just flailing.”
Counsel for EPA argued in their complaint that the public deserves to know, without further delay, about the OSTP’s effort to counter climate change opposition.
“Under normal circumstances of legislation or regulatory rule-making, the opposition would get at least some chance to have its day in court, but here it doesn't because the deck has been stacked at this point,” Michaels added.