NOAA scientists drafted the report linking human activity with hurricane activity in February 2006. It was scheduled to be released to the public that May, but was prohibited from being released and published by the Commerce Department on "technical grounds."
The journal Nature quoted NOAA Administrator Conrad Lautenbacher as saying his agency could not take an official stand on the issue, making the report unreleasable. Nature pointed out that the report did not contain any specific policy statements, but was a discussion of hurricane science as it currently stood.
The Bush administration has been criticized in the past by the Union of Concerned Scientists, who claim "misuse of science" in connection with the administration. UCS is comprised of 100,000 citizens and scientists, and around 9,000 scientists signed a statement calling for scientific integrity in policymaking. So far, the group says that the Bush administration is not living up to that statement.
The statement reads in part, "When scientific knowledge has been found to be in conflict with its political goals, the administration has often manipulated the process through which science enters into its decisions...this has been done by placing people who are professionally unqualified or who have clear conflicts of interest in official posts and on scientific advisory committees; by disbanding existing advisory committees; by censoring and suppressing reports by the government's own scientists; and by simply not seeking independent scientific advice."
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