BREAKING: EPA docs reveal Wheeler had zero basis for public climate denial

SEE THE DOCUMENTS - EPA COVER LETTER - RESPONSIVE DOCS

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Documents released by the Environmental Protection Agency in response to a lawsuit by the Sierra Club reveal that there was no factual basis for Administrator Andrew Wheeler’s false public claim that “most of the threats from climate change are 50 to 75 years out.” Wheeler, a coal lobbyist prior to being chosen by Donald Trump to be the nation’s top environmental officer, made the false claim in 2019 during his first nationally televised network interview with CBS News.

“Trump’s EPA just admitted what everyone already knew: Andrew Wheeler invented these false claims out of thin air as part of his ongoing work to protect the fossil fuel industry from accountability for driving and exacerbating the climate crisis,” said Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune. “Wheeler and Trump have a responsibility to protect our nation from the climate crisis, but instead they are doing everything they can to try and stop our progress by giving corporations free rein to pollute, and they are lying about it all the while.”

In response to a Sierra Club lawsuit filed last fall seeking all records that Wheeler relied on for his claim, EPA provided only the following: 

1) An interview prep sheet that does not reference anything related to the claim at all.

2) An email thread in which an EPA spokesperson tells a reporter, in an after-the-fact attempt to defend Wheeler’s statement, that scientists often measure climate impacts in decades-long timeframes. The comment amounts to nothing more than a general statement that has nothing to do with Wheeler’s false claim that “most of the threats” from climate change are 50-75 years out.

In fact, Wheeler’s claim directly contradicts the vast body of reputable scientific evidence, including the Trump administration’s own recent National Climate Assessment (NCA), authored by scientists from 13 federal agencies including Wheeler’s EPA. 

“Wheeler got caught making a baseless statement in a shameful attempt to avoid acknowledging that the climate crisis is already causing severe consequences at home and abroad,” said Sierra Club attorney Matthew Miller, who has been successfully litigating the FOIA case. “These documents further expose Andrew Wheeler as a leader of the Trump administration’s disgraceful climate denial, apathy, and obfuscation.”

Among the NCA’s many findings underscoring the ongoing and worsening nature of the climate crisis (Introduction, Pg. 34, 36):

• “Earth’s climate is now changing faster than at any point in the history of modern civilization, primarily as a result of human activities” 
  “The impacts of global climate change are already being felt in the United States” 
  “Observations collected around the world provide significant, clear, and compelling evidence that global average temperature is much higher, and is rising more rapidly, than anything modern civilization has experienced, with widespread and growing impacts”

In an analogous ordeal in 2017, Scott Pruitt, the since-disgraced EPA Administrator at the time, claimed during a CNBC interview that carbon dioxide does not contribute to climate change. After months of trying, the EPA had no choice but to admit that Pruitt’s claims were unsupported after Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) submitted a FOIA request and successfully sued EPA in federal court, forcing the agency to respond after it initially balked at the request.

MORE CLIMATE CONSEQUENCES HAPPENING NOW--DIRECTLY CONTRADICTING WHEELER--FROM THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT’S NATIONAL CLIMATE ASSESSMENT:

• FLOODING AND SEA LEVEL RISE: “Since the 1960s, sea level rise has already increased the frequency of high tide flooding by a factor of 5 to 10 for several U.S. coastal communities.” NCA, Page 98
  
  

• TEMPERATURE INCREASES: “Global average temperature has increased by about 1.8°F from 1901 to 2016, and observational evidence does not support any credible natural explanations for this amount of warming; instead, the evidence consistently points to human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse or heat-trapping gases, as the dominant cause.” NCA, Page 73
  
  

• HOTTEST YEARS ON RECORD: “each successive decade in the last 30 years has been the warmest in the period of reliable instrumental records (going back to 1850; Figure A5.15). In fact, the rate of warming has accelerated in the past several decades, and 17 of the 18 warmest years have occurred since 2001.” NCA, Page 1470

• WILDFIRES: “Analyses estimate that the area burned by wildfire from 1984 to 2015 was twice what would have burned had climate change not occurred. Furthermore, the area burned from 1916 to 2003 was more closely related to climate factors than to fire suppression, local fire management, or other non-climate factors.” NCA, Page 1115;

• “Climatic changes, including warmer springs, longer summer dry seasons, and drier soils and vegetation, have already lengthened the wildfire season and increased the frequency of large wildfires. Exposure to wildfire smoke increases the risk of respiratory disease, resulting in adverse impacts to human health.” NCA, Page 514
  
  

• CORAL BLEACHING: “Warming has led to mass bleaching and/or outbreaks of coral diseases off the coastlines of Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Florida, Hawai‘i, and the U.S.-Affiliated Pacific Islands ... that threaten reef ecosystems and the people who depend on them.” NCA, Page 355

• MILITARY ASSETS AND INFRASTRUCTURE: “Climate change is already affecting U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) assets by, among other impacts, damaging roads, runways, and waterfront infrastructure.” NCA, Page 613

• WATER INFRASTRUCTURE: “Changes in the frequency and intensity of climate extremes relative to the 20th century and deteriorating water infrastructure are contributing to declining community and ecosystem resilience.” NCA, Page 149

• INDIGENOUS COMMUNITY RELOCATION: “Throughout the United States, climate-related impacts are causing some Indigenous peoples to consider or actively pursue community re-location as an adaptation strategy, presenting challenges associated with maintaining cultural and community continuity.” NCA, Page 28

• INJURY, ILLNESS & DEATH: “Climate-related changes in weather patterns and associated changes in air, water, food, and the environment are affecting the health and well-being of the American people, causing injuries, illnesses, and death.” NCA, Page 541

In addition to the United States government, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) agrees that "Human-induced global warming has already caused multiple observed changes in the climate system" (IPCC Special Report, Page 177) and that the pace of serious change is far faster than Wheeler claimed: "Global warming is likely to reach 1.5°C between 2030 and 2052 if it continues to increase at the current rate." (IPCC Special Report, Page 6).

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