by Steve Milloy, E&E Legal Senior Policy Fellow and Junkscience.com Founder
As appearing in the Washington Times
Climate activists are trying to derail the Trump Environmental Protection Agency’s effort to rescind the Obama EPA’s 2009 endangerment finding for greenhouse gases. The plan includes litigation supported by a rigged review of climate science from the National Academy of Sciences.
The academy pioneered a rigged scientific review 70 years ago when it undertook to thwart the budding nuclear power industry. Examining what the academy did to the nuclear industry in 1955 will reveal what the organization has planned for the Trump administration this year.
The National Academy of Sciences was chartered by Congress in 1863 to advise the federal government on scientific and technological matters. The idea was for the government to fund the academy in a consulting role, but that was not what happened in 1955.
Congress established the federal Atomic Energy Commission in 1946 to foster the development of atomic energy. The commission was responsible for setting radiation safety practices. However, the Rockefeller Foundation, established and funded by Standard Oil magnate John D. Rockefeller, lobbied President Eisenhower in 1955 to allow the National Academy of Sciences to usurp the Atomic Energy Commission’s role in setting standards.
