Report suppressed by Bush administration shows global-warming risks

WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday released a copy of a long-suppressed report by officials in the George W. Bush administration concluding that, based on the science, the government should begin regulating greenhouse-gas emissions because global warming posed serious risks to the country.

The report, technically known as an "endangerment finding," was prepared in 2007, but the Bush White House refused to make it public because the administration opposed regulating the gases most scientists see as the major cause of global warming.

The existence of the finding — and the refusal of the Bush White House to make it public — were previously known. The Bush EPA draft was released in response to a public-records request under the Freedom of Information Act.

The document "demonstrates that in 2007 the science was as clear as it is today," said Adora Andy, an EPA spokeswoman. "The conclusions reached then by EPA scientists should have been made public and should have been considered."

A finding that greenhouse gases and global warming pose serious risks to the nation is a necessary step in the process of instituting government regulation. President Obama and congressional Democrats are pushing for major climate legislation, but if Congress fails to act, the administration has raised the possibility that it would use an EPA finding to enact regulation on its own.

In April, the administration released its own proposal for an endangerment finding. The newly released document from the Bush EPA shows that much of the Obama document embraced the earlier, suppressed finding word for word.

"Both reach the same conclusion — that the public is endangered and regulation is required," said Jason Burnett, a former associate deputy administrator who quit the EPA in June 2008 amid frustration over the Bush administration's inaction on climate change. "Science and the law transcend politics."

The 2007 draft warns that in the United States, climate change could lead to drought, more frequent hurricanes and other extreme weather events, increased respiratory disease and a rise in heat-related deaths.