Max Mayfield: 'No One Forced Me to Say Anything'

ABC News ^ | Dec. 11, 2007 | CLAYTON SANDELL

[Freeport]

The former director of the National Hurricane Center says political pressure did not cause him to change his congressional testimony to downplay the link between global warming and hurricanes  contradicting the findings of a Democratic led investigation released Monday.

"I can truthfully say that no one told me at any time what to say in regard to possible impacts of climate change on tropical cyclones," said Max Mayfield in an e-mail to ABC News.

Mayfield was responding to questions about a section in a new report titled "Political Interference With Climate Change Science Under the Bush Administration"  the end result of a 16-month investigation by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The committee is chaired by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif.

The report notes that in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Mayfield was due to testify at a Sept. 2005 hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee on disaster prevention. The connection between global warming and stronger hurricanes had been getting renewed attention after new scientific studies released over the previous summer.

The Waxman report details an e-mail from Tom Jones, a staffer for Alaska's Republican Sen. Ted Stevens, that he wrote to Noel Turner, an employee in the Office of Legislative Affairs at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in the days leading up to the hearings. Jones apparently wanted Mayfield to say that global warming was not making hurricanes stronger.

...

[Freeport]

As can be expected of the DIMs...

[Major Matt Mason]

Yes, you'd think with all the hurricanes we've had the past couple of year...oh, wait, never mind.

[HardStarboard]

Waxman’s nostrilitus is more likely to cause a hurricane than Global Warming.

[steelyourfaith]

~~Anthropogenic Global Warming ™ ping~~