NOAA (No Opposing this Administration's Attitudes)....

From the Rocky Mountain News we have the latest information about news management in the United States of America ......

Warren Washington, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, said that Bush appointees are suppressing information about climate change, restricting journalists' access to federal scientists and rewriting agency news releases to stress global warming uncertainties.
"The news media is not getting the full story, especially from government scientists," Washington told about 160 people attending the first day of "Climate Change and the Future of the American West," a three-day conference sponsored by the University of Colorado's Natural Resources Law Center.

.....Washington said in an interview that the climate cover-up is occurring at several federal agencies, including NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the U.S. Forest Service. NOAA operates several Boulder laboratories that conduct climate and weather research.
Washington's comments echoed statements made by NASA climate researcher James Hansen in a Jan. 29 article in The New York Times. Hansen said the Bush administration tried to stop him from speaking out after he called for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming.
......Washington insisted that government officials are "trying to confuse the public" about climate change and the scientific consensus that global warming is a real problem.

This is an eerie echo of what happened in the first Bush administration. We have already heard from Jim Hansen back in 1989, how the Office of Management and Budget changed his written testimony to a Senate Subcommittee, here is Jerry Malman,

Sen. Gore: Dr. Mahlman, have you ever had an experience with OMB attempting to change your presentation of scientific conclusions to the Congress?

Dr. Mahlman: I have experienced a somewhat subdued version of a similar phenomenon.

Sen. Gore: You have?

Dr. Mahlman: Yes. This was for testimony prepared for analogous hearing for the House Appropriations Committee on the 21st of February, and that in my organization, NOAA, the issue came down to a struggle as to whether if an individual scientist is asked to offer testimony whether he or she speaks for him or herself.

And I got a lot of comments, not only from OMB, but from other people in the agency in the name of clearance of testimony that I found objectionable and also unscientific, and I pointed out to them that if I were to adhere to these recommendations that I would have an integrated testimony which would be severely embarrassing to me in the face of my scientific colleagues and that I wished to get a clarification as to whether there is clearance of testimony by people who are outside my suptervisory line or are they merely offering review of testimony which I always find valuable.

I did get reviews from OMB. I did receive conclusions from them and others that should have been changed in my testimony, according to their assertion that I found unacceptable, and I said that I find this unacceptable and I insist on having the right to offer my own testimony in my own words.

We in the scientific community demand the right to be wrong because if we do not have the right to be wrong, we have squelched the right to be creative.

And I made it very clear that I am speaking for myself, not for my agency, nor for Commerce, nor for OMB, and that seemed to be the end of it, and effectively for this testimony I did not receive similar feedback.

Sen. Gore: Were these scientists at OMB?

Dr. Mahlman: Not to my knowledge. They are all anonymous

Sen. Gore: Dr. Hansen, were there scientists in OMB who ordered the change in your testimony?

Dr. Hansen: I do not know them personally, so I really cannot say.

Sen Gore: These are nameless, faceless individuals with whom you are dealing, is that correct?

Dr. Hansen: Yes.

Sen. Gore: Sort of like members of the Science Politburo of the Bush Administration.

And, of course, if anyone wants data on whether this has continued at NOAA, we have the word of, why, Jerry Mahlman, via Rick Piltz web site

Contrary to Dr. Lautenbacher’s assertions, I state emphatically that climate scientists within NOAA have indeed recently been systematically prevented from speaking freely to anyone outside NOAA who is seeking information on the new scientific insights that have added to the prodigious amount of information gained recently on the scientific understanding of our inexorably warming planet. It is quite distressing that Dr. Lautenbacher has chosen in his “Message” to pretend that NOAA climate scientists have not been forbidden from speaking freely about their scientific contributions to global warming science, unless the call is accompanied by an Administraton “minder” of the conversation. From my recent personal experience, his contention is simply not true. A number of NOAA scientists have directly and openly disagreed with Lautenbacher’s statements that deny his direct connection with censorship of climate science

And, of course, anyone interested in more data about NOAA suppression of science can look at this page from the Piltz web site for several stories, or go directly to this BBC story and webcast

A US government whistleblower tells Panorama how scientific reports about global warming have been systematically changed and suppressed.
Some of America's leading climate scientists claim to Panorama that they have been censored and gagged by the administration.
.....Another scientist from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) tells Panorama he had research which established global warming could increase the intensity of hurricanes. He was due to give an interview about his work but claims he was gagged.
......Panorama learns that some scientists are afraid that what they see as a cover up will leave it too late for the US to have any hope of controlling climate changes brought about by global warming.

or this one about fisheries in the West from the Washington Post

The Washington office of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration -- the agency responsible for protecting endangered salmon -- has instructed its representatives and scientists in the West to route media questions about salmon back to headquarters. Only three people in the entire agency, all of them political appointees, are now authorized to speak of salmon, according to a NOAA employee who has been silenced on the fish.
The order was issued the day after an article appeared last month in The Washington Post quoting federal technocrats making positive statements about two recent decisions -- one by a federal judge, the other by federal scientists -- that challenged previous Bush administration policy about protecting salmon in the troubled Klamath River, which flows out of Oregon into California.

And if you really wanted more data to show that NOAA is up to improved versions of it's old Bushite tricks, well Rick Piltz has a lot more on these activities at NOAA. Some of you might direct Rick's posts to the attention of the Captain Renault of climate blogging, who I am sure will be shocked, shocked to find that NOAA management is engaged in distorting science. We all know that Donald Kennedy, Kevin Trenberth, the IPCC, the FCCC are is the only one who do that.