Philip Cooney is the former chief of staff for President George W. Bush's Council on Environmental Quality and a former energy industry lobbyist. On June 8, 2005, The New York Times reported that it had obtained internal White House documents which proved that Cooney had altered national climate change reports during 2002 and 2003 to undermine consensus findings that greenhouse gas emissions contribute to global warming. Two days after the article was published, Cooney resigned his position as chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, and is due to start work for ExxonMobil in the fall of 2005. Prior to working for the Bush Administration, Cooney was a lawyer and lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute, an industry lobbying organization which has, since 1997, opposed emissions limits by claiming that there was too much uncertainty in climate science.

External links

• New York Times report on Cooney's resignation
• BBC News report on Cooney's resignation
• Senate Committe on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, press release September 24, 2003 Regarding an investigation into Cooney's attempts to "clean up the mess" after a report was issued which linked man-made greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to global warming.

Global warming skeptics