Cheney's Staff Cut Testimony on Climate: EPA Official

Aides to Vice President Dick Cheney censored congressional testimony on climate change by a top government official, a former official at the Environmental Protection Agency charges. Jason Burnett claims Cheney’s office, fearing testimony would lead to greater regulation of greenhouse gases, excised six pages of text regarding the health risks of global warming by the director of the Centers for Disease Control last fall, the AP reports.

At a press conference this afternoon alongside Burnett, Sen. Barbara Boxer, chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works committee, demanded administrator Stephen Johnson disclose the EPA’s findings on global warming. "I'm calling on Mr. Johnson to act now, and if he doesn't have the courage or the strength or determination to act, he should resign," Boxer said. (More Environmental Protection Agency stories.)