Dems: White House fudged climate change data

Democrats charged the White House with tampering with scientists, saying climate change research was "manipulated" to mislead the public about the seriousness of the issue, Reuters reports.

"The Bush administration has engaged in a systematic effort to manipulate climate change science and mislead policymakers and the public about the dangers of global warming," the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform said Monday.

"A partisan diatribe," spokeswoman Dana Perino said. (Btw, she recently made a guest appearance on NPR's "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me," where she confessed that when a reporter asked her if the Iran situation was like the Cuban Missile Crisis, she had to ask her husband what that was, young thing that she is -- she's 35.)

"Claims that this administration interfered with scientists and with the science are false," said James Connaughton, head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

But the Democratic report accused the White House of exaggerating scientific uncertainty about climate change when in fact there was very little doubt among mainstream scientists.

"There was a systematic White House effort to minimize the significance of climate change by editing climate change reports," they wrote.