White House climate officer Jane Lubchenko receives approval from scientific body
While serving as editor of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Lubchenko accepted articles for publication that were later retracted because of their reliance on outdated data. in law.
In a statement, Lubchenko said, “I accept these sanctions for my errors of judgment in editing a paper written by some of my collaborators. expressed,” he said.
A spokeswoman for the White House Office of Science declined to comment further, but the NAS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Axios first reported the move on Tuesday.
Republicans in Congress had previously expressed concern over the incident, saying Lubchenko’s actions appeared to violate the administration’s principles of scientific integrity.
“Dr. Lubchenko has demonstrated a clear disregard for rules designed to prevent conflicts of interest when publishing peer-reviewed research as editor of PNAS,” said the Republican Lawmakers wrote in a February letter to President Biden. “Today, Dr. Lubchenko is taking a leading role in developing and overseeing this administration’s best practices for scientific integrity.”
Established in 1976, the Office of Science and Technology Policy is responsible for overseeing the US Global Change Research Program, which coordinates climate research across 13 federal agencies. Every four years, this program produces the federal government’s most definitive and comprehensive report on climate science, known as the National Climate Assessment. The fifth report is scheduled for next year.
Lubchenko ran the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. President Barack Obama presided over his first term in February and held his first roundtable with some of the country’s leading climate scientists. Discussions centered on the urgent need to combat global warming and refuting arguments for delaying climate action.
“Clearly, we see concrete evidence of climate change all around us: rising sea levels, increasing heat waves, increasing droughts, wildfires and ocean acidification. [and] It’s a flood,” Lubchenko told The Washington Post.
“What we are seeing now is the result of past inaction,” she said. That’s it.”
The White House science department was rocked by a scandal earlier this year when Mr. Biden’s top science adviser, Eric Lander, resigned as director after an internal investigation found he had bullied and insulted staff. Lander apologized for abusing his men in a note to staff. Biden announced in June his intention to nominate Alathi Prabhakar to head the office.
If confirmed by the Senate, Prabhakar will become the first woman, immigrant, and person of color to become executive director.
