Good climate scientists have no political agenda. They seek to apply their skills within the long-established norms of scientific inquiry to understanding what is happening to global climates and what that portends. Their findings are critical to ensuring that the U.S. government embraces the wisest possible climate policies. Ensuring the integrity of federally funded climate science should thus be a high priority for the U.S. government, which does most U.S. climate research. Unfortunately, the Bush administration has turned that priority on its head.

The administration's lack of respect for and efforts to manipulate science have been well established anecdotally. But on Tuesday, Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, convened a hearing to explore a new effort to document the anti-science bias.

Waxman's committee heard from the Union of Concerned Scientists, a highly regarded private group dedicated to preventing the misuse of science. The UCS recently conducted a survey of government climate scientists. It found that a remarkably large percentage had in one way or another personally experienced efforts to manipulate their science and to prevent them from publishing or speaking about the results. In numerous ways, the UCS said, "U.S. federal climate science has been filtered, suppressed and manipulated in the last five years." The entire report is available at www.ucsusa.org.

The reason for the political interference is clear: The Bush administration has an indefensible pro-business bias that trumps even the health and welfare of the nation's citizens. Because efforts to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming could have severe impacts on deep-pocket companies close to the administration, its perverse logic dictates that the global warming science be suppressed.

Ultimately that won't work; containing scientists is akin to herding cats. But the effort is despicable. Americans do not expect their government to put the needs of business ahead of the national interest or to interfere with legitimate scientific inquiry. The Bush administration has done both, to its shame.