“Aligning reports” on global warming isn’t political-based science obstructionism?

Not if you’re Philip Cooley, former chief of staff at the Council on Environmental Quality, and before that director of climate change issues for the American Petroleum Institute.

In a House of Representatives climate change hearing:

[Rep. Henry] Waxman quoted an internal API document that identified climate change as the group's highest priority. He said a key API tactic was to spread doubt about climate change science, exaggerating scientific uncertainty and downplaying the role of humans in climate change.

“What bothers me is that you seem to take the exact same approach in the White House,” Waxman told Cooney.

Cooney, soft-spoken but increasingly red-faced as the hours went by, repeatedly stressed that his job was to align reports with administration policy, as reflected by a 2001 National Academy of Sciences report that indicated some doubt about climate change models.

He denied his aim was to sow doubt or that he had any loyalty to the oil industry, even as lawmakers pointed to some 181 changes he made to one document.

Nope, that’s not obstructing science, that’s just “aligning.”