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WH science office sued over polar vortex video

By Laura Barron-Lopez - 10/29/14 03:17 PM EDT

A libertarian think tank is suing the White House science office over a video claiming that the polar vortex, a major cold front, is tied to climate change.

In its lawsuit against the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) before the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) questions the science behind the video released last year.

The video in question was posted by the White House in January and features the president’s science adviser, John Holdren.

In the video, Holdren tells the public “if you’ve been hearing that extreme cold spells disprove global warming, don’t believe it.”

CEI petitioned the administration’s science office to “correct its claim” citing federal guidelines in April. But the White House rejected those calls in June, arguing that Holdren’s statement was “personal opinion” and therefore exempt from the law.

The think tank also filed a Freedom of Information Act request for documents related to the video’s production, but the science office released little information.

“If this video really represented Dr. Holdren’s personal opinion, then it’s bad enough that OSTP spent taxpayer dollars to produce and post it on the White House website,” said Sam Kazman, general counsel for CEI.

“But for the agency to refuse to disclose documents related to the video in order to protect what it claims are internal deliberations is doubly ridiculous. Perhaps OSTP should give us a new video titled ‘The Holdren Document Vortex Explained in 2 Hours,'” Kazman added.