Philip Cooney works for ExxonMobil. His previous employment includes a 15-year tenure working for the American Petroleum Institute as a lobbyist and the organization's "climate team leader."
A career oil-man, Cooney was appointed Chief of Staff of the White House Council on Environmental Quality when George W. Bush assumed the Presidency in 2001. This institution shapes much of America's environmental policy. He served this role until 2005, when he briskly resigned amidst a scandal in which he was editing the language of official scientific reports on climate change.
In 2005, Rick S. Piltz, a former senior associate in the Climate Change Science Program -- the office that coordinates government climate research -- revealed the scandal in a memo released to the Government Accountability Project, a watchdog agency.
According to Plitz, during 2002 and 2003, Cooney consistently removed or adjusted descriptions of climate research that had already been approved. The edits were able to create an air of doubt about findings which were actually robust. A lawyer by trade, Cooney has no scientific credentials.
Two days after the New York Times exposed the scandal, Cooney resigned his position. Within a week, he was promptly hired by ExxonMobil.
During a 2007 Congressional Investigation, Cooney conceded to making the edits, explaining, "my sole loyalty was to the President and advancing the policies of his administration."
