The Washington Post is reporting that the White House barred a senior State Department intelligence analyst from issuing a testimony describing climate change as “possibly catastrophic” to the House Intelligence Committee. The White House objected to references to the science around man-made climate change. Rod Schoonover was permitted to appear before the House panel, but his written testimony was blocked from being entered into official record. His testimony read, “Absent extensive mitigating factors or events, we see few plausible future scenarios where significant—possibly catastrophic—harm does not arise from the compounded effects of climate change.”

One of those who objected was National Security Council official William Happer, an architect of the Trump administration’s climate policy and a known climate science denier who once compared the fight against climate change to the Holocaust. He reportedly said that the report includes “climate alarm propaganda” and that the phrase “tipping points” is “a propaganda slogan for the scientifically illiterate.”