(Cross posted from EnvironmentNC.com)
The lead article on
today?s Carolina Journal site exposes what was supposed to be an
arms length ?independent? peer review as an inside job. The
review is of the Appalachian State University?s Energy Center study of
the economic impact of the Center for Climate Strategies global warming proposals for North Carolina. These proposals have been
adopted as recommendations from the state?s Climate Action Plan
Advisory Group for possible enactment by the General Assembly or
directly by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, who
has claimed to have authority to enact some of these proposals without
legislative action.
The person who was chosen to run the peer review and hand-pick the
reviewers is a consultant to CCS and has received $31,500 in grant
money from CCS over the last 12 months. On the CCS web site his is
referred to as a member of the ?CCS Team.? Since CCS has no regular
employees he is as close as one can come to filling the role. One thing
that is clear about this peer review is that there is nothing
independent about it. As noted in the article, thus far there is only
one truly independent peer review of the the Energy Center study. This review was done by a team of Ph.D. economists who are experts in cost benefit analysis, from Suffolk University?s Beacon Hill Institute.
The Beacon Hill report is quite critical of the study, pointing to
serious flaws in methodology and basic errors in economics. The Energy
Center authors, neither of whom has any credentials in economics, have never responded to the Institute?s assessment of
their work. It should be noted that the reviewers chosen by the Center
for Climate Strategies remain anonymous with no indication of their
credentials or ties to the Energy Center, CCS or any other
environmental pressure group.
