Fox News falsely claimed EPA officials “questioned the science behind global warming policy”

Fox News anchor Alisyn Camerota falsely claimed that Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) lawyers Laurie Williams and Allan Zabel “questioned the science behind global warming policy” in a YouTube video that is critical of cap-and-trade proposals, and Fox News reporter William La Jeunesse suggested that the EPA's demand that the lawyers take down and edit the video to remove some of the references to the EPA violates President Obama's vow “to take the politics out of science.” In fact, in the video, Williams and Zabel affirmed the scientific case for action against global warming and called for “carbon fees” with rebates to address the problem.

Camerota falsely claimed Williams and Zabel “questioned the science behind global warming policy”

From the November 17 edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom:

CAMEROTA: Well, a congressional oversight panel is demanding answers from the Obama administration after it threatened disciplinary action against two long-time EPA climate experts who questioned the science behind global warming policy even though the husband and wife spoke out as just private citizens, the EPA ordered them to remove their 10-minute video from the web.

[...]

LA JEUNESSE: The bottom line is the video is down. Congress wants answers, and especially why, Alisyn, because it was the president who said he wanted to take the politics out of science, and this is a very important issue, as you know, facing Congress.

In fact, Williams and Zabel questioned the policy design, not the scientific case for action against global warming

Williams and Zabel affirmed the science behind action for climate change. In the YouTube video, Williams stated, “Scientists are convinced that further delay in cutting greenhouse gases means an unacceptable risk of climate catastrophe” and that a solution to climate change “requires cutting fossil fuel emissions to the atmosphere, which are the main cause of climate change.”

Williams and Zabel call for a carbon tax with rebates to fight climate change. In the Fox News report, Camerota and La Jeunesse falsely suggested that Williams and Zabel, who are EPA lawyers, not scientists as Fox News suggested, “questioned the science,” when, in fact, they questioned the policy design of a cap-and-trade bill with offsets and proposed a carbon tax to address climate change. From the YouTube video:

WILLIAMS: There are two critical parts of the real solution. First, we need to make sure that clean energy becomes cost competitive with uncontrolled fossil fuel energy within a known time frame. Second, we need to make sure that the energy people need remains affordable. To do this, we must gradually phase in carbon fees, slowly raising the price of uncontrolled fossil fuels until they are more expensive than the clean energy alternatives we have today. This transition can begin very gradually over the current recession and be phased in over the next 10 to 15 years. To keep energy affordable, carbon fees must be given back to consumers in monthly per person rebates.