WASHINGTON, June 10: Two senior US lawmakers on Thursday called for a congressional probe into charges the White House altered government documents to cast doubt on the generally-accepted scientic consensus about the causes and effects of global warming.

Representative Henry Waxman and Senator John Kerry asked the General Accountability Office (GAO) — Congress’s investigative arm — to look into a recent whistleblower report that a former oil industry lobbyist altered government reports on global warming.

The allegations were reported in the New York Times on Wednesday.

“We request that the Government Accountability Office investigate the extent to which White House officials and political appointees at federal agencies have interfered with federally funded science on global warming,” said Kerry and Waxman.

“Unfortunately, the incidents reported by the Times are simply the latest in a pattern of interference with climate science by the Bush Administration,” the Democratic lawmakers said. —AFP