Chris White reports at the Daily Caller:

A former member of the Obama administration claims Washington, D.C., often uses "misleading" news releases about climate data to influence public opinion.

Former Energy Department Undersecretary Steven Koonin told The Wall Street Journal Monday that bureaucrats within former President Barack Obama's administration spun scientific data to manipulate public opinion.

"What you saw coming out of the press releases about climate data, climate analysis, was, I'd say, misleading, sometimes just wrong," Koonin said, referring to elements within the Obama administration he said were responsible for manipulating climate data.

Hurricane frequencey is a case in point, according to Koonin. "He pointed to a National Climate Assessment in 2014 showing hurricane activity has increased from 1980 as an illustration of how federal agencies fudged climate data," White reports. "Koonin said the assessment was technically incorrect," according to White.

“What they forgot to tell you, and you don't know until you read all the way into the fine print, is that it actually decreased in the decades before that," the former Obama official said, according to the Daily Caller. 

Actually, according to Koonin, what at work here is not so much "forgetting" but, rather, achieving a desired result.

"Press officers work with scientists within agencies like the National Oceanic Administration (NOAA) and NASA and are responsible for crafting misleading press releases on climate, he added," according to the Daily Caller.

"Koonin is not the only one claiming wrongdoing," White continues. "House lawmakers with the Committee on Science, Space and Technology, for instance, recently jumpstarted an investigation into NOAA after a whistleblower said agency scientists rushed a landmark global warming study to influence policymakers," White reports.

"Koonin, who served under Obama from 2009 to 2011, went on to lament the politicization of science, suggested that the ethos should be to 'tell it like it is. You're a scientist and it is your responsibility to put the facts on the table'," the DC states.

Government-transmitted propaganda has consequences, of course. "NASA and NOAA's actions, [Koonin] said, are problematic, because 'public opinion is formed by the data that is formed from those organizations and appears in newspapers'," the DC reports.

The Daily Caller News Foundation requested comment from both NASA and NOAA, but "neither agency responded," according to the DC.