Exxon recruits accused Bush official

A FORMER White House environmental official, accused of doctoring reports on global warming, is joining oil major ExxonMobil.

The company confirmed that Philip Cooney, the former chief of staff of the White House Council on Environmental Quality and a former energy industry lobbyist, will start work in the autumn.

Cooney quit his White House post days after the New York Times reported that he had changed government reports to cast doubt on the global warming phenomenon.

The report said he had deleted some paragraphs and edited others drafted by government scientists. Exxon refused to say what his new job would entail.

Before President Bush recruited Cooney, he worked for the American Petroleum Institute, a lobby group for the oil industry.

The White House has denied that his departure is linked to the document-tampering allegations, which it also refutes.

The Administration said his intervention in the reports was part of "a normal inter-agency review of all documents related to global environmental change".

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters: 'Mr Cooney has long been considering his options following four years of service to the administration.

'He had accumulated many weeks of leave, and decided to resign and take the summer off.'