Although the White House is denying any link, the White House official exposed as having manipulated a scientific report on climate change has resigned. Agence France Presse gives the story a global political context missing from most news accounts: The disclosure [of the White House's manipulation of the climate change report] turned into a diplomatic embarrassment for the White House because it came hours after President George W. Bush assured visiting British Prime Minister Tony Blair that his administration was viewing global warming as a "serious long-term" problem that it was determined to solve. But just as Blair was telling reporters about "a common commitment and desire to tackle the challenges of climate change," the US civic organization Government Accountability Project made public documents showing the White House trying to gloss over the problem's severity. The papers included a draft of a 2002 report by the US Climate Change Science Program that had been sent to Cooney for review and still contained his edits and remarks in the margins. It showed the White House official taking out a whole paragraph warning about higher temperatures resulting in melting glaciers and snow peaks in polar regions and having "serious impacts" particularly on Native American tribes that rely on fishing and hunting for their livelihood. In a remark on the margins, Cooney, who has no scientific background, appeared to upbraid scientists for "straying from research strategy into speculative findings."