In Washington, the White House has announced that Philip Cooney has resigned his post as chief of staff to President Bush’s Council on Environmental Quality. The resignation came just two days after it was revealed that Cooney had edited government reports to play down the effect of global warming. Before coming to the White House in 2001, he was a lobbyist at the American Petroleum Institute. The White House insisted his resignation was not connected to the new revelations and that Cooney had wanted to take the summer off.