Rep. Lamar Smith
Seven organizations representing hundreds of thousands of scientists are fighting a Texas Republican congressman’s effort to refute a federal agency’s report on climate change.
Representative Lamar Smith, chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, has subpoenaed scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), demanding they provide copies of internal emails related to their research. Smith claims the NOAA scientists have manipulated their findings in a paper published in the June issue of Science that said there has not been a pause in the increase in worldwide temperatures. He even alleged that researchers manipulated data to promote President Obama’s agenda on climate change, according to The Washington Post.
Smith, a climate change skeptic, has not only subpoenaed agency researchers, who have refused to comply, but has warned he will subpoena Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker,
who oversees the NOAA.
Pritzker and seven scientific organizations have not backed down in the face of Smith’s threats, going so far as to accuse the congressman of conducting “a partisan witch hunt” and “inquests.”
“The repercussions of the committee’s actions could go well beyond climate science, setting a precedent to question other topics such as genetically modified organisms and vaccines that have controversial regulatory and policy implications,” the groups wrote in a letter (pdf) to Smith.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the country’s oldest and largest general scientific society, was the lead signatory, followed by the American Chemical Society, American Geophysical Union, American Meteorological Society, American Statistical Association, Ecological Society of America and Geological Society of America.
“This is not just a few scientists grousing about somebody besmirching the work of a group of scientists,” Rush Holt, chief executive officer of the AAAS, told the Post. “It’s an affront to the scientific process.”
-Noel Brinkerhoff
To Learn More:
Standoff over Government Climate Study Provokes National Uproar by Scientists (by Lisa Rein, Washington Post)
America’s Scientists to House Science Committee: Go Away (by Samantha Page, ThinkProgress)
Science Group’s Letter to Rep. Lamar Smith
Florida Environmental Dept. Employees Told to not use Terms “Climate Change” and “Global Warming” (by Danny Biederman and Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)
Chevron Lobbyist Lands Job with House Science Committee (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)
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