Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), the chair of the House Science Committee and noted climate change denier, has embarked on a mission to show that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) altered data for a study concluding that there has not been a recent pause in global warming.
The NOAA has refused to completely fulfill Smith’s document request due to concerns over the confidentiality of communications between scientists, prompting numerous statements from Smith blasting the agency.
He sent a letter to NOAA Administrator Kathryn Sullivan on Wednesday demanding that the agency turn over the documents requested in a House subpoena by Friday.
“Contrary to NOAA’s public comments, it is not the position of NOAA to determine what is, or is not, responsive to the Committee’s investigation or whether certain communications are confidential,” he wrote in the letter.
“NOAA has failed to fully explain the conditions surrounding its process and procedures for adjusting upward temperature readings that eliminated the ‘pause’ in global warming. Deficiencies in NOAA’s response to the Committee’s request raises serious concerns about what role officials at NOAA, including political appointees, had in the decision to adjust the temperature data and widely publicize conclusions based on those adjustments.”
The congressman in July asked the NOAA to provide Congress with the data is used in its latest climate study and internal documents on the scientists discussions of the research. Smith targeted a study released by the NOAA in June that contradicted previous studies’ conclusions that global warming has slowed since the 1990s, according to Nature.
The NOAA sent information on the study and the researchers’ methodologies to Smith and the committee, but declined to release its internal discussions.
“Because the confidentiality of these communications among scientists is essential to frank discourse among scientists, those documents were not provided to the Committee,” the agency said, according to Nature. “It is a long-standing practice in the scientific community to protect the confidentiality of deliberative scientific discussions.”
The GOP congressman than accused the NOAA of conducting a political study.
“NOAA needs to come clean about why they altered the data to get the results they needed to advance this administration’s extreme climate change agenda,” Smith said in a statement, according to Nature. “The Committee intends to use all tools at its disposal to undertake its Constitutionally-mandated oversight responsibilities.”
NOAA spokeswoman Ciaran Clayton promptly defended the NOAA study from Smith’s accusations.
“There is no truth to the claim that the study was politically motivated or conducted to advance an agenda,” she said, according to The Hill. “The published findings are the result of scientists simply doing their job, ensuring the best possible representation of historical global temperature trends is available to inform decisionmakers, including the U.S. Congress.”
Smith then subpoenaed NOAA Administrator Kathryn Sullivan on Oct 13, prompting the House Science Committee’s ranking member, Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), to rail against the committee chair’s “fishing expedition.”
She wrote in a letter to Smith that the internal communications related to the NOAA study are “not an area of delegated legislative authority” and that Smith has not given a legitimate reason for the agency to hand the documents over.
“By issuing this subpoena, you have instigated a Constitutional conflict with an inquiry that seems more designed to harass climate scientists than to further any legitimate legislative purpose,” Johnson wrote.
The American Meteorological Society published an open letter to Smith on Wednesday defending the NOAA’s refusal to comply with Smith’s requests, prompting the committee chair’s latest letter to the NOAA, as Ars Technica reported.
“Singling out specific research studies, and implicitly questioning the integrity of the researchers conducting those studies, can be viewed as a form of intimidation that could deter scientists from freely carrying out research on important national challenges,” the letter reads.
The Union of Concerned Scientists has also criticized Smith’s decision to subpoena the NOAA, describing it as a “witch hunt.”
"NOAA needs to come clean about why they altered the data to get the results they needed to advance this administration’s extreme climate change agenda,” Smith said in a statement, according to Nature.
Ah yes, the good congressman isn’t coming to the hearings with a pre-conceived verdict … oh no, not at all.
Shorter NOAA: Go suck an egg Lamar.
Lamar Smith is the man for whom the word “shitheel” was coined.
"“Singling out specific research studies, and implicitly questioning the integrity of the researchers conducting those studies, can be viewed as a form of intimidation that could deter scientists from freely carrying out research on important national challenges,”
That would be the whole point, yes. Feature, not a bug.
In fact, if these internal memos, etc., become public, I wouldn’t be surprised if one of them contains warnings or sentiment that they expect to be investigated by the GOP for publishing data and conclusions the GOP predictably wouldn’t like at all. The GOP/Teatrolls will then have that person as a witness and say “AH HA!!! SEE!!! YOU KNEW YOU WERE ENGAGED IN WRONGDOING!!!” The poor scientist guy will then have to say “No, I was expressing my concern that, knowing the GOP controls the House and knowing how much they deny climate change, I’d end up sitting in this very chair facing these very accusations for simply reporting what I believed is the truth and good science.” Of course, he’ll never get through that sentence because the Teatrolls know that’s his answer and will interrupt and scold and berate him to prevent him from every getting it on the record. This all plays out exactly how you can imagine it and, frankly, I’m not sure it’s good tv anymore.
I’ve just about come to the conclusion that the Republican Party’s death spiral is irreversible. This isn’t just a McCarthy-like witchhunt against political enemies, it’s an attack on the process of science itself. And who within the party is still trying to defend rational thought processes? - Lindsey Graham? - George Pataki?
Even corrupt observers can swallow only so much. Just as you saw the national media abruptly change its mind on the Benghazi hearings, you’ll probably get to a point in the not-distant future at which Paul Krugman’s serious people stop pretending that these guys are a responsible, capable political party.