From Politico
Leading House climate skeptic Jim Sensenbrenner appears to have landed a perch to lead investigations into global warming science.
The Wisconsin Republican is set to become the vice chairman of the House Science Committee under incoming Chairman Ralph Hall (R-Texas), Hall told POLITICO Thursday.
“With his background, his insistence, he can do the mean things that we don’t want to do,” Hall said. “I’m a peaceful guy; he likes combat.”
Sensenbrenner, who has served as the top Republican on the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming since 2007, tried to keep the panel alive to investigate the Obama administration’s global warming policies, but was shot down by GOP leadership.
Sensenbrenner agreed to take the No. 2 spot on the Science Committee in exchange for Hall’s backing in two years when his term limit runs out, according to a Republican select committee spokesman.
As one of the Republicans leading the charge against the science underpinning the Obama administration’s climate policies, Sensenbrenner is expected to take a lead role on investigations.
“I’ve had a reputation of really being a tiger on oversight,” he said in September.
Elsewhere on the Science Committee, Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.) will become chairman of the Investigations and Oversight subpanel next year.
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You folks South of the 49th sure make things complicated…but I think I like this:)
Let’s not all hit Rep Sensenbrenner with our shopping lists at once, now…
This will only be as good as the genuine science he can bring into the debate. I hope he doesn’t call cranks as witnesses. And the GOP often confuses the environmental issues with climate. Just as the Democrats often confuse science with economics.
what we need to go along with better vetting of the science is better surface temperature measurement. Anthony, when is there going to be a result from the Surfacestations project?
REPLY: There’s a result now, in fact there has been for months, we are waging the journal war at the moment. – Anthony
Sounds promising, but will results come too late to prevent Huhnian energy policies destroying the UK economy?
I saw him during the house committee meetings when they were interviewing the alarmists and skeptics on global warming. I like him , he will at least dig deep into the details. If he comes out and becomes an alarmist, I may change coats, but as of now, I am not convinced….
Well, that’s what they’re there for. To do mean things. Looking forward to the next congress, when we can have real investigations.
Congress has the spending power for our tax dollars. It is high time that someone like Sensenbrenner step in and halt the madness in the EPA and in insane appropriations to solve problems that don’t exist. Perhaps he can even get at the truth about ethanol in gasoline, CFL bulbs, and all the other lies we are being made to swallow–and pay for. Go Sensenbrenner!
The last thing that good science needs is a Congressional witch-hunt. Rather than call people up to Congress to speak, Congress needs to properly establish facts and ensure that Federal standards are being adhered to.
He should get on it right away in January.
Just read some of the comments on the original article and the viewpoints expressed confirm what we already know, that the gulf between believers and sceptics is simply unbridgeable. Believers think sceptics are anti-science nuts who will not look at the facts. Sceptics. of course, think pretty much the same about the true believers.
One commenter ,without any sense of irony, expressed the hope that Sensenbrenner would look at both sides of the argument, not realising that if the warmists had allowed both sides to be heard originally there would be no need for Sensenbrenner to be calling for investigations now.
And repeating for any WUWT readers who may have missed it, one investigation ought to involve the specific manner in which skeptic scientists have been smeared with an unsupported accusation based on an old memo which no one is allowed to see, as I detailed in my Breitbart article, “How an Enviro-Advocacy Group Propped Up Global Warming in the MSM – A Nov 2 Election Connection” http://bigjournalism.com/rcook/2010/11/02/how-an-enviro-advocacy-group-propped-up-global-warming-in-the-msm-a-nov-2-election-connection/
I would suggest that he avoid personal witch hunts against Mann and others.
that ONLY gives them talking points.
Fix the process.
1. Open data and money to support open data. ( data is being lost by the terabyte)
2. Free the code and money to support free code.
3. More money for reclaiming stored historical data.
4. An official statistical office for generating a US/world temperature series.
Get a PRO agenda going. If you use your political power to punish no good will result.
I watched Mann spin the story into a personal attack on him by political power. And to some extent he was right. When politicans picked up the climategate story they picked on all the wrong things and they got facts wrong. ( like Palin saying hide the decline was about declining temps).
I hope he reads my blog.
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok
Yes, let’s ask them to do real science … and have the peer review process be more open!
So far, so good.
Tread carefully but firmly.
“I would suggest that he avoid personal witch hunts against Mann and others”
I disagree.
Crush Mann and the Team. Cut off funding to their institutions.
Make every “Science” Journal tha has published the hockey stick put FICTION in bold letters on the front cover of all future issues.
The AGW fanatics have betrayed the world and must be punished.
my prediction: nothing will happen.
Steven Mosher says:
December 17, 2010 at 10:32 am
“I would suggest that he avoid personal witch hunts against Mann and others.
that ONLY gives them talking points…..”
========================================================
Steve, you know they will perceive any inspection of the science as a personal attack. And respond accordingly. My sense is, one might as well get to the heart of the matter and quickly. Anybody paying attention should be well prepared to hear howls of protest and claims of personal vilification.
Hopefully, the people like Sensenbrenner have been paying enough attention to know where to start or at least have enough sense to consult someone that has been engaged in the debate for a while.
Mosher, Palin said: “The e-mails reveal that leading climate “experts” deliberately destroyed records, manipulated data to “hide the decline” in global temperatures, and tried to silence their critics by preventing them from publishing in peer-reviewed journals.”
By putting “hide the decline” in quotes, she was pointing out the gross maniputlation of data and it wasa shortcut to the real problem, splicing decline proxy temperatures.
You aren’t dumb enought to try and cover up for the Team and you can’t possible deny they were hiding the decline of the proxy temperatures?
Mosher, you can’t help but side with the lefties when you get a chance. It ruins what little credibility you had left.
pat says:
December 17, 2010 at 9:59 am
This will only be as good as the genuine science he can bring into the debate. I hope he doesn’t call cranks as witnesses. And the GOP often confuses the environmental issues with climate. Just as the Democrats often confuse science with economics.
I don’t think it’s so much that democrats (or socialists in the broader sense) “confuse science with economics” – it’s more that they generally just have a warped sense of economics. It’s a generalisation, but those of a socialist bent seem to be happy to delude themselves that green policies are actually good (or at least harmless) for the economy – they convince themselves that green policies actually create more jobs, conveniently missing the obvious point that these “jobs” exist at taxpayer expense, and at the expense of twice as many free-market jobs (and I use the term “free market” very very loosely, since there hasn’t really been a truly free market for generations).
will 2 years be enough time….with all the road blocks they will throw up at them, they may never get to the ‘facts’
The debate part should be over. After 70+ billion dollars spent on phony scientific grants to study the climate these frauds can’t make a prediction any better than the farmers almanac. Go after EPA who have been infiltrated by radical leftist’s and who have managed to push fraudulent CO2 agenda way to far. Go after the socialist democrat frauds who funded this scam and were so easily led by the nose into stabbing america in the back in the name of environmental socialism.
John A says: “The last thing that good science needs is a Congressional witch-hunt.”
In case you’ve just returned from the planet Mongo, we’re not talking about good science, John; we’re talking about climate science. You’re also assuming that there are no witches to burn. Maybe not at Salem, but there are now real witches who have cast evil spells on the world and on the media and turned that nice Joe Romm into a ranting bore. So, let’s hear it for Rep. Hexenbrenner, I say! Tear down the Intergovernmental Phony Crisis Coven!
“Rather than call people up to Congress to speak, Congress needs to properly establish facts and ensure that Federal standards are being adhered to.”
As if Nancy Pelosi and her ilk could establish facts! Yeah, right. Here’s one of her colleagues “establishing facts:”
There are damn few scientists in Congress. And you want these guys to “establish facts” without good input? Whutchu been smokin’, John?
I agree with Bruce above……take the gloves off and expose cAGW for what it is. Those that perpetrated this taxpayer-funded fraud must be held to account. Require raw data to be published. Make them explain why they hide it. Expose the uncertainties. Get this out for the world to see. He’ll be doing a huge favor for us in the US, and our friends to the north and across the pond.
He must choose his targets carefully, but the milder his approach, the less interest and media attention it will draw.