And on to another Republican witch hunt:
The standoff between federal climate scientists and a senior House Republican over a groundbreaking global warming study is showing how partisan politics can play out in Washington. It’s also pointing out fault lines between the pursuit of scientific truth versus accountability to the public in a fight over how the government does basic science research.
The flash point in the feud between House Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is a congressional subpoena. The congressman, a prominent global warming skeptic, is demanding that the government turn over its scientists’ internal exchanges and communications with NOAA’s top political appointees.
[Climate scientists to be grilled by congressional investigators but their e-mail are still off-limits]
Smith believes this information, showing the researchers deliberative process, will prove that they altered data to fit President Obama’s climate agenda when they refuted claims in a peer-reviewed study in the journal Science that global warming had “paused” or slowed over the last decade.
“These are government employees who changed data to show more climate change,” Smith said in a statement to The Washington Post. “Americans deserve to understand why this decision was made. Despite what some critics claim, the subpoena is not only about scientists. Political operatives and other NOAA employees likely played a large role in approving NOAA’s decision to adjust data that allegedly refutes the hiatus in warming.”
NOAA is refusing to give the chairman the documents, citing confidentiality concerns and the integrity of the scientific process.
[Congress demands climate change documents as scientists warn of ‘chilling effect.’]
Scientists who support the agency’s stand accuse the committee of a witch hunt that could intimidate any researcher from pursuing the painstaking and sometimes messy work they do.
“Science works through a huge degree of transparency with double, triple, and quadruple checking of results,” said Gavin Schmidt, a NASA climatologist who spent five years fighting a lawsuit from the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute, a think tank that sought access to his personal e-mails under the Freedom of Information Act. (A judge eventually dismissed the suit).
Schmidt said of the NOAA study, released last June, “The data that comprised the analysis is publicly available. The scientific process is publicly available. You don’t need a special subpoena to reproduce the science.”
[U.S scientists say the global warming ‘pause’ never happened]
Researchers, like attorneys with their clients, have generally been able to keep their internal conversations confidential when dealing with public records requests. The requests usually succeed at getting access to raw scientific data that’s considered factual, as opposed to deliberative.
“As a policy matter, you want people to give honest advice to their supervisors without fear of being called to task later, for example,” said Thomas Susman, director of government affairs at the American Bar Association.
But a subpoena from Congress usually throws these exemptions out the window, he said. “When a committee chairman issues one under the jurisdiction of his committee, the traditional privileges don’t have to be recognized by Congress,” Susman said.
“There’s an argument that you’re being paid by tax dollars, your deliberations ought to be subject to public review, he said. “It comes back to the question of accountability versus the potential for a chilling effect.” Susman, speaking for himself and not the bar association, said he would err on the side of disclosure since the NOAA issue has become highly politicized.
Smith could, in theory, hold NOAA in contempt of Congress if it continues to withhold its scientists’ communications. Congress could cut the agency’s budget in punishment. Congress could make the agency’s life difficult.
But scientists say the government should never capitulate to what they believe is a political fishing expedition by Smith to discredit them because NOAA’s climate study undercut claims of skeptics like him. They argue that protecting the deliberations of every researcher is essential for freedom to share ideas, talk frankly with colleagues and let the process of scientific understanding evolve.
Making their thoughts and questions public, they say, could put them under siege by climate skeptics who could seize on an offhand comment or glitch in the data and turn it against them.
“They’re looking for anything where they can make it appear something is untoward” with the research, said James Hansen, the climate scientist who issued the clearest warning about the 20th century about the dangers of global warming. He was forced to turn over his e-mails to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, “but they didn’t find anything juicy,” Hansen said.
“If Smith was concerned about getting the truth, he would ask the National Academy of Sciences to check on this, but that’s not what he wants,”he said.
Schmidt said his fight to keep his communications private disrupted his life for years.
“Your whole life is suddenly subject to minute inspection,” he recalled. “The whole thing is an extremely disruptive legal maneuver to prevent scientists from working on topics that are very serious.”
Smith’s push for access is treading a path laid by industry groups and politically active nonprofits in recent years to cast doubt on research showing that global warming is occurring.
Many of these efforts have been settled by the courts, with some ruling that e-mails be turned over and others rebuffing the request. The efforts have not altered the evidence pointing to a growing human contribution to climate change. They have, however, continued to roil the debate between skeptics of global warming and scientists and their allies.
The dragnet for scientists e-mails has targeted hundreds of private messages and documents hacked from a computer server at a British university where American and British climate researchers discussed scientific data, whether it should be released and how to fight the arguments of skeptics. It has drawn in scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, which handed over more than 3,000 e-mails to British Petroleum after the Deepwater Horizon spill, as part of a subpoena from the oil company demanding access to them in a lawsuit brought by the federal government.
[Congressional skeptic on global warming demands records from U.S. climate scientists ]
And it’s aimed at the University of Virginia, subpoenaed by former GOP Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II, to turn over deliberations by a former professor to determine whether he defrauded taxpayers as he sought grants for global warming research. (Cuccinelli lost in the Virginia Supreme Court).
The battle over access has left at least one prominent scientist on Smith’s side. “The politicization of climate science has gotten extreme,” Judith Curry, professor and former chairwoman of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, wrote on FoxNews.com earlier this month.
“While potentially undisclosed industrial funding of research is a legitimate concern, climate science research funding from government is many orders of magnitude larger than industrial funding of such work. If the House Science Committee can work to minimize the political influence on government-funded research, and also help to resolve legitimate scientific issues, it will have done both science and the policies that depend on science a big favor.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...more-top-stories_fe-noaa-845am:homepage/story
The standoff between federal climate scientists and a senior House Republican over a groundbreaking global warming study is showing how partisan politics can play out in Washington. It’s also pointing out fault lines between the pursuit of scientific truth versus accountability to the public in a fight over how the government does basic science research.
The flash point in the feud between House Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is a congressional subpoena. The congressman, a prominent global warming skeptic, is demanding that the government turn over its scientists’ internal exchanges and communications with NOAA’s top political appointees.
[Climate scientists to be grilled by congressional investigators but their e-mail are still off-limits]
Smith believes this information, showing the researchers deliberative process, will prove that they altered data to fit President Obama’s climate agenda when they refuted claims in a peer-reviewed study in the journal Science that global warming had “paused” or slowed over the last decade.
“These are government employees who changed data to show more climate change,” Smith said in a statement to The Washington Post. “Americans deserve to understand why this decision was made. Despite what some critics claim, the subpoena is not only about scientists. Political operatives and other NOAA employees likely played a large role in approving NOAA’s decision to adjust data that allegedly refutes the hiatus in warming.”
NOAA is refusing to give the chairman the documents, citing confidentiality concerns and the integrity of the scientific process.
[Congress demands climate change documents as scientists warn of ‘chilling effect.’]
Scientists who support the agency’s stand accuse the committee of a witch hunt that could intimidate any researcher from pursuing the painstaking and sometimes messy work they do.
“Science works through a huge degree of transparency with double, triple, and quadruple checking of results,” said Gavin Schmidt, a NASA climatologist who spent five years fighting a lawsuit from the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute, a think tank that sought access to his personal e-mails under the Freedom of Information Act. (A judge eventually dismissed the suit).
Schmidt said of the NOAA study, released last June, “The data that comprised the analysis is publicly available. The scientific process is publicly available. You don’t need a special subpoena to reproduce the science.”
[U.S scientists say the global warming ‘pause’ never happened]
Researchers, like attorneys with their clients, have generally been able to keep their internal conversations confidential when dealing with public records requests. The requests usually succeed at getting access to raw scientific data that’s considered factual, as opposed to deliberative.
“As a policy matter, you want people to give honest advice to their supervisors without fear of being called to task later, for example,” said Thomas Susman, director of government affairs at the American Bar Association.
But a subpoena from Congress usually throws these exemptions out the window, he said. “When a committee chairman issues one under the jurisdiction of his committee, the traditional privileges don’t have to be recognized by Congress,” Susman said.
“There’s an argument that you’re being paid by tax dollars, your deliberations ought to be subject to public review, he said. “It comes back to the question of accountability versus the potential for a chilling effect.” Susman, speaking for himself and not the bar association, said he would err on the side of disclosure since the NOAA issue has become highly politicized.
Smith could, in theory, hold NOAA in contempt of Congress if it continues to withhold its scientists’ communications. Congress could cut the agency’s budget in punishment. Congress could make the agency’s life difficult.
But scientists say the government should never capitulate to what they believe is a political fishing expedition by Smith to discredit them because NOAA’s climate study undercut claims of skeptics like him. They argue that protecting the deliberations of every researcher is essential for freedom to share ideas, talk frankly with colleagues and let the process of scientific understanding evolve.
Making their thoughts and questions public, they say, could put them under siege by climate skeptics who could seize on an offhand comment or glitch in the data and turn it against them.
“They’re looking for anything where they can make it appear something is untoward” with the research, said James Hansen, the climate scientist who issued the clearest warning about the 20th century about the dangers of global warming. He was forced to turn over his e-mails to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, “but they didn’t find anything juicy,” Hansen said.
“If Smith was concerned about getting the truth, he would ask the National Academy of Sciences to check on this, but that’s not what he wants,”he said.
Schmidt said his fight to keep his communications private disrupted his life for years.
“Your whole life is suddenly subject to minute inspection,” he recalled. “The whole thing is an extremely disruptive legal maneuver to prevent scientists from working on topics that are very serious.”
Smith’s push for access is treading a path laid by industry groups and politically active nonprofits in recent years to cast doubt on research showing that global warming is occurring.
Many of these efforts have been settled by the courts, with some ruling that e-mails be turned over and others rebuffing the request. The efforts have not altered the evidence pointing to a growing human contribution to climate change. They have, however, continued to roil the debate between skeptics of global warming and scientists and their allies.
The dragnet for scientists e-mails has targeted hundreds of private messages and documents hacked from a computer server at a British university where American and British climate researchers discussed scientific data, whether it should be released and how to fight the arguments of skeptics. It has drawn in scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, which handed over more than 3,000 e-mails to British Petroleum after the Deepwater Horizon spill, as part of a subpoena from the oil company demanding access to them in a lawsuit brought by the federal government.
[Congressional skeptic on global warming demands records from U.S. climate scientists ]
And it’s aimed at the University of Virginia, subpoenaed by former GOP Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II, to turn over deliberations by a former professor to determine whether he defrauded taxpayers as he sought grants for global warming research. (Cuccinelli lost in the Virginia Supreme Court).
The battle over access has left at least one prominent scientist on Smith’s side. “The politicization of climate science has gotten extreme,” Judith Curry, professor and former chairwoman of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, wrote on FoxNews.com earlier this month.
“While potentially undisclosed industrial funding of research is a legitimate concern, climate science research funding from government is many orders of magnitude larger than industrial funding of such work. If the House Science Committee can work to minimize the political influence on government-funded research, and also help to resolve legitimate scientific issues, it will have done both science and the policies that depend on science a big favor.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...more-top-stories_fe-noaa-845am:homepage/story
