A Republican congressman on Wednesday stepped up his ongoing anti-science campaign, accusing the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of “hyping a climate change agenda.”
What’s more, the remarks from Texas Rep. Lamar Smith laid bare how climate deniers are seeking to derail attempts to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for covering up their role in global warming.
The testy exchange between Smith and NOAA administrator Kathryn Sullivan at a House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology hearing was the first to happen face-to-face, though Smith’s crusade against Sullivan’s agency has lasted for months.
“That fight has included Smith sending broad subpoenas” to NOAA, The Hill reports, for internal documents related to a June article in Science by NOAA scientists that took issue with the notion of an 18-year pause in global warming—a notion oft-cited by climate skeptics.
“Unfortunately, climate alarmism often takes priority at NOAA,” Smith said at the hearing Wednesday. “This was demonstrated by the agency’s decision to prematurely publish the 2015 study that attempted to make the two-decade halt in global warming disappear.”
Sullivan, a former astronaut, stated that she stood by “the integrity and quality of the [NOAA] study.”
Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas), the committee’s ranking member, defended Sullivan and NOAA, denouncing Smith’s investigation as “unfounded, and… being driven by ideology and other agendas.”
In fact, Smith’s questions also pointed to growing concern among Capitol Hill climate deniers and fossil fuel interests over attempts to hold polluters legally accountable for using Big Tobacco’s playbook to block action on climate change for years.
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