Another Republican Divide

From Bill in DC

The rapidly dividing Republican party is now publicly divided on global warming.
GOP Chairmen Face Off on Global Warming

House Science Committee Chairman Sherwood L. Boehlert (R-N.Y.) has demanded that another senior Republican, Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton (Tex.), call off his investigation of three scientists who have charted Earth's rapid warming in recent decades.

The unusual public tiff between two powerful GOP lawmakers highlights the sharp divide that drives the nation's climate change debate. Barton, along with President Bush and many other House Republicans, opposes mandatory curbs on greenhouse gas emissions and questions the science underlying such efforts. Boehlert, who backs limits on carbon dioxide pollution, said he fears such attacks could chill future scientific inquiry.

In a sharply worded letter sent last week, Boehlert called Barton's probe into the findings of Michael E. Mann, Raymond S. Bradley and Malcolm K. Hughes a "misguided and illegitimate investigation." Mann will direct the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University as of next month, Bradley is a geosciences professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and Hughes is a professor at the University of Arizona's Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research.

Like the Catholic Church intimidated Galileo for advancing science contrary to what the church wanted to believe the Bush administration and it's cultists wish to intimidate scientists who publish findings contrary to the religion of the energy companies.

In a letter Boehlert publicly released yesterday, the veteran GOP moderate asserted that his panel has jurisdiction over climate change and that Barton is targeting these scientists because he disagrees with their conclusions.

"My primary concern about your investigation is that its purpose seems to be to intimidate scientists rather than to learn from them, and to substitute congressional political review for scientific review," Boehlert wrote.

But Barton won't back down.

Barton, however, said he plans to proceed with the probe. He also dismissed a July 1 protest by Rep. Henry A. Waxman (Calif.), a senior Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, who wrote Barton that some might interpret the probe "as a transparent effort to bully and harass climate change experts who have reached conclusions with which you disagree."