House Science Committee Leadership Changes
U.S. House Science Committee Set For Big Turnover, ScienceInsider
“A key science policymaking body in the U.S. House of Representatives is about to get a makeover. Ten current members of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology have been defeated in this year’s elections or are retiring, according to an analysis by ScienceInsider. That’s one-quarter of the total membership. The panel is also expected to get a new chair, as current chief Representative Ralph M. Hall (R-TX), is term-limited under current House rules. Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX) is considered a favorite to win the gavel, but former committee chair Representative F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-WI) has reportedly expressed interest in regaining his old job.”
Sensenbrenner Seeks House Science Committee Chairmanship
“Additionally, it’s more important than ever that the House exercises our constitutional oversight role. The Obama Administration has shown its willingness to manipulate science for political ends and threaten our domestic energy production and our economy in the process. I have a record of effective oversight, and I will continue to keep the Administration accountable for their use of science in crafting regulations and policies.”
Reps. Smith, Sensenbrenner, Rohrabacher stake claims to Science Committee gavel, The Hill
“Sensenbrenner faces competition for the slot from Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) and Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), whom an aide said is “actively pursuing” the chairmanship. Sensenbrenner said his first priority will be to “pass smart science and space policy that spurs job creation and ensures America’s future competitiveness.”
Sensenbrenner is running:
“If chosen, Sensenbrenner stated that his first priority “will be to pass smart science and space policy that spurs job creation and ensures America’s future competitiveness. Specifically, we must responsibly fund our research and development programs, refocus NASA and foster the developing private space industry, and put the United States back on a path toward being a leader in STEM education.””
Wow he sounds like he would support what President Obama is doing.
(reads the next paragraph) Oh oh .. trouble in rivercity…
“He also promised to use the post to keep a close eye on the Obama administration, which he wrote “has shown its willingness to manipulate science for political ends and threaten our domestic energy production and our economy in the process.” Sensenbrenner was a thorn in the side of the Clinton Administration during his previous stint as chair from 1997 to 2001.”
Gosh .. an idealog? In the republican party? Let us hope not.
Personally I was hoping for Dana but:
“Sensenbrenner is currently the vice-chair of the committee, and ranks ahead of Smith and Rohrabacher on the panel in terms of seniority”
I thought Rohrabacher was next in line…. oh well.
http://news.sciencemag.org/…
Wow that just makes me wonder if the first paragraph is fluff to help him get the job.
Sensenbrenner, the guy who thinks solar flares have more impact on climate change than human activity.
Matt,
I do believe that’s the first time I’ve ever seen the words “Sensenbrenner” and “thinks” used in the same sentence.
Steve
Is there a Republican member of the science committee who isn’t a climate change denier? Hall and Smith, as well as Sensebrenner, are all of this flavor, and disagree violently with the vast majority of climate scientists.
These senior majority members of the House Science Committee choose to listen to scientists when it’s convenient for them, but not when it isn’t. That’s a curious posture for a Science Committee member.
So you’re comparing the belief that dinosaurs and humans roamed the earth together with the use of SUVs by someone who believes in the physics of the greenhouse effect?
…“Just like all the politicians.”?
Check your fire. It is possible for politicians to be highly achieved scientifically, which ought to be the prerequisite for chairing this committee.
Exactly. The scientific intelligence and awareness of the current committee leadership and the possible incoming leadership is non-existent.
Agreed. While many earn the universal disdain of elected officials generally held, in truth most of them are hard-working and honest and deserving of respect.
On the other hand it is true that the House is truly held by functionally single-purpose ideologues.
I totally agree with your point, but found the link interesting. I never gave much thought to my definition of “politician,” but maybe it’s one of those “know it when you see it” things. I tend to put all high-level elected officials in this group because “politics” is their only job, but also those other people who bounce around various political posts as a career path; whether appointed or elected, their primary skill is “politics.” While Dr. Chu is certainly traveling in political circles in his current role, I have never thought of him as a politician.
Becky,
I suspect that most of us look at it the same way as you most of the time — politicians practice politics, period (and politics is almost a dirty word). In my more optimistic moments, I tend to think that there are two different “modes” (for lack of a better word) of politics.
First is the controversial nonsense and obviously biased (or even prejudged) decision making in which some politicians engage which, unfortunately, tends to give all politicians a bad name.
Second is the day to day legal, management and diplomacy work that is the real and necessary job of the politicians.
The minority whose entire time seems to be spent in the first mode get most of the media attention, and therefore public attention, overshadowing almost all of the work done in the second mode which keeps a country functioning.
What makes it more confusing to me, and makes the situation perhaps seem even worse than it is, is when politicians themselves, along with the other prominent involved people you mentioned, publicly admit that all politicians are “on the take” when it comes to election contributions (and are therefore creating pork in return between elections) and make no apology for it. It is, to them, a fact of life.
How are people to really know to what extent “their” politicians are mode one or mode two at any point in time? Whether we look at a recognized democracy or any other type of “government,” it seems to me that Lincoln’s ideal of “government of the people, by the people, for the people” has yet to be achieved on our planet, and unfortunately won’t be as long as out current situation of elected — but not necessarily representative — government persists. The big question is: How do we move things in the (presumably) desired direction? History shows that even revolutions don’t turn things around but, at best, simply swap one set of self-interested “leaders” for another.
The situation is so large-scale and deeply entrenched in most countries that it almost qualifies as an immovable object.
Steve
(Sorry this post was so long, but I think you’ve hit on a very important issue.)
I love last week’s Bloomberg Business Week cover.
http://thinkprogress.org/wp…
Is this just science that you do as a republican to feel good?
Raw climate data is available online for anyone to use in order to support their denial of climate change. While the climate change model gets better and better, no one has yet offered a viable theory that counters the climate change model. Feel free to come up with a credible theory that counters the climate change model. You’d be the first if you did.
This reminds me of a sixth-grade schoolyard retort: “oh yea! well, yer ugly!”
So I’m a Democrat, I do use jets, I do drive an SUV (for business, actually), and I recognize that global warming is a fact. So what?
I vote for Dana Rohrabacher. He is in strong contention and is an ardent supporter of the Administration’s commercial space agenda.
Let’s be clear. My comment wasn’t intended to be partisan. There may well be Democrats on the committee who are also climate change deniers. I also take no offense at people who want to deny climate change (or people who drive SUVs and fly in jets). It’s a free country, and all that. But I’d like the leaders of our congressional science committees to at least see eye to eye with what the vast majority (yes VAST MAJORITY) of climate scientists agree upon. Otherwise, we have legislators who are somehow pretending to defend national science efforts without defending the work that scientists actually do in those efforts.
I’d like to believe that if a politician can’t tip his or her hat to the work of the VAST MAJORITY of climate scientists, then they should respectfully decline to be members of a committee that is responsible for authorizing their efforts.
You are commiting a fallacy of logic. Not all politicans are. Unless you have personal interviewed and investigated every single politican in America.
There are many that are willing to reach across the isle.
I wish all of you would stop with the political pandering for its getting us no where and is embarrassing. I don’t give a damn who’s in office as long as the job gets done. So get real,get the job done and if you can’t then get out of the way and let someone take over who can.
Well the unstated question at the heart of this topic is if the anti-science leadership and the anti-science members of the House Committee on Science are getting the job done……and their not. In fact, their mindset and incorrect beliefs prevent them from getting the job done.
CD,
I firmly believe that some issues supersede absolute proof, free speech, religion, recognized authority, and all of the other “touchstones” by which people generally make major social or even ethical decisions, and climate change is one such issue.
This will come down to a matter of species survival in very short order. And that being the case, I don’t really care what the root cause(s) may be. We can all see the undesirable trends, if we care to look, that have been taking place in our climate and the environment, without proven details of what caused or is causing them. We should, therefore, be taking any and all reasonable steps which will, or even only may, offset these trends and help regain the delicate balance on which we all depend for our continued existence.
If at some point in the future we learn for sure what the contributing factors are/were, then that will be great and may well help us to accelerate the correction process and perhaps decrease the possibilities of it all happening again in the future. But that can only happen if the human race still exists in the future and still retains a technologically capable civilization.
A planetary illness is like a human illness in that we can very often treat the condition, alleviate the symptoms, and prevent the spread without understanding all of the details of how the illness came to be.
Steve
Steve: ‘species survival’ is a little over the top and isn’t helpful to the cause, IMO; people will survive. Hell the planet could go back to an ice age and we’d survive.
I am guessing that you meant what would not survive is the level of civilization that we have and enjoy. Worse, the future looks so awful that protective devices and measures will suck huge amounts out of the economies of the world.
If we did nothing and we went to 400ppm we would survive. In a cave. Or a missile silo, one supposes…
Some of us would survive. Millions of individual people would die even from a rise in temperature of a few degrees. I think their lives are important. At 40,000ppm CO2 (which we could easily reach by burning all available fossil fuels) none would survive, even briefly. The purpose of NASA climate research is not to support a preconception, it is to discover the truth.
msadesign,
The way I see it, there are several possible bad outcomes, including the possibility where absolutely no one survives. I think too many people fail to realize just how dependent we are on both the condition of our planet and the state of our industry/technology. There’s a very narrow margin in which we can survive, and the Earth can slip out of that margin quite quickly, and has done so many times in the past according to geological evidence.
If we got to the point of caves or missile silos, as you’ve suggested, then it’s game over. We’re not small mammals that can survive by eating anything and drinking very little. If you’re huddled up somewhere escaping the outside conditions, what are you going to eat, where is your water coming from, how are you disposing of your wastes? How long can you survive that like while waiting for nature to hopefully return things to “normal”?
Once the atmosphere, temperature, or land condition reach the point where food crops won’t grow, then it’s game over for all animal life as well, including us.
It doesn’t have to get as severe as huddling in caves to fall apart either. Try to imagine the situation if industries fail because they can’t get raw materials, or maintain the necessary production environments. If the pharmaceutical industry alone were to fail, how many millions of people would be dead within a couple of months? If foreign aid was discontinued to the needy across the world, how many millions would die within a couple of weeks. Then consider what all of those millions of rotting bodies lying around are going to do to the air, the land, and the water supply (because there’s nowhere and no one to bury them). And this is just one possible scenario, one which assumes that masses of people in major trouble will continue to act rationally, which I consider highly unlikely. In past disasters, there were always other people to come and help, but now we’re looking at the case where there is no one else because we’re all under sentence of death.
So, I would say that there’s nothing “over the top” about the species survival issue. The danger is very real and not doing what we can to reduce that danger, whatever its cause, says very little for out collective intelligence as a species. I think whoever first used the word “denial” hit the nail squarely on its head.
Steve
Guys, The next issue I’m going to briefly talk about is a comment made by someone. It deals with DINOSAURS and HUMANS existing at the same time on this planet. This IS a fact, period.
As evidence, I put forth the evidence found in the river bottom of the …
PILOXI river which is located in TEXAS.
After a storm that washed away the mud on this river’s bottom, the bedrock was exposed. There for all to see, were the footprints of a human being, a modern type dog and one of the three toed species of carnivorous dinosaurs. There is also a river in Russia that also has human and dinosaur footprints in it’s bedrock.
There IS evidence that modern humans have existed here on this planet for at least one million years or longer.
There IS evidence that there was a Thermonuclear war as recent as 7,500 to 15,000 years B.C. This is proven by the large areas of sand that have been turned into GLASS ( vitrification ). This is also proven by at least one ancient city that was still radioactive when it was excavated.
The Paluxy river tracks have been full investigated. They are the tracks of three-toed bipedal dinosaurs, probably Arcocanthosaurus, which eroded and partially filled in, obscuring the toes and leaving only the metatarsal imprints. There are numerous examples in which the toes of the dinosaur foot are faintly visible. They resemble actual human footprints only superficially. http://paleo.cc/paluxy/phot…
Poly,
I took the time to answer you fully and politely in another thread. That was before I saw these two posts [one since deleted]. I got the impression from the other thread, apparently a mistake on my part, that you were a young person who simply hadn’t learned her facts properly yet. However, based on these two posts, now I see the situation quite differently.
You encourage people in your post to go to the web and research these things you’re talking about. There’s just one problem with that — 95% OF EVERYTHING ON THE WEB IS ABSOLUTE GARBAGE WRITTEN BY MORONS!, and yet you’re calling your nonsense facts.
There is lots of good, useful, true information on the internet, but you have to use some intelligence in figuring out what’s real and what isn’t. As I’ve said before to others, the internet is what’s called an end-to-end system, which means that whatever one person creates is exactly what other people will see. There is no fact checking, no review of any kind by anybody, with or without relevant knowledge, no correcting of wrong information. The bottom line is that any fool can post any garbage they like, no matter how false or even stupid it might be. The sad part is that people like you come along and read the garbage and believe it to be true, just because you read it on the internet.
I certainly don’t consider myself to be someone who knows it all by any means, but like many who post on this web site, I have decades of personal science and technology experience to draw on, so I think I know enough to say with absolute confidence that everything you’ve written in the two posts above is absolute nonsense, total fabrication. I have to be honest; these posts make you look very foolish, and I personally found them somewhat insulting, so please, in future, don’t include my name, or anyone else’s for that matter, in your posts. And please, if you intend to post here in the future, learn a little bit of courtesy; don’t label the rest of us wrong and presume to tell us what the facts are when you clearly haven’t the slightest clue what you’re talking about. I hope you’re perhaps smart enough to learn something from this.
Steve
PS: Putting things in capital letters doesn’t change a thing.
I knew that the loons would eventually flock to this post sooner or later. Look – here’s a picture to prove your point: Ronald Reagan riding a dinosaur! Its on the Internet, so it must be true !!! http://imgur.com/a/OJ7J0#0
Which one is Reagan?
A member of Congress cannot excuse irrational views by clams that the other party is also irrational. Each member’s positions are his own. We pay their ample salaries and they are responsible to us, although we all know that influence-peddling is rife. The first requirement is better data and better models so we can determine the future with greater precision.
The world is what it is, not what we decide or might wish it to be. The truth, in science, is not decided by debate, it is discovered. This is what Sensenbrenner and Posey oppose; the very discovery of what the truth is. They believe that closing our eyes by quashing NASA research on the planet earth will make the problem go away.
vulture4,
I find this situation scary. If these guys can’t adjust their thinking on issues that are decades old, how can they possibly be dealing well with newer, less well understood issues?
Steve
When any of the commenters here who trash their fellow citizens can do the math for a gaussian to lorentz transformation or even understand its importance to the climate discussion, I might be more interested in your position on this important subject.
Trashing your fellow citizens who disagree with this subject does nothing to help our future.
Try Voigt profiles.
Voigt is between the two and does not necessarily provide any further illumination on the issue. Nice to see that at least one person knows what I am talking about.
What angers me is that people who call others deniers know no more about the subject than those that they are complaining about and are trusting in the authority of those that they think know the science. One thing my studies on this subject has shown me is that this is one area of science that has been infected with politics.
There are some amazing hero’s of science out there who are challenging the hubris and false claims about climate change that deserve respect. Climate change as a political issue is being used by many in the same way that the war on drugs was used by others, as a hobby horse to ride to power.
Eisenhower had it right on the money in his farewell speech, which I will reproduce here….
Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.In this revolution, research has become central, it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present – and is gravely to be regarded.Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.
It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system – ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.
Dennis,
Your point is well made, but if we take one step back, we face the same old dilemma — Who will guard the guards themselves? In theory, in a democratic republic this responsibility falls back on the people themselves. But how do we get consensus among 300 million people? Answer: you can’t; so you settle for a majority vote.
When we have elected representatives who are not acting in the best interests of their constituents, do we blame those elected reps for their failings, or do we blame those who’s votes did the electing?
It’s possible (and highly likely in my opinion) that the voters did not make properly informed decisions, but rather cast their votes without doing their homework first. But then we also have the possibility that, in any given constituency, there was no candidate running who was a good choice, who had the knowledge and experience to properly represent their constituents. In other words, a no-win situation.
Similarly, when it comes to assigning people to committees and subcommittees, if the only people who are both available and willing to serve are not competent to do the job, what alternatives are there? Answer: none.
So, “the people” are already disconnected from the self-governing system guaranteed them by their Constitution before they have any opportunity to address the issue of not becoming “the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”
Eisenhower identified the problem, but neither he, nor anyone else since, has offered a workable solution. We’re still stuck on the same merry-go-round.
Steve
Absolutely correct.
As a further note to those above, science is not about consensus, it’s supposed to be about science, which is skeptical by nature. Parroting the distorted factoids pushed out there by a mostly ignorant MSM just spreads the fallacy that our planet’s climate has EVER been static. It is always changing and always will.
P.S. warmer is better than colder for most of humaity.
I sincerely hope this is a joke. I have never seen a better? worse? catalog of misinformation and illogic about climate. Congratulations on a parody of climate deniers.
That rant has been removed since it is utterly off topic.
Freeman Dyson says he is confident that climate change is occurring, and that human activity affects it. He just says we do not know if global action is needed because we don’t know what the changes will be. I think we should find out.
I’d have a lot more respect for those Global Warming deniers if I thought they’d arrived at their opinions through something approximating science. But we know that’s not the case — it’s really just a proverbial Inconvenient Truth. Fact is, people who put prejudice above science shouldn’t be in charge of science or science funding. It seems to be a uniquely American phenomenon to give so much power to these people.
Replacing one anti-science religious zealot with another anti-science religious zealot will not change a thing. If we don’t get religion out of our government, our country will continue to be dumbed down. The U.S. is not even in the top 20 of most intelligent countries.
No one is saying that we should immediately halt our technological civilization and go back to living in caves, but rather that there should be some effort to restrain the acceleration of what the science is telling us is happening. The planet and wildlife can cope with some level of change, but not the rate at which we are currently affecting such change. We should be striving as a society to ween ourselves off of fossil fuels as quickly as possible for two reasons, 1) the supply is limited, 2) no one can deny the pollution that it generates on a massive scale. Even if you deny climate change, these two reasons alone should be enough to act now in a controlled manner to avert either economic or environmental catastrophe.
No’Sensenbrenner. It’s an oxymoron no matter how you look at it, just let these words sink in a bit….GOP “Science” Committee, what a joke. Todd Aikman is there too, you know, the guy who believes women have magic powers that can shut that whole thing down. How did we ever put these people in charge of anything. Things have to change in oh so many ways this midterms, I would hope those with common sense know what’s at stake and come out to vote this November, no, I pray they do.
I like the way you sneak in the word “alarmists”, which is not only an inaccurate description, but it disrespects some of the smartest people on this Planet. They are scientists, doing science, and it just so happens that 95% of them are in agreement. Just who do these deniers, and you, think you are? Where is your degree in climatology? Who are you to call these people alarmists? I’d like to see your credentials to make such a charge. The truth is that the right thinks they will lose lots of money if we made any effort to switch from fossil fuels to clean renewable energy. Oil rules us all, and that’s what has to be dealt with, not petty politics.
To your other remark about Democrats using jets and suv’s, that’s a non-starter, of course we all have to, and that’s the point. There are many of us who want to change that, you know, so we’ll still have a planet 500 years from now? The Repubs won’t act until this problem starts to cut into their profits, and then it will be way too late.