by Jason Stotts
In an unexpected move, House Republicans are asking the Energy and Commerce Committee to investigate the Climategate scandal and how it is affecting American policy.
From the announcement:
WASHINGTON – Senior Republican members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee today asked House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif. to hold a hearing into the emails exchanged between global warming researchers that described their work with words like “hide the decline” and “travesty.”
“The e-mails from the University of East Anglia raise serious questions about the production of influential scientific information concerning climate change,” wrote U.S. Reps. Joe Barton, R-Texas, Fred Upton, R-Mich., and Greg Walden, R-Ore. “They raise serious questions about the quality of the process that produces climate assessments that Congress is asked to rely upon when making its decisions. The e-mails appear to show a concerted effort among well-connected climate scientists to influence inappropriately the peer review process and destroy or obfuscate scientific data.
“We note that many of these scientists include U.S. scientists who serve at federal agencies or are federally funded through grants and contracts to collect their data and perform their work, and that some of the information they appear to have sought to suppress concerns the analyses used in United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,” they added. “Given the federal connection, and the apparent connection to influential information relied upon by federal agencies and the U.S. Congress … we cannot stand idly by while mounting evidence suggests scientific malfeasance.”
The full text of the letter is available here [link].