There were some serious fireworks at the House Committee on Science today. John Marburger got nailed several times for his wholly unsatisfactory response to repeated charges of science abuse and suppression by this administration. Meanwhile, Dana Rohrabacher proved that he's just as out of it now as he was back during the Gingrich years, when he declared global warming to be "liberal claptrap."
I encourage you to watch the webcast here. Some highlights, with minutes provided:
56:55-57:25: Committee chairman Sherwood Boehlert emphasizes that global warming is a serious issue, and states his assumption that the president agrees. Given what we've just heard about Bush's reported pow-wow with Michael Crichton, methinks Boehlert is way, way naive about this matter.
1:25:15-1:28:55: Congressman Brad Miller (D-NC) questions John Marburger about the latest expose on science suppression by the administration, courtesy of Anne Applebaum in the Washington Post. Marburger bobs and weaves.
2:03:15-2:05:10: Congressman Dana Rohrabacher acts like an idiot on global warming, talking about thousands of skeptical scientists, yada yada. Chairman Boehlert expresses his sincere wish that Rohrabacher will eventually see the light on this subject.
2:28:52-2:32:55: Congressman Wu (D-OR) grills Marburger on a litany of alleged exposed science abuse case studies, and gets Marburger to promise to investigate the recent charges. (I'm sure that will be productive.) Wu has a press release about the exchange here.
2:51:00-3:01:25: Brad Miller (Dem, NC) comes back at Marburger again; and also criticizes chairman Boehlert for not holding hearings on widespread allegations of science abuse. Boehlert fights back quite eloquently, and it's true that he's taken some recent science abuse case studies quite seriously. But I'm not at all convinced that he is giving this subject the weight it deserves in his committee. Enjoy!
