In The News
WashPost: On environment, Obama and scientists take hit in poll
Friday December 18, 2009
At the same time, there's growing negativity toward the president's handling of the broader global warming issue. Around the 100-day mark of Obama's presidency, 61 percent approved of the way he was dealing with the issue. Approval slumped to 54 percent in June and to 45 percent in the new poll.
The drop in Obama's ratings has been driven by a steep slump among political independents, who went from 62 percent positive in April to 36 percent now.
Scientists themselves also come in for more negative assessments in the poll, with four in 10 Americans now saying that they place little or no trust in what scientists have to say about the environment. That's up significantly in recent years. About 58 percent of Republicans now put little or no faith in scientists on the subject, double the number saying so in April 2007. Over this time frame, distrust among independents bumped up from 24 to 40 percent, while Democrats changed only marginally. Among seniors, the number of skeptics more than doubled, to 51 percent.
HIDE THE DECLINE
Monday December 14, 2009
WATCH: Sen. Inhofe Debates Rep. Markey on Fox News Sunday
Sunday December 13, 2009
The president heads to Copenhagen this week for the climate change summit, prepared to commit this country to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Joining us now, two members of Congress at the center of this debate, Senator James Inhofe, perhaps the leading critic of global warming legislation, is in Tulsa, and here with us in studio, Democratic Congressman Ed Markey, the author of the House cap and trade bill.
Senator Inhofe, in Copenhagen, the president is reportedly going to pledge the U.S. will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent by the year 2020 and will contribute billions of dollars to developing countries to help them reduce their emissions.
How much authority will the president's pledge have?
INHOFE:
Well, see, Chris, that's the reason I'm going, to make sure people in these other 191 countries know the president can't do that.
The initial reductions he's talking about are what you find in Markey's bill, and that isn't going to happen. And of course, that bill's dead. It will never even be brought up again.
And on top of that, he's going to commit, I understand, to some $10 billion a year to the developing countries. Now, here's China that holds $800 billion of our debt and we're going to give them $10 billion to stop generating electricity? I don't think that's going to happen.
WSJ: The EPA's Carbon Bomb Fizzles
Friday December 11, 2009
The threat the White House has been leveling at Congress is the Environmental Protection Agency's "endangerment finding," which EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson finally issued this week. The finding lays the groundwork for the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions across the entire economy, on the grounds that global warming is hazardous to human health.
From the start, the Obama team has wielded the EPA action as a club, warning Congress that if it did not come up with cap-and-trade legislation the EPA would act on its own-and in a far more blunt fashion than Congress preferred. As one anonymous administration official menaced again this week: "If [Congress doesn't] pass this legislation," the EPA is going to have to "regulate in a command-and-control way, which will probably generate even more uncertainty."
AP: Stolen e-mails embolden climate change skeptics
Friday December 11, 2009
The e-mail brouhaha dubbed "Climategate" by doubters comes as U.S. delegates to the international climate conference in Copenhagen are trying to convince the world the United States is determined to move aggressively to rein in heat-trapping pollution. To counter the delegates, a group of GOP lawmakers is going to Copenhagen to argue against mandatory greenhouse gas reductions.
The climate skeptics gained political momentum when former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin said Obama should boycott the negotiations in Denmark and "not be a party to fraudulent scientific practices" - a clear reference to the purloined e-mails from computers belonging to scientists at a British climate research center.
IBD: Editorial: EPA Must Be Stopped
Thursday December 10, 2009
The EPA's finding that carbon dioxide is a dangerous pollutant explains why the administration wasn't too concerned over possible failure at Copenhagen. This was their Plan B.
The finding is an environmental Sword of Damocles held over the head of the U.S. with a warning that if cap-and-trade legislation such as Waxman-Markey or Kerry-Boxer is not signed into law, the full regulatory fury of an unelected bureaucracy will be unleashed on the American people and the U.S. economy.
The Competitive Enterprise Institute has announced it will sue to overturn the endangerment finding on the grounds that the EPA has ignored major scientific issues, including those raised in the Climate-gate fraud scandal.
THE HOCKEY STICK REVISITED
Wednesday December 9, 2009
Who is Michael Mann? In the rarified world of paleoclimatology, he's a big deal. And now he's at the center of Climategate.
Mann is an international climate superstar. He was a "Lead Author" of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Third Assessment Report (TAR), and was selected by Scientific American as one of 50 leading "visionaries" in science and technology. That vision helped produce the infamous "hockey stick" graph, which showed relatively stable temperatures going back to 1000 AD (the shaft), and then a sharp increase beginning in 1900 (the blade). For some, the conclusion was crystal clear: anthropogenic emissions were causing global warming. The graph, and Mann himself, received international acclaim, and it was featured prominently in the TAR. Governments throughout the world relied on Mann's temperature reconstructions to formulate policy.
The Dallas Morning News: Point Person: Q&A; with Sen. James Inhofe
Tuesday December 8, 2009
Did the Climategate e-mail scandal give you a sense of vindication?
Vindication and redemption. If you'd read that speech I gave on the [Senate] floor in '05, it was essentially the same thing that's coming out of these hijacked e-mails. Where I got it was from frustrated scientists who had come to me - and I'm talking about top scientists in America - saying they had consulted with the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] or served on the IPCC, and their views were ignored and intentionally not made a part of these recommendations.
It's important that we understand that the IPCC - which is part of the United Nations - when they come up with something, the press gets it from these summaries for policymakers. These are not scientists; these are politicians putting these assessments together. So when these scientists came to me and said they were frustrated because things they knew that weren't true were coming out, I gave that speech.
Welcome Bloggers!
Tuesday December 8, 2009
Posted by Matt Dempsey matt_dempsey@epw.senate.gov
Welcome Bloggers!Included below are links to several of the items Senator Inhofe covered today. If you have any questions, feel free to email Matt Dempsey matt_dempsey@epw.senate.gov
Keep Up To Date On Climategate/Inhofe Copenhagen"Truth Sqad"
Inhofe Press Office on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/jiminhofepressoffice/
Inhofe Press Office on Twitter: www.twitter.com/inhofepress
Inhofe EPW Press Blog: www.epw.senate.gov/inhofeblog
Sign-up For Inhofe EPW Newsletter
Inhofe Press Office on Facebook
Inhofe: Climategate Reveals Faulty Science Supporting EPA Endangerment Finding - Washington, D.C.-Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, today released the following YouTube video responding to EPA's finding that greenhouse gases from mobile sources endanger public health and welfare:
VITTER, INHOFE ASK NASA IG ABOUT AGENCY'S POSSIBLE OBSTRUCTION OF FOIA REQUEST - Washington, D.C.—Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Science and Space, and Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, sent a letter today to the Inspector General of NASA requesting an investigation into NASA’s apparent obstruction of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. The FOIA requests seek NASA’s temperature record and agency emails concerning changes agency researchers made to the temperature record in 2007. Link to Letter
INHOFE REQUESTS HEARINGS ON ‘CLIMATEGATE’ - Washington, D.C.—Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, sent a letter today to EPW Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) requesting hearings on the recent disclosure of emails between some of the world’s most preeminent climatologists—emails that reveal apparent attempts to manipulate data, vilify scientists with opposing viewpoints, and circumvent information disclosure laws.
Inhofe Comments on Obama Copenhagen Announcement - Washington, D.C.-Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, today commented on the news that President Obama will travel to Copenhagen, Denmark for the United Nations Climate Conference.
Inhofe Launches "Climategate" Investigation - Warns Participants to Retain Documents - Washington, D.C.-Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, today sent letters to several scientists, some of whom allegedly manipulated data to prove the scientific "consensus" of global warming, as well as to the inspectors general of several federal agencies, notifying them to retain documents related to the release of emails from the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit in England.
Inhofe Calls 2009 "The Year of the Skeptic" In Senate Floor Speech, Inhofe Says UN Cap and Trade Effort Are Dead, Urges New Path Forward - WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, today delivered a hour long Senate Floor speech in which he declared 2009 the "Year of the Skeptic," noting that the "tide has turned" against global warming alarmism. Senator Inhofe's Floor remarks follow President Obama's announcement earlier this week that no climate agreement will be made at the United Nations Global Warming Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark in Decemeber. Through his leadership position on the Senate EPW Committee, Senator Inhofe has led the fight against costly cap and trade legislation over the past seven years. "The bottom line," Inhofe concluded in his speech today, "is that efforts to pass the largest tax increase in American history have clearly failed, handing the American people a tremendous victory."
2005 Inhofe IPCC Speech - Today, I will discuss something else – scientific integrity and how to improve it. Specifically, I will discuss the systematic and documented abuse of the scientific process by an international body that claims it provides the most complete and objective scientific assessment in the world on the subject of climate change – the United Nations-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC. I will conclude with a series of recommendations as to the minimum changes the IPCC must make if it is to restore its credibility. When I became Chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, one of my top three priorities was to improve the quality of environmental science used in public policymaking by taking the politics out of science. I have convened hearings on this subject and the specific issue of global warming science. I am a U.S. Senator, and a former mayor and businessman. I am not a scientist. But I do understand politics. And the more I have delved into the issue, the more convinced I have become that science is being co-opted by those who care more about peddling fear of gloom and doom to further their own, broader agendas than they do about scientific integrity. I am committed to shining a light on their activities. Global warming alarmists will undoubtedly continue to accuse me of attacking the science of global warming – that is part of their game. But nothing could be further from the truth. I support and defend credible, objective science by exposing the corrupting influences that would subvert it for political purposes. Good policy must be based on good science, and that requires science be free of bias, whatever its conclusions.
The Hill: Inhofe: 'We won,' cap and trade is 'dead'
Tuesday December 8, 2009
Debating Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), House co-sponsor of climate legislation, on CNN's Situation Room, Inhofe argued the Climate Gate emails show that global warming science is false.
"Your bill is dead," Inhofe told Markey. "The Boxer bill is dead," he added, referring to the Senate version of the legislation.
Inhofe and other climate change skeptics say the so-called "ClimateGate" emails prove that scientists at a major research institution in Great Britain attempted to suppress evidence against global warming.
Proponents of man-made global warming claim the emails show only a few cases of unethical behavior and do not undermine the scientific consensus about climate change.
