Well, I just got back from the Hill, where I attended the Senate Commerce Committee's hearing on Climate Change Research and Scientific Integrity. You are supposed to be able to get a Webcast of the hearing from the link above, but I haven't gotten it to work yet. [UPDATE: Now it works, click here, go to around minute 2:14:45.]
The hearing ended on a very strong note, as Senator John Kerry essentially eviscerated a hapless representative of the Bush administration, acting Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) chairman Bill Brennan [pictured at left]. With Kerry terming the administration's approach to climate change science and policy "the most serious dereliction of public responsibility that I have ever seen," Brennan--who tried to stick with talking points--was massively outgunned. It was noted by one witness that the Bush Office of Science and Technology Policy has been invited to send someone to the hearing to testify, but had declined to do so, essentially leaving Brennan on the stand to get "beat up on." The hearing ended with talk of whether OSTP ought to be compelled to testify down the road. (I vote yea.)
Kerry's cross examination towards the end of the hearing completely stole the show. I hope the Webcast gets working [now it is], and someone really ought to put it on YouTube, so that everyone can see it. In the meantime, let me discuss some other important developments to emerge from this hearing after the jump.
Trying to Erase the Past. In testimony (PDF) delivered before Kerry cross-examined him, acting CCSP chair Brennan unmistakably embraced, on behalf of the administration, the latest findings (PDF) of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC in its latest report, Brennan noted, "expressed even more certainty that the changes observed over the last several decades are mostly due to human activities....The Bush administration accepts the published report."
However, Brennan also essentially rewrote history in his description of the administration's past stances with regard to climate science. He asserted, falsely: "The administration has been clear that climate change is a serious problem, the Earth is warming and humans are the leading cause." How Brennan can say this with a straight face I cannot conceive. George W. Bush is not only the leader of the administration, he is its most visible public representative. And as I and others have pointed out repeatedly, as recently as last year, Bush made a statement completely irreconcilable with our scientific understanding: "There is a debate over whether [global warming is] manmade or naturally caused."
So Brennan's claim simply won't stand. I will give the administration credit for now accepting the science, but I will neither forget, nor (at least thus far) forgive, previous behavior. The Bush administration is now positioning itself as more accepting of climate science, yet simultaneously trying to pretend that there hasn't been a visible shift in its approach. Well, that's nonsense--there has been a shift, a marked one, and furthermore, a very tardy one.
More Knutson Revelations. Another point of salience at the hearing came across in the testimony of NOAA climate modeler Thomas Knutson, one of two whistleblowers on hand. (The official testimony of the other whistleblower, Rick Piltz, struck me as largely similar to his testimony last week [PDF] before Henry Waxman's hearing, so I won't discuss it as much except to point out that Piltz was extremely articulate today during Q & A.)
In his testimony, Knutson (pictured at left) recounted two previously aired cases in which NOAA public affairs officers turned down major media interview requests that came to him related to the subject of hurricanes and global warming. But Knutson's testimony (which I believe is a first before Congress on this subject) also added a number of other more minor examples of potentially troubling behavior, which I hadn't heard of:
1. Apparently no NOAA press release was issued concerning Knutson's now famous 2004 Journal of Climate Study (PDF) on how hurricanes will intensify over the course of the century due to global warming--despite the fact that NOAA public affairs had asked Knutson for a copy of the study so as to issue a press release.
2. When Knutson was asked to participate in a 2005 American Meteorological Society congressional briefing on his research, his powerpoint presentation (PDF) had to be cleared and he "received email expressing some concern with my use of the term 'Global Warming' in the title." Knutson did not make changes, and apparently the concerns then disappeared.
These are hardly huge smoking guns....but they're suspicious. In any event, Knutson's greatest whistleblower claims are about having national media interview requests rejected, and that leads me to another major development from the hearing:
New NOAA Media Policy. Apparently, NOAA will shortly be issuing a new media policy to address concerns about interferences with scientists'--especially Knutson's--ability to speak to the press. You may recall that last year, NASA already did as much in the wake of the James Hansen affair--but despite similar allegations, NOAA did not.
We haven't seen the NOAA policy yet, though I imagine it will be a substantial improvement. However, it's also worth noting the timing here: If Democrats had not retaken Congress and begun seriously probing in this area, I seriously wonder whether NOAA would be issuing this policy at all, much less now--just after a Senate hearing in which CCSP acting chair Brennan was pointedly asked by Senator Bill Nelson, of Florida, why NOAA wasn't following NASA's example, when a new media policy would be forthcoming, and so on. In short, this strikes me as still more proof of the effectiveness of congressional oversight, properly carried out.
No Darrell Issa Equivalent in the Senate. During Henry Waxman's hearing on scientific integrity last week, Republican Rep. Darrell Issa took on an attack dog role, aggressively going after witnesses and essentially trying to protect the administration (while making really lame arguments). If there's a foil for Issa in the Senate (Inhofe, anyone?), that particular Republican certainly wasn't present at the hearing today.
Tomorrow I'll be on the Hill again for the House's IPCC hearing...and blogging afterwards.
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Chris writes:
as recently as last year, Bush made a statement completely irreconcilable with our scientific understanding: "There is a debate over whether [global warming is] manmade or naturally caused."
/snip
Well, that depends on what your definition of is is. Just as many conservatives have argued, Bush merely pointed out in 2001 that British intelligence claimed to find evidence of Saddam seeking uranium from Niger, which NOBODY could reasonably interpret as saying Bush thought it was true, since he knew it wasn't but just didn't have time to mention that.
Here, Bush is merely pointing out a debate exists, somewhere. If anyone thought he actually believed that debate was valid, then they're not parsing his words carefully. It's important to realize that anything Bush says might not mean what he's trying to make it sound like it means. He calls this "leadership". You have to be fair to him about this.
"It was noted by one witness that the Bush Office of Science and Technology Policy has been invited to send someone to the hearing to testify, but had declined to do so,"
No surprise there.
Well, As Senator Harry Reid said, "They can run but they can't hide."
I suspect that they will eventually have to drag Marburger before the committee, since he apparently will not appear of his own accord.
The gall that some of these public officials have. They think they can just thumb their nose at the people who pay their salary -- the Congress and the American people.
Was interesting to watch Piltz sitting right next to his former boss, Jim Mahoney, and essentially refuting much of what he was saying.