Another day, another Republican legislator fighting to uncloak the liberal hoax that is climate change! If you haven’t been keeping up with the saga of Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), allow us to fill you in.
Smith is the proud recipient of more than $600,000 in campaign donations from the fossil fuel industry, and also Chair of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, because our national legislature was founded purely on the principles of irony. In October, he used this position to demand that NOAA release internal documents related to a climate change study that he didn’t like. The study, published in the journal Science, stated that there has been no “pause” or “hiatus” in global warming over the past few decades — refuting an argument much-loved by climate change skeptics. Smith, a vocal skeptic himself, wasn’t buying it, and alleged that NOAA falsified the data for ideological reasons.
“The American people have every right to be suspicious when NOAA alters data to get the politically correct results they want and then refuses to reveal how those decisions were made. NOAA needs to come clean about why they altered the data to get the results they needed to advance this administration’s extreme climate change agenda,” said Smith.
Right. NOAA, for its part, complied with Smith’s demands for information on study data and methodologies, but refused to turn over emails between its scientists despite a subpoena issued by the House Science committee in October. But then, conservative group Judicial Watch jumped into the fray.
The Hill reports that on Dec. 2, Judicial Watch sued the Department of Commerce — which oversees NOAA — for refusing to reply to Freedom of Information Act requests for information on the study in question. Two weeks after the suit was filed, NOAA turned over some of the documents requested by Smith. Judicial Watch then patted itself on the back and toasted with a chalice filled with oil, and then died, because oil is toxic. No! Demons are immortal, fools.
“We have little doubt that our lawsuit helped to pry these scandalous climate change report documents from the Obama administration. The Obama administration seems to care not one whit for a congressional subpoena but knows from prior experience that a Judicial Watch FOIA lawsuit cannot be ignored. Given the lawless refusal to comply with our FOIA request and a congressional subpoena, we have little doubt that the documents will show the Obama administration put politics before science to advance global warming alarmism,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton in a press release.
Uh-huh, looking forward to it. In the meantime, you can thank Smith for this valuable use of taxpayer dollars. Stay tuned for next week, when he subpoenas NASA for emails proving that the world isn’t flat.
