Rep. Lamar Smith’s battle against federal scientists and communications officials related to an important climate change study is turning into a partisan kerfuffle.
Smith, chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, has been criticized by Texas Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, the top Democrat on the committee, for subpoenas sent to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The subpoenas seek communications related to a study showing the rate of global warming did not change during the last 15 years, as was previously believed.
Last week, Johnson sent Smith another letter criticizing his investigation. Smith fired back Monday, accusing Johnson of not taking the committee’s oversight role seriously.
“Your letters indicate that you are not interested in obtaining answers to those important questions and that you are willing to let them go unanswered,” Smith wrote. “Indeed, any time the committee attempts to conduct oversight, you place your political allegiance to the administration ahead of the committee’s institutional interests.”
Smith has targeted NOAA with multiple subpoenas related to the study.
Smith has been under fire from Democrats and some scientists for issuing the subpoenas. He alternately has cited his beliefs that the study was rushed and that he believes “political appointees” played a role in the study’s release as reasons for his investigation.
The Texas Republican says the study is being used to justify President Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which requires states to cut greenhouse gas emissions one-third by 2030. He has accused NOAA scientists of purposely altering data to get scientific results that fit Obama’s agenda. Many scientists blame greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels for climate change.
The letter from Johnson that irked Smith accused him of misusing his constitutional authority.
“The Constitution doesn’t provide you with a blank check to harass research scientists with whose results you disagree,” she wrote. “The Constitution doesn’t imbue you with the power to sanction a separate and equal branch of government simply because they won’t entertain your baseless conspiracy theory.”
Johnson requested Smith end the “illegitimate ‘investigation'” and said Democrats on the committee will purposely work against his efforts to “attack” climate science.
In his letter, Smith does not hold back.
He accuses Johnson of acting as a defense lawyer for the Obama administration. He said that kowtowing to the administration is bad for Congress.
Smith also accused Johnson of making personal remarks about him and his staff and pointed to public remarks she made hoping he would be assigned to lead a different committee.
“You even indicate that I do not believe in science,” he wrote. “This type of personal attack makes it clear that you have no interest in being a trusted partner in conducting oversight.”
Smith aired a lot of the committee’s other dirty laundry in his letter to Johnson, accusing her of working against committee investigations related to the slowed Pebble Mine process and former federal employees creating contractor jobs that subsequently received thousands in federal contracts.
Smith also points out that Johnson called the Environmental Protection Agency “environmental firefighters” in the wake of the Gold King Mine spill in August, which the EPA caused.
The investigation into NOAA’s scientists and how the global warming study was released is just another example, he wrote.
“Instead of expressing any interest in participating in oversight of NOAA or other agencies under the committee’s jurisdiction, and ensuring that taxpayers’ hard-earned money is not being abusively misused, you and members of the minority obstruct, play defense, and character assassinate anyone who questions the administration or any federal agency,” Smith wrote.
