We have seen Republicans in
Florida and
Wisconsin prohibit state employees from using terms such as 'global warming,' 'climate change' and 'sea level rise,' but the U.S. House has upped the ante by several orders of magnitude - they are
cutting the funds for the earth sciences, which includes climate research. John Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, lambasted the bill in a 1 May statement:
“If enacted, the NASA authorization bill headed to the House floor later this month would do serious damage to the Nation’s space program, as well as to Earth-observation and Earth-science programs essential for predicting, preparing for, and minimizing the damage from disasters both natural and human-induced.”
The funding is included in the America COMPETES legislation (HR 1806) which came before the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. The bill
cuts funding for earth sciences by nearly 20% and possibly (depending on circumstances) as much as one-third. Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) called the America COMPETES legislation “a fiscally responsible, pro-science bill that sets the right priorities for federal civilian research.” But, Democrat Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), a member of the House panel, said the legislation would significantly impair NSF and DOE and she called H.R. 1806 “a tragedy in waiting.” She contrasted the current bill with the earlier COMPETES acts of 2007 and 2010, which she said sought to ensure the country’s continued scientific preeminence while growing the economy, stating,
“In contrast, H.R. 1806 is preoccupied with questioning the motives of the National Science Foundation and the integrity of the scientists it funds. In addition, it would put up multiple roadblocks to progress in clean energy [research and development], under the guise of preventing ‘picking winners and losers,’ even as H.R. 1806 picks its own winners and losers,”
I just keep wondering, if there is no global warming, why are they so afraid of it?
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