Washington D.C. December, 8, 2009 – Today, Science and Technology Committee Ranking Member Ralph Hall (R-TX), along with eleven Committee Republicans, introduced H. Res. 954, a Resolution expressing the Sense of the House of Representatives that certain scientific protocols and standards be honored prior to the United States considering any official action to address climate change.
“In addition to economic and regulatory concerns about international climate agreements, the issue of scientific integrity also has been called into question,” said Ranking Member Hall. “There is growing concern and evidence that scientific data, from which global warming theories emerged, has been manipulated, enhanced or deleted, and this is especially problematic since this data could eventually be used as the basis for a regulatory regime in the U.S.”
Recent events have uncovered extensive evidence from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia in England, which involved many researchers across the globe discussing the destruction, alteration and suppression of data that did not support global warming claims. Leaked email exchanges detail attempts to alter data that is the basis of climate modeling. These exchanges reveal actions that constitute a serious breach of scientific ethics.
Countries from all over the world are meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark, to discuss the possibility of entering into agreements limiting carbon dioxide emissions by each country based on the information generated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the CRU.
Ranking Member Hall today cautioned the President that “Signing an international agreement in Copenhagen, or taking other official government action based on questionable science, could undermine our economic growth and kill American jobs.”
The Resolution suggests that any official U.S. action should be based on relevant scientific, technical, and economic considerations and continually re-evaluated in the light of new findings in these areas. The Resolution states that:
“In order to ensure public trust in the scientific assessments that serve as a foundation for policy actions, research should be based on the scientific method and established standards of professional conduct, including a fundamental expectation that scientific research results are an objective, honest, and accurate reflection of a researcher’s work, and that data and methodology underlying such results are archived and made available to other scientists so that they may be verified and replicated.”
A copy of H. Res. 954 can be found HERE.