Federal Judiciary

Skeptic Man -- By: Robert Costa

He?s been named the world?s number-one conservative idiot by left-wing bloggers. European protesters have stuck his mug on ?Wanted? posters for calling man-made global warming a ?hoax.? And the mainstream media has consistently ridiculed him as an ornery Archie Bunker type, calling him, among other things, ?the noisiest climate skeptic in the U.S.? (Bloomberg), ?banged on the head too many times? (Garrison Keillor), and, most colorfully, ?the Senate?s resident denier bunny,? who ?thinks global warming is debunked every time he drinks a slushy and gets a brain freeze? (Jon Stewart).

The target of these barbs is the Senate?s resident climate skeptic: Sen. James Inhofe. After two decades in Congress, he tells me he?s used to the knocks. In fact, the Oklahoma Republican, who last week turned 75, actually enjoys the sparring, especially this week, after thousands of embarrassing e-mails from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in England were leaked. In the exchanges, top climate scientists strategize on how best to ?hide the decline? of global warming and hash out tactics for bullying skeptics away from publishing in leading journals.

The CRU has long been a nerve center of global-warming research, spoon-feeding Chicken Little numbers to climate-change activists and governmental organizations such as the United Nations? Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, whose own furrowed-brow reports have heavily influenced policy at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Since the e-mail scandal broke, Phil Jones, the CRU chief, has resigned.

At least the Brits know how to bow out after a bit of tomfoolery. On this side of the pond -- surprise, surprise -- the Obama administration, whose green ties run deep, has no plans to scale down its efforts for massive new regulations based on increasingly questionable climate-change science. John Holdren, Obama?s science adviser (and former CRU buddy-list member), says that despite the kerfuffle, the ?science is proper, and this is about a small fraction of research on the issue.?

?Years ago, that kind of a response would be the end of the story,? says Inhofe. ?I could raise any number of questions and they?d just be ignored by the press. Now, since these e-mails have come out, I?m not the only one raising questions. Everyone is skeptical of them.? He laughs: ?I guess misery loves company.?

?When I called anthropogenic global warming a hoax in 2003, while in Milan for the U.N.?s climate-change negotiations, people said I was nuts,? says Inhofe. ?These e-mails show, however, that this is a hoax being perpetuated not just by the far-left extremists like George Soros, Michael Moore, and the Hollywood elite, but by the scientists. Their agenda is not just to stop America?s progress but to hide the data. It?s just an extraordinary and unfortunate situation.?

Inhofe, who still drives a gas-guzzling ?87 Cadillac, says real pushback, not anger, is what?s needed in Congress. He?s pushing for a full-fledged investigation into the matter and has already asked many of the scientists involved, such as Penn State?s Michael Mann, to save all their e-mails. Eventually, he says, he?d like to hold hearings on the Hill and look into all aspects of the scandal.

On Wednesday, Lisa Jackson, Obama?s EPA administrator, came to testify before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, where Inhofe serves as ranking member. He asked Jackson to suspend any projects that might be based on CRU data. Jackson was tight-lipped as Inhofe and other GOP senators read damning e-mails aloud, responding only that she hopes ?EPA scientists would spend their time working on science and working in a more collegial manner.?

Inhofe says such assurances aren?t enough. Yet in order to start a Senate investigation, he?ll need to gain the support of Sen. Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.), chairwoman of the EPW committee. For now, Boxer is waiting to see if the issue will die down. She keeps calling the CRU story a ?criminal? matter, since the e-mails were stolen.

Boxer ?is saying these things out of desperation,? says Inhofe. ?They?re all on record supporting the EPA?s endangerment finding, which, thanks to the flawed IPCC report, is now discredited, so they have to try and divert attention away and focus on the way in which the hacking took place. Look, I don?t condone the way these e-mails were acquired, but that?s no reason to block an investigation when so many taxpayer dollars are potentially going to be used to fund policy based on junk science.?

Support for such an investigation is growing gradually, says Inhofe. ?I?m talking to my fellow senators in conferences and steering committees. All they want to talk about is health care. I want to do that too, but I don?t want this to be shoved aside, either. Health care is not the only thing going on. I?m working on keeping them focused on this as an issue.?

Meanwhile, says Inhofe, President Obama is reacting to the CRU mess just like Boxer. ?He?s hoping it will go away, by pretending it?s not a real problem for the administration. That won?t work.? On December 9, Obama will attend a climate-change summit in Copenhagen. Inhofe thinks it?s a waste of time for the president and says that the spotlight on Obama will get even hotter if he commits the U.S. to more emission cuts while visiting the Danish capital.

?Obama?s insistence on attending the conference in Copenhagen and committing the U.S. to cut carbon emissions by 17 percent by 2020 is very disturbing,? says Inhofe. ?So many people in Europe don?t understand our system of government. The president should know that even if he wanted to do that, he could not do it. There?s no political will for it, especially in the Senate.? Keep in mind, says Inhofe, that none of the climate-change bills proposed by Boxer and Sen. John Kerry (D., Mass.) would have passed in the Senate this year, with or without the CRU scandal.

?I?m planning on going to Copenhagen, too,? says Inhofe. ?I?ll be leading a truth squad, to let the Europeans know that if Democrats or Obama make any promises, that they?re really just making empty pledges. European-style climate policy is not going to happen in America, period. I?m doing everything I can to ensure that continues. The Europeans can agree to whatever they want to in Copenhagen. I really don?t care what they do. I just want to make sure America is not a part of it.?

?There is now a veil hanging over the IPCC,? says Inhofe. ?The EPA must begin to back off using its reports in its policies. Billions are at stake here. The CRU cooked the science, now we must make sure that truth, not climate spin, wins out.?

Even some Democrats are lining up with Inhofe in raising red flags about Obama?s Copenhagen agenda. Sen. Jim Webb (D., Va.) wrote the president a letter reminding him that the ?administration may believe it has the unilateral power to commit the government of the United States to certain standards that may be agreed upon (in Denmark),? but that because of a little thing called the Constitution, they?ll probably hit some snags along the way. ?The phrase ?politically binding? has been used,? wrote Webb. ?As you well know from your time in the Senate, only specific legislation agreed upon in the Congress, or a treaty ratified by the Senate, could actually create such a commitment on behalf of our country.?

Webb, says Inhofe, has every right to be mad. ?It?s shocking to me how few people understand our system in Europe and elsewhere,? he says, alluding to the White House. ?Obama could very well be making statements before he leaves about commitments in order to cover for Boxer and Kerry, who have made so many promises. If Boxer and Kerry go to Copenhagen, look for me to follow them on the podium, repudiating what they say.?

Looking at how his fortunes have played out -- moving from sidelined skeptic to leader of a congressional effort to investigate climate change -- Inhofe says that he?s pleased, but that much work is still to be done.

?I?m not at all surprised that the alarmists are the ones now in a panic,? he says. ?They don?t know how to handle this. Senator Boxer knows that Penn State and the CRU are conducting their own investigations into this matter, but the Senate won?t? Doesn?t that seem a bit odd? She says she has to still study the documents, which I understand, but it?s time to move forward with this. We need to put people under oath and ask tough questions.?

Tough questions? Inhofe?s a pro at asking those. Probably good enough to give the CRU crew a little brain freeze.

-- Robert Costa is the William F. Buckley Jr. Fellow at the National Review Institute. 

Full post as published by Bench Memos - National Review Online on December 04, 2009 (boomark / email).