[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 22]
[House]
[Pages 29907-29914]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    GLOBAL WARMING OR CLIMATE CHANGE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Speaker, I do think that I will use the 1 
hour. I understand there's going to be a rule reported in the time, and 
we'll certainly yield to the person from the Rules Committee to file 
that rule.
  Madam Speaker, I wish to rise to discuss a topic that's already been 
discussed on the House floor this evening. It's the issue of climate 
change or global warming. Next week, I am honored to be one of the 
congressional delegation attending the Copenhagen Climate Change 
Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, that's going to be led by our 
esteemed Speaker, the Honorable Nancy Pelosi. I also attended Kyoto, 
Buenos Aires, and The Hague. I'm the ranking Republican on the Energy 
and Commerce Committee and formerly also on the Science Committee, and 
I have been a participant at the congressional level on the climate 
change debate for the last 20 years.
  I'm going to start off by putting into the Record a suppressed report 
that Congressman Poe just talked about that has never before this 
evening been made public in its entire, unexpurgated form. The title of 
the report is Comments on the Draft Technical Support Document for the 
Endangerment Analysis for Greenhouse Gas Emissions under the Clean Air 
Act. This report

[[Page 29908]]

was compiled by Dr. Alan Carlin, who is a career scientist and 
investigator at the EPA. At one time, he self-described himself, I'm 
told, as a global warming believer. He prepared this report. He works 
in a group within the EPA that is responsible for conducting an 
internal review of some of these draft orders before they go public. 
And I'm not going to read the entire report. I'm going to read excerpts 
of the preface and the executive summary, and then I will put the 
entire report into the Record.
  This is from the executive summary and the preface, and I quote, ``We 
have become increasingly concerned that EPA has itself paid too little 
attention to the science of global warming. EPA and others have tended 
to accept the findings reached by outside groups, particularly the 
IPCC,'' which is the International Protocol on Climate Change under the 
auspices of the United Nations, ``and the CCSP, as being correct 
without a careful and critical examination of their conclusions and 
documentation. If they should be found to be incorrect at a later date, 
however, the EPA is found not to have made a really careful independent 
review of them before reaching its decision on endangerment, it appears 
likely that it is the EPA rather than these other groups that may be 
blamed for any errors.
  Further down on the executive summary, Page 1, ``Our conclusions do 
represent the best science in the sense of most closely corresponding 
to available observations that we currently know of, however, and are 
sufficiently at variance with those of the IPCC, CCSP, and the Draft 
TSD that we believe they support our increasing concern that the EPA 
has not critically reviewed the findings by these groups.''
  Further, ``we believe our concerns and reservations are sufficiently 
important to warrant a serious review of the science by EPA before any 
attempt is made to reach conclusions on the subject of endangerment 
from greenhouse gases.''
  And on Page 2, ``What is actually noteworthy . . . is not the 
relative apparent scientific shine of the two sides''--those that 
oppose and those that support the global warming argument--``but rather 
the relative ease with which major holes have been found in the 
greenhouse gas/CO2/global warming argument. In many cases 
the most important arguments are based not on multimillion dollar 
research efforts, but by simple observation of available data, which 
has surprisingly received little scrutiny. The best example of this is 
the MSU satellite data on global temperatures. Simple scrutiny of this 
data yields what to us are stunning observations. Yet this has received 
surprisingly little study or at least publicity. In the end it must be 
emphasized that the issue is not which side has spent the most money or 
published the most peer-reviewed papers, or been supported by more 
scientific organizations.'' This is very important, the next sentence. 
``The issue is whether the greenhouse gas/CO2/AGW hypothesis 
meets the ultimate scientific test--conformance with real world data. 
What these comments show is that it is this ultimate test that the 
hypothesis fails.'' That the hypothesis fails. ``This is why EPA needs 
to carefully reexamine the science behind global warming before 
proposing an endangerment finding.''
  Now, this is from Dr. Carlin in the EPA. This is not some disgruntled 
Republican Congressman. This is a professional scientist, Ph.D., in an 
office within the EPA that is tasked with reviewing this endangerment 
document before a final decision is made. And in his words, the 
ultimate test is whether the greenhouse gas CO2 hypothesis 
meets the ultimate scientific test conformance with real world data. 
These comments show that it is the ultimate test that the hypothesis 
fails.
  Further, on Page 3 of the executive summary, there are several 
principal comments that they wish to raise in their review. ``As of the 
best information we currently have''--and this was in March of 2009--
``the greenhouse gas/CO2 hypothesis as the cause of global 
warming, which the Draft TSD supports, is currently an invalid 
hypothesis from a scientific viewpoint because it fails a number of 
critical comparisons with available observable data. Any one of these 
failings should be enough to invalidate the hypothesis; the breadth of 
these failings leaves no other possible conclusion based on current 
data.'' As Feynman said in 1975, ``failure to conform to real world 
data makes it necessary from a scientific viewpoint to revise the 
hypothesis or abandon it. Unfortunately this has not happened in the 
global warming debate, but needs to if an accurate finding concerning 
endangerment is to be made.''
  The failings listed below why we should not have an endangerment 
finding in order of importance in our view:
  Number 1, the lack of observed upper tropospheric heating in the 
tropics;
  Number 2, the lack of observed constant humidity levels;
  Number 3, the most reliable sets of global temperature data we have, 
using satellite microwave sounding units, show no appreciable 
temperature increases during the critical period from 1978 to 1997. 
Satellite data after 1998 is also inconsistent with the greenhouse gas/
CO2/AGW hypothesis;
  Number 4, the models used by the IPCC do not take into account or 
show the most important ocean oscillations which clearly do affect 
global temperatures;
  Number 5, the models in the IPCC ignored the possibility of indirect 
solar variability;
  Number 6, the models in the IPCC ignored the possibility that there 
may be other significant natural effects on global temperatures;
  Number 7, surface global temperature data may have been hopelessly 
corrupted by the urban heat island effect.
  Now, this one is the one that I was asking Mr. Markey about to see 
where he got his data set, because surface global temperature, if you 
take it in downtown Manhattan, for example, is going to be very 
different than if you take a surface temperature in a rural area. The 
actual urban effect, the concrete, the asphalt, the buildings raise the 
temperature, and there is some concern that this urban heat island 
effect has corrupted the temperature.
  Those are just seven reasons in this draft document why this author 
had skepticism about going forward with an endangerment finding. And 
yet, this report was not made a part of the record. This report was not 
made public. In fact, this report was suppressed, and because of 
considerable anxiety on the part of people like myself and Congressman 
Issa, Congressman Sensenbrenner, the author was allowed to put a 
redacted version of this report on his personal Web site. Then we were 
able to get the unredacted version provided to us by the EPA, and 
that's the version that I'm going to put in the Record.

                              {time}  1900

  As this author says, Dr. Carlin, he was prophetic because we're now 
seeing that some of the climatologists--maybe more than some--have 
attempted to suppress certain data, to destroy data sets, to manipulate 
data sets, to not get a true scientific review, but to reach a 
preconceived conclusion.
  Madam Speaker, I think that is wrong.
  Mr. DREIER. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. I will yield to the distinguished member of the 
Rules Committee.
  Mr. DREIER. I thank my friend for yielding.
  I know there are colleagues of ours who are anxiously looking forward 
to participating in this very important Special Order, and I want to 
congratulate all of you for the work that you're doing to demonstrate 
that there clearly is a wide diversity of views on this question of 
global warming.
  And I was listening to the exchange that my friend had with the 
chairman of the committee from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey), and I was 
thinking about the fact that one of the things I think would be very 
helpful for us to do is to try and pursue some bipartisanship. That's a 
buzzword that is used around here regularly. People talk about how 
important it is for us to be as bipartisan as we can. But I think with 
the controversy that exists from

[[Page 29909]]

both sides, there may be a way for us to come together on an issue.
  I wanted to come up and mention this very briefly. I have joined, 
Madam Speaker, with our colleague from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich.) I know that 
might come as somewhat of a surprise that Mr. Kucinich joined in an 
effort to deal with this question in a bipartisan way--and it might 
come as a surprise that David Dreier would join with Mr. Kucinich in 
doing something that would address this issue. But it is a measure that 
I think is very important for us to look at.
  There is recognition--and Mr. Markey said this--that we have the 
potential to create a couple of million green jobs here in the United 
States. And I think there is a desire to continue to do what we can to 
improve our environment. I come from the Los Angeles basin. We have 
air-quality problems there. Very serious. I believe that if we were to 
take what is our comparative advantage--and my friend from Georgia and 
I have worked regularly on the trade issue--and take advantage of our 
comparative advantage, which happens to be the development of a wide 
range of alternative energy sources--whether it's algae, whether it's 
wind, whatever--and provide a chance for those technologies to move to 
these developing countries which have not yet been able to comply--
Bangladesh, India, China, other countries.
  So Mr. Kucinich and I have joined to introduce a resolution calling 
for the tariff-free export of all green technology. Now, I believe that 
that would create jobs in this country, and it would go a long way 
towards helping us in our quest to deal with overall environmental 
issues.
  And so while there is a wide range of views on this issue of global 
climate change, I do believe that it's important for us to know that 
improving our environment is something we can come together on. And I'd 
like to congratulate my friend and say that I hope that in a bipartisan 
way we can encourage entities like the World Trade Organization to 
negotiate a worldwide agreement that would allow green technology to be 
exported to all parts of the world.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. I thank the gentleman for bringing that to our 
attention, and it sounds like a worthy proposal.
  Mr. DREIER. I thank my friend for yielding.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. I would like to yield such time as he may 
consume to a member of the committee from the great State of Illinois 
(Mr. Shimkus).
  Mr. SHIMKUS. Thank you, Mr. Barton.
  I think what is important, Mr. Barton, was your focus on science and 
your focus on data points and what we should be able to do in the 
Chamber in a bipartisan manner is to agree on the data points. We 
should be able to agree on what the science is, and that's in question. 
And for many of us it has been in question for a long time.
  We're joined by John Linder who's been following this as long as 
anyone else has, and part of his search has been because the scientists 
would not give the data. They would never tell us what's the base by 
which they're making this extrapolation. And so I'm glad that you 
highlighted the scientific method that I didn't get on the chart but I 
brought down here.
  It's very simple. I taught high school. You're an engineer. I went to 
an engineering school. This is irrefutable. This is how science is 
done. You ask questions. You do background research. Background 
research in this debate would be to get the temperatures.
  We're already questioning the background research, one, based upon 
the request from the Freedom of Information Act, and of course now our 
friends at the IPCC are saying, We don't have them. The dog ate the 
homework. It is amazing. Scientists are really some of the most 
respected professionals. But they're respected because of this, this 
process, which should be objective. You should be able to follow it. 
You should be able to construct a hypothesis. The hypothesis is an 
educated guess. That is all it is. It's not truth. It's a guess based 
upon the data points. And then you are--then you're to test it. And 
then you analyze the result and then draw your conclusions.
  Based upon the scientific method, you can categorically say right now 
that those who say the science that solves are in error. The science 
does not solve. That is why all of this political activity is going on 
right now. That is why now the EPA administrator is saying, We're going 
to do endangerment findings. They want to do it before we are able to 
educate the public that the science is not solid. And they are not 
providing us with the data points, they're not complying with Freedom 
of Information Act requests. And so this process is skewed.
  So when they tested it, they found out that the results didn't match 
their educated guess. And what did they do? These scientists are 
politicians. They went into--we call it in the military they went and 
holed up. They lowered the turrets; they got under ground. Don't ask 
questions. And here are some of the emails, in essence, to prove that.
  Here's the first one.
  ``The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the 
moment, and it is a travesty that we can't.''
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. When was that email? Was that 10 years ago? Was 
that a decade ago? When was that?
  Mr. SHIMKUS. 12 October, 2009, at 8:57.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. So that was 2 months ago.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. As of 2 months ago, we can't account for the lack of 
warming.
  There's two things here. First of all, they say we can't account for 
the lack of warming. So their background research, he is already trying 
to skew the research. And he has an emotional response: ``It's a shame. 
I'm saddened.'' Scientists shouldn't be emotionally attached to the 
data. This is the data. Let's test it.
  What we would encourage our friends on the other side to say is, in a 
bipartisan manner, let's get the facts on the table, and let's get the 
scientists to look at the facts. The facts are being hidden. That is 
sad.
  One is they don't have the facts; two is he's emotionally distraught 
because his hypotheses cannot be proven.
  Here's another one to the ranking member. ``I can't see either of 
these papers being in the next International Panel on Climate Change 
report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow--even if we have to 
redefine what the peer-review literature is.''
  Here's another process on the scientific message. Analyze the 
results. Draw conclusions. They have got some--they've done some 
analysis that doesn't support it. So are they going to add that in a 
scientific objective fashion, say, This is what we believe, but there 
are some who disagree--they say that the facts don't speak for the 
hypotheses? No. These scientists say, We're going to bury it. We're 
going to hide it. We don't want the public to know.
  Can you imagine scientists doing that?
  Again, the scientific community is one of the most respected 
communities because they go by the scientific method.
  Here they admit that they're going to keep the analyses out of the 
report--two analyses that contradict what they want their hypothesis to 
be.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. Now Mr. Phil Jones, he is the head of the 
Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University in Great Britain. Is he 
the gentleman that just resigned?
  Mr. SHIMKUS. He is the person who just resigned.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. And is Michael Mann the professor at Penn State 
that is the proponent, initially, of the hockey stick theory, which has 
been shown to be discredited and was actually using data sets that were 
manipulated in a way that they shouldn't have done? Those are the two 
gentleman, the author and the recipients of this email?
  Mr. SHIMKUS. That is correct.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. And are these two gentlemen two of the leading 
proponents in the IPCC that climate is growing warmer because of 
manmade CO2 emissions?
  Mr. SHIMKUS. They are the foremost promoters of the theory.

[[Page 29910]]

  And there's the followup. Are they receiving taxpayer dollars to 
promote this theory through the IPCC, which is the U.N. International 
Panel on Climate Change, or Virginia.edu, and you could speculate that 
there are DOE grants, EPA money, going. And another thing, these 
scientists are for hire. They're for hire.
  Mr. LINDER. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SHIMKUS. I will yield.
  Mr. LINDER. We heard the gentleman from Massachusetts talk about Big 
Oil, and Saudi Arabia funding all of the opposition. I can't find the 
scientists that are getting those checks. But a recent study came out 
in the last several weeks that says that government money going to 
climate science on behalf of those who believe in human-cause global 
warming has been $79 billion over the last 20 years. They have dwarfed 
anything on the other side of the issue. And they continue to do it.
  Would you suggest that maybe that's why they are continuing to hide 
this situation because the money keeps coming?
  Mr. SHIMKUS. I believe that those who seek taxpayer dollars--we know 
here that agencies and programs never go away. If that's why they're 
not providing the data, that's why they're hiding the fact of the last 
decade--can you imagine us in this environment of trying to get control 
of the deficit and the debt, and we're spending billions of dollars to 
scientists who are not using the scientific method?
  Mr. LINDER. I believe the number this year is $7 billion from the 
government.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. So, yes, they're on the dole. They want to keep their 
jobs so they're continuing to promote and deceive the public. I don't 
know. I would say it's pretty damaging to their name, to the community, 
and also to the taxpayers.
  Now, if I may, I have one more that I'd like to share. And there are 
tons. I mean, these are just a small sampling. The ones I picked out I 
kind of wanted to address the scientific method.
  Again, as an engineer, give us the facts, give us the data, test the 
data, prove if it's right or wrong. If it's wrong, get an analysis, and 
then maybe try again. Retest it. Let's retest the data point.

                              {time}  1915

  Here is another one: I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of 
adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years, i.e. 
from 1981 onwards, 20 years, for Keith to hide the decline.
  So now, not only are they not providing the data, they are keeping 
the analysis from being reported in the IPCC report, and they are 
jimmying the numbers. They are actually using tricks.
  These are scientists. Now, we are politicians. I think people would 
have some skepticism. We don't claim to be--you claim to be an 
engineer; I went to engineering school. I understand it, but if you 
were building a bridge, or if you were designing a building, and you 
jimmied the numbers on the tensile strength of the steel, you would be 
in real trouble because the design would be faulty, and the building 
would collapse.
  Their design, Administrator Jackson's design to remake the United 
States is on faulty data. It is on data that has been jimmied. And this 
house of cards will collapse, and it will be jobs in the wake on faulty 
data.
  Now, bring us real data. Go through the scientific method. Test it, 
but don't hide it. Don't trick us. Don't deceive us. Don't discourage 
your profession of scientists by staying on the public dole to receive 
taxpayer money to continue to promote a fraud, a fraud on the American 
public. So that's why I real appreciate, Congressman Barton, that 
you've taken this time to help address this. There's a lot of 
education. And this education has to go on now because they are going 
to be making decisions in Copenhagen. They are going to try to bind us 
to stuff on faulty data.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. Now my assumption, and this is an assumption, is 
that the gentleman that wrote those emails and that received them by 
and large are in the inner circle of the climate change community; and 
in all probability, they are in Copenhagen right now.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. You bet they are. The International Panel on Climate 
Change, they are the U.N. designees to continue to provide the 
information to the folks who attend the conference upon which they make 
the decisions.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. And if the President were to commit the United 
States to a legislative path that these scientists support, and if we 
were to adopt as law the climate change bill that passed the House that 
requires a reduction of 83 percent of emissions from CO2, 
manmade sources, 2005, by the year 2050, and we implemented that, we 
would have a CO2 emissions level in this country that we 
last experienced in 1910. And if we do it on a per capita basis that we 
last experienced per person in 1875, is it the gentleman's position 
that if we were to do that, our lifestyle in the year 2050 would be 
anywhere comparable to where it is today?
  Mr. SHIMKUS. Our lifestyle would be dramatically different.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. In a negative way.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. We rely on jobs and our environment on cheap energy. And 
as you know I'm from the coalfields of southern Illinois, and I spent 
this whole year and last year fighting for our coal reserves and the 
importance of that. And I usually bring another poster of miners who 
lost their jobs during the last cycle, 1,200 miners in one mine. The 
State of Ohio lost 35,000 coal miner jobs. That is just a fraction of 
what we will see in this country if we roll back the carbon emissions, 
and if they could prove it, but they can't.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. They can't even prove it apparently with tricks.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. Carbon dioxide is not a toxic emission. And that is what 
Administrator Jackson just said.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. If it were, the floor of the House would be a 
toxic waste dump because there is more CO2 created here than 
in any other size room in the country, with the exception of perhaps 
the Senate floor.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. I would encourage you to keep up the great work. Thank 
you for letting me join you.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. I would now like to yield to one of the most 
informed Congressmen on the issue of climate change, the Honorable John 
Linder of the great State of Georgia.
  Mr. LINDER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  I first got interested in this 5 or 6 years ago on a trip to New 
Zealand. It was a congressional delegation. We had a visit with the 
leader of the NOAA point there where they leave to go into Antarctica 
for their expeditions and come back to this scientific center. And they 
put a PowerPoint presentation together for us and a big chart on the 
wall that showed that at that time they had dug into the Vostok ice 
core for 400,000 years back, and that from 400,000 years back to today, 
temperature increases and decreases and CO2 increases and 
decrease were in consonance. They moved with each other.
  And I asked him, Who was burning fossil fuels 400,000 years ago? He 
took that as a rude question, and it took me a year to get a copy of 
that chart. But I studied that chart. And then I looked at the studies 
about the Vostok ice core. And what you discover when you don't have it 
on a, 8\1/2\-by-11 piece of paper and expanded is that temperature 
changes precede CO2 changes by about 1,000 years.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. That means that temperature is the dominant 
variable, and that it drives the dependent variable, which is 
CO2. Temperature goes up and then CO2 goes up.
  Mr. LINDER. That's correct. One study says 800 years, one study says 
2,800 years, but people average it at about 1,000 years.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. So Vice President Gore is only off by 180 
degrees?
  Mr. LINDER. That's right. And so is the entire IPCC report. 
CO2 is a trace gas. It is a plant food. It is beneficial to 
all of life. CO2 is a modest gas. Methane is 23 times more 
powerful at trapping heat. Sixty-five percent of the heat-trapping 
gases come from water vapor.
  We are not going after them because we are going after people. What 
you

[[Page 29911]]

learn when you discover that CO2 levels follow the 
temperature changes is that there's a reason for it. And the reason is 
this: we go through ice ages and global increases and declines in 
temperature. And as the temperature declines globally, the trees at the 
top of the mountain start to die for lack of photosynthesis, and then 
the bushes, and then the grasslands. And the dust that blows out across 
the oceans. And part of that dust is lead. And when that lead settles 
to the bottom of the oceans, it catalyzes growth in the largest 
biological mass we have in this planet, the plankton. And that growth 
demands CO2 to keep going.
  Now the oceans contain 70 times as much CO2 as the 
atmosphere does. And as the plant life, the plankton, pulls that 
CO2 out of the oceans, homeostasis, or equilibrium, causes 
more CO2 to come out of the atmosphere and into the oceans. 
The reverse happens when the planet warms up through more solar 
activity. So colder oceans hold more CO2 than warm oceans. 
And when the planet cools off, the CO2 winds up in the 
oceans and out of the atmosphere. We have 388 parts per million today.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. And we believe that the Atlantic and Pacific are 
in a cooling period.
  Mr. LINDER. They have been in a cooling period.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. Something called a PSO and an AMO or something?
  Mr. LINDER. That's correct. They have been in a cooling period. And 
we have now 3,400 instruments that go into the oceans. And every 10 
days they pop up, and they give satellites information of what is on 
those instruments about the temperatures. And there has been no warming 
in the oceans.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. I know it's dangerous for Congressmen to 
actually think. We are not accused of doing that very often, but there 
are sometimes some Congressmen, you and I, I think, are two, not that 
others don't, but we actually think.
  Now I want to build on what you just said. These ice core samples 
that you got the data that show temperature goes up, and then 
CO2 goes up. And if temperature were to go down, then 
CO2 would go down.
  Mr. LINDER. That's correct.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. We are in a situation right now where it 
appears, it depends on the data that you believe; but if the data 
points that we think are correct are correct, we are in a cooling 
period. Temperature has gone down at least 8 years in a row and 
probably 12 years in a row, and we appear to be in a cooling period. 
But at the same time, we have to admit that CO2 
concentrations are going up.
  Mr. LINDER. That's correct.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. So I would hypothesize that the CO2 
concentrations going up are going to prevent as much cooling, and it 
will keep the planet warmer than it would be otherwise, but still 
cooler overall, which would be a good thing for mankind. We don't want 
another ice age, do we?
  Mr. LINDER. No, we do not. In the last 2 million years, we have had 
20 ice ages, 20 glaciations, the last on average about 100,000 years, 
interrupted by about 10,000 years of warming. It has been 11,400 years 
since the last glaciation. It is likely the planet is looking toward 
going cooler again. We have had less sun activity in the last 11 years 
than we've had in many, many years.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. I'm told this, you probably know, that there are 
more glaciers in the world that are growing than there are that are in 
decline.
  Mr. LINDER. Than are receding, that's right. But 388 parts per 
million is not even high. It's at the low end of the comfort scale. 
Roughly 65 to 135 million years when the dinosaurs roamed this Earth, 
CO2 levels were five and 10 times as high they are today and 
produced a tremendous amount of greenery that fed those animals.
  542 million years ago was the Cambrian period. It came to be known as 
the Cambrian explosion because in a very short period of time, 5 to 10 
million years, which in a 4\1/2\ billion-year-old planet is the blink 
of an eye, in that short period of time, all of multicellular complex 
life that has ever existed on this Earth was deposited in the fossil 
evidence.
  How did that happen? That happened because temperatures were warmer. 
The CO2 levels were 7,000 parts per million, 20 times what 
it is today. The entire planet was covered with greenery and had 
immense amounts of oxygen and all of complex life as we know it, 96 
percent of which is no longer existent.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. But it would have been a little warmer than it 
is today. We might not have been comfortable wearing a woolen sweater 
back then.
  Mr. LINDER. But it would have been better than a glaciation. I always 
like to ask people who tell me the temperature is growing too much to 
say what should the current temperature be. Tell me. Should it be the 
temperature 1,000 years ago when Greenland was settled for agriculture? 
Or when the people in Scotland were growing wine grapes? Or should it 
be 879 A.D. when the Thames froze over? Or should it be a little ice 
age when Greenland was empty of life again?
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. All I know is when people retire, they move to 
Florida and Texas.
  Mr. LINDER. They don't move to Greenland.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. They don't move to Iceland or Greenland.
  Mr. LINDER. CO2 is a beneficial trace, helpful gas that 
feeds plants. And this whole notion that we should control it somehow 
is nothing but vanity. We are not going to change what is put on this 
planet for 4\1/2\ billion years. Now we are told, and we heard from the 
gentleman from Massachusetts, that there is a scientific consensus. He 
said 98 percent of the scientists, tens of thousands, agree with his 
position. Well, I would like to ask him to produce that list. Because 
only 600 of them shared the Nobel Prize with Al Gore. A scientist from 
Australia has said only 35 people actually wrote the IPCC reports, and 
they were controlled by 10 people.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. One of whom just resigned from his position in 
East Anglia.
  Mr. LINDER. He did? What is not popularly known is that 32,000 
scientists, including Edward Teller, 9,000 of whom are Ph.D.s and the 
rest masters, have signed a statement that says there is no evidence 
that humans are causing any impact on the global warming that occurred 
between 1975 and 1998, none whatsoever. In fact, five scientists who 
contributed to the first IPCC report said in their papers there is no 
evidence that humans are contributing. Those five statements were 
removed by the top bureaucrat at the IPCC and replaced with one 
statement that said there is no doubt that humans are causing this. He 
was asked about that under oath in a legal action. Why did he remove 
those statements? He said under immense pressure from the top of the 
Federal Government of the United States.

                              {time}  1930

  Now, ``consensus'' doesn't mean much in science. ``Consensus'' is 
important in politics. In science, we have to be seeking truth and 
fact. Indeed, in science, only two conditions are ever obtained. One is 
theory and the other is fact. You put forth your theory. You release 
your underlying documents and sources and methods, and you let your 
peers review it and try and replicate it.
  That is the point at which I got very nervous about this science 
because I tried to get underlying documents from Jim Hansen, who had 
the first computer model. He first testified before Congress in 1989, I 
believe, in the Senate. He recently attested, recently spoke in 
England. He said, We have 4 years to save the planet. He doesn't 
release his source documents because he says they are proprietary. 
Well, he is an employee of the Federal Government. The Federal 
Government ought to own those documents. They ought to be released. 
When somebody is hiding something, when somebody is hiding things, you 
begin to wonder why he is hiding it.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. It would be similar if we held an election and 
if we just said, Assume that I won----
  Mr. LINDER. That's right.

[[Page 29912]]


  Mr. BARTON of Texas. But we didn't release the documents, and we 
didn't release the ballots, and we didn't let them be audited, and we 
didn't have a canvassing committee.
  Mr. LINDER. That's correct.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. We just said, We'll assume that, since 
Congressman Linder says he won, he did win.
  Mr. LINDER. What we are learning from East Anglia--and I want to make 
a point that the gentleman----
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. Then we want to go to Mr. Scalise.
  Mr. LINDER. I want to make a point that those are not stolen 
documents. Those documents were released from inside by a 
whistleblower.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. Well, they should be in the public domain 
anyway.
  Mr. LINDER. Of course.
  But somebody working inside that organization realized they were 
destroying documents that were being asked for in the Freedom of 
Information Act, and someone released those documents. I believe that 
we ought to be thinking about releasing everything. Let scientists pour 
over it and establish whether the theory is actually a fact and move 
on.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. I agree.
  We want to now turn to the Congressman from New Orleans, Louisiana, a 
member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Congressman Scalise.
  Mr. SCALISE. I want to thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding 
and the gentleman from Georgia for opening up this discussion.
  Of course, what we are talking about and the reason this is so 
important is that many of the different world leaders are getting ready 
to meet in Copenhagen, Denmark, to start discussing a Kyoto II-type 
treaty--a treaty for many countries, including the United States, to 
literally change the way our entire manufacturing base operates.
  Of course, here in Congress, we've been debating the proposal by 
Speaker Pelosi and others to codify that type of treaty in the form of 
the cap-and-trade national energy tax. They are trying to bring a 
national energy tax to our country to tax businesses, to tax not only 
businesses but also individuals in their household electricity use for 
using fossil fuels. It's all in the name of stopping manmade global 
warming.
  So what brings us to this debate that you are focusing on is the fact 
that we have found out recently through Climategate that the science 
that they are using is corrupt. In fact, behind much of the data that 
has been used to try to sell a cap-and-trade energy tax, that has been 
used to try to sell the Kyoto Treaty and now this new meeting in 
Copenhagen to have a Kyoto II-type agreement, all of it was based on 
corrupted data.
  If you go back to former Vice President Al Gore, who said, The debate 
is over, he was trying to imply that all of the scientists are in 
agreement. Of course, as my colleague from Georgia pointed out, the 
scientists are not in agreement.
  What is even worse is now we have found out and have uncovered this 
scandal where some of the scientists who have been collecting data 
through the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC, 
which is the respected body worldwide on all of this data--it turns 
out, as the clearinghouse, they were actually corrupting the data that 
is being used.
  In some of the examples through these emails, Phil Jones, who just 
resigned, said, I've just completed Mike's nature trick--he goes on--to 
hide the decline in temperatures.
  We go back to the infamous hockey stick graph that Al Gore used in 
his film, ``An Inconvenient Truth.'' I guess the most inconvenient 
truth for the former Vice President is that these emails have now come 
out and have exposed the scandal.
  If the gentleman from Texas will allow me, I want to read a few other 
of the emails. I know my colleague from Illinois earlier highlighted 
some of the other emails.
  Yet, just to show how deep this is, first, Phil Jones in an email 
last year said, Mike, can you delete any emails you may have had with 
Keith regarding the AR4 data set? Keith will do likewise. He says, Can 
you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don't have his email 
address. We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.
  So here he is talking about deleting data, deleting the emails which 
show that some of this manipulation and corruption of the data was 
going on. This is the person who is the director of the University of 
East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit. He is a scientist who should not 
only understand the importance of following the facts, of following the 
data, but who should also understand that, as others try to verify this 
data, that is something that he should be openly and freely willing to 
share.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. The AR4 data set is the data set that was used 
in the IPCC report in 2007, so it's a
  Mr. SCALISE. Exactly.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. What you are saying is they went to some lengths 
to manipulate the data that that report is based on.
  Mr. SCALISE. They went to lengths to manipulate the data, and then 
they went to lengths to actually delete, to try to destroy the 
evidence, in essence--some of that data--as you know as the ranking 
member of Energy and Commerce and when we were having that debate here 
in committee and on the House floor on the cap-and-trade energy tax.
  Many of the people who have been promoting that national energy tax--
Speaker Pelosi and her liberal attendants and others--are using that 
IPCC data to say, Look, we need to act quickly because the data shows. 
Of course, now we know that the data was corrupted.
  Then he goes on--and we are all familiar in this country with the 
freedom of information. This administration came in saying they were 
going to be the most transparent administration ever. Yet you look at 
these emails further, and he says--this is an email--The freedom of 
information line we are all using is this. So he is telling this to 
some of the other scientists who were involved in this corruption. He 
says, The IPCC is exempt from any country's Freedom of Information Act. 
The sceptics have been told this. Even though we possibly hold relevant 
info, the IPCC is not part--and then he goes on to say--therefore, we 
don't have an obligation to pass it on.
  So he is trying to lay out this groundwork so that he doesn't even 
have to turn over his data. This is, I think, before he destroyed it.
  Then he says, If the Royal Meteorological Society is going to require 
authors to make all data available--raw data plus results from all 
intermediate calculations--he says, I will not submit any further 
papers to the RMS Journal.
  This is Phil Jones--again, leading scientist--whose data is used by 
many of these people all throughout the world to try to pass Kyoto-type 
agreements in the cap-and-trade energy tax that's getting ready to be 
debated over in the Senate.
  Mr. LINDER. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SCALISE. Yes, I will yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. LINDER. Sadly, that data that the IPCC uses from East Anglia is 
also the basis of the data that NASA uses in Huntsville, Alabama, and 
all of the other future models that have been built have been somehow 
shaped by that data. So there is no place to go now, since all of the 
source documents have been thrown away, to reconstruct all of that.
  Mr. SCALISE. It is really frustrating because there are scientists 
who have different opinions, who have tried to present alternative data 
to this corrupt scientific data, and they have been blacklisted. In 
fact, I won't go into detail on this here, but that information will 
continue to come out. In some of the emails, they actually go on to 
describe how they are going to try to blacklist other scientists who 
try to propose data which shows something different than theirs--in 
fact, even saying that they are going to withhold some of their journal 
writings so that they won't even publish some of this information.
  I go on to say this because they are trying to use this corrupt data, 
this

[[Page 29913]]

corrupt scientific data, to pass not only a cap-and-trade energy tax 
which will run millions of jobs out of this country, but they are also 
trying to use it now in conjunction with the EPA and their latest 
ruling to try to literally threaten Congress by saying, Well, okay. If 
you don't pass cap-and-trade here in Congress, then the EPA will in a 
de facto way try to pass its own cap-and-trade by using these radical 
environmentalists in the EPA, again using the corrupt scientific data, 
to try to pass it even if Congress won't pass it because the American 
people have realized this will run millions of jobs out of our country.
  Many groups, one being the National Association of Manufacturers, on 
the low end, says, We would lose 3 million jobs in our country if the 
cap-and-trade energy tax were passed, and every American family would 
pay over $1,000 more per year in higher electricity rates. All of this 
is based upon false scientific data that has been corrupted, and we 
know it from the Climategate emails.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. May I ask the Chair how much time we have 
remaining in our Special Order?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. There are 12 minutes remaining.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. There are 12 minutes. Okay.
  At about 10 minutes to go, I have got some documents I want to put in 
the Record.
  Mr. SCALISE. I yield back.
  Mr. LINDER. I want to make one point.
  The data that you are talking about and that we are acting on in this 
country with cap-and-trade is also the data being used in Copenhagen 
today, as we speak, to begin what Al Gore called the ultimate reason 
for all of this: global governance, turning over the sovereignty of the 
United States to an unelected bureaucracy and the United Nations.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. I want to thank Congressman Scalise, Congressman 
Linder, and Congressman Shimkus for participating in this Special 
Order.
  What we are attempting to do is to actually use the scientific method 
to determine what steps, if any, the United States Government should 
take policy-wise if, in fact, climate change or global warming is a 
major problem that needs to be addressed. It does appear, in my 
opinion, that there is reasonable doubt about whether we should take 
some of the radical steps that have been espoused in the climate change 
bills which have passed the House and which are pending in the Senate.
  I want to take the remaining time and go through a series of emails 
that have just become public--we've alluded to them--and go into a 
little more depth.
  The first email which we have already alluded to is from Michael 
Mann. Michael Mann is a climatologist at Penn State University. He is 
one of the leading2 is the cause of the climate warming in 
the world. This is a document from him to Phil Jones, who was, until 
recently, the head of the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia 
University in Great Britain.
  Now, Dr. Jones resigned in the last week or so, but in it, he says, 
Can you delete any emails that you've have had with Keith--Keith is 
Keith Briffa--regarding AR4?
  AR4 is a U.N. IPCC fourth assessment document from 2007. It's one of 
these policy documents that is used around the world.
  You can see that he says, I am going to contact Gene about this.
  Okay. Gene is actually Eugene Wahl. He is at the National Oceanic and 
Atmospheric Administration's office in Boulder, Colorado. That's with 
the U.S. Department of Commerce.
  He said, I am going to contact Gene about this. Can you delete any 
emails that you have? I'll get Caspar to do likewise.
  Caspar is Caspar Jones--I mean Caspar Ammann. He is at the National 
Center for Atmospheric Research, or NCAR, in Boulder, Colorado. It's a 
federally supported consortium.
  So, in this email, we have collaboration between NOAA, NCAR--both in 
the United States--the Climate Research Unit, which is CRU in East 
Anglia, Great Britain, and many prominent IPCC contributors 
coordinating document destruction. I think that is something that 
policymakers here in the United States should be concerned about.
  Now let's go to the next document, email No. 2. Now, the first one 
was from Michael Mann to Phil Jones. This is from Phil Jones to a 
gentleman named Tom Wigley. Its subject is: Schles suggestion. This is 
last year, December of 2008. It says, I am supposed to go through my 
emails, and he can get anything I've written about him. About 2 months 
ago, I deleted loads of emails, so we have very little, if anything, at 
all.
  So what this is showing is, or one could say, they have conspired to 
delete data. This is of Ben Santer, who is Santer 1, who is a prominent 
climate modeler at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore 
National Laboratory, and of Tom Wigley, who is a scientist at the 
National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.

                              {time}  1945

  The gist of this is he has already deleted a lot of emails from 2 
months ago. What are they trying to hide here?
  Now, let's go to email number 3. Email number 3 shows an 
unprecedented data purge at the CRU in East Anglia, Great Britain. Here 
is a public index of documents on one day and then here is the public 
index on the next, very quickly, after they have gone through and 
purged all, purged all of this. It says the next day, on July 28, Phil 
Jones deleted data from his public files, leaving online a variety of 
files from the 1990s. This morning, everything in Dr. Phil's directory 
had been removed.
  It's not just the emails that have been deleted, in a widely reported 
event. Steve McIntyre, who is a Canadian researcher who testified 
before Congress several years ago when I was chairman, and who has been 
attempting to get these data sets, to get these documents, he has been 
trying to get, through the Freedom of Information Act, the public 
documents that some of these studies are purported to be based upon. 
Instead of releasing them, they purged them. They took them away in 
what is reported to be an unprecedented data purge.
  They have deleted files pertaining to station data from the public 
directories. Why? Where are the data now if they are still in 
existence? What is it they are trying to hide? If the temperature data 
records really proved their theory, they would want to publicize them. 
At least I would think that they would.
  Let's go to number 4. This is an email from Phil Jones, who we know 
well now, to a gentleman named Neville Nicholls. Mr. Nicholls, let's 
see, Mr. Nicholls, I am not sure who Mr. Nicholls is, but here it says, 
I hope I don't get a call from Congress. I am hoping that no one there 
realizes I have a U.S. Department of Energy grant and have had this 
with Tom W. for the past 25 years.
  This is back in 2005. This is when I was chairman of the Energy and 
Commerce Committee, and we were conducting the investigation into Dr. 
Mann's hockey stick proposal, hockey stick theory, and we had asked for 
some documents from Professor Mann, or Dr. Mann, and this gentleman is 
saying we hope the Congress doesn't realize that we are getting Federal 
money; we don't want them to be asking us about documents.
  Of course, as we now know, they have destroyed many of those 
documents or apparently have destroyed many of those documents.
  Let's go to number 5. Now, this documents shows the lengths to which 
they will go to suppress information, says if they ever hear that there 
is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I will delete 
these rather than send them to anyone.
  Now, Congressman Markey, who is a good friend of mine and who is a 
believer, a proponent of manmade global warming, has got data sets that 
he says justify some of the policies that he supports. But here we see 
that some of

[[Page 29914]]

these documents and some of these data sets that Mr. Markey and others 
have--who sincerely believe that there is a problem--appear to be very 
suspect. In fact, they are so suspect that if they have to release them 
publicly, they would rather delete them than to comply with the Freedom 
of Information Act.
  Tom Wigley had sent me a worried email when he heard about it. He 
thought that people might ask him for his model code. My heavens, you 
know. Keep in mind that this theory that mankind-made CO2 
emissions is driving the temperature upwards, it's just that; it's a 
theory. These researchers have built these models to try to replicate 
the planet's temperature mechanism, and all these models show the 
temperature going up.
  But that's the conclusion that the modelers want. It is not factually 
correct to say the temperature is going up; it's factually correct to 
say the modelers, who want to prove that the temperature is going up, 
are putting variables and assumptions in these models that drive them 
up, but they apparently don't have the data to back that up.
  Let's go to number 6. This is again from Mr. Jones, a gentleman named 
Gavin Schmidt, concerning the revised version of something called the 
Wengen paper, W-e-n-g-e-n. It says all of our Freedom of Information 
officers have been in discussions and are now using the same exceptions 
not to respond--the advice that they got from the information 
commissioner. The Freedom of Information line that we are using is that 
the IPCC--now keep in mind the IPCC is the Intergovernmental Panel on 
Climate Change--is funded primarily by the U.S. taxpayer, not 
exclusively, but primarily, is exempt from any country's Freedom of 
Information, because the skeptics have been told this. Even though we 
possibly hold relevant information that the IPCC is not part of our 
remit, i.e., mission statement, therefore we don't have an obligation 
to pass it on.
  To me that's just irresponsible to say that the IPCC, which is a 
total governmental agency, admittedly through the U.N. and a large 
number of nations, but the U.S. as the primary funder, is above Federal 
Freedom of Information laws, not only in the United States but in every 
other country. This information that has been collected and paid for by 
U.S. taxpayers and funded by U.S. scientists is now out of reach of the 
U.S. taxpayer? I think that's just flat wrong, Madam Speaker.
  My last email is number 7, and this shows, while they accuse people 
like myself of trying to be bullies and to ostracize people, here is an 
email where again this Professor Mann, Michael, it's to Michael Mann 
from a gentleman named Malcolm Hughes, just a heads up; apparently the 
contrarians now have an in with GRL.
  GRL, which is the Geophysical Research Letters, a prominent climate 
journal--this guy Sayers has a prior connection with the University of 
Virginia Department of Environmental Sciences that causes me some 
unease. Then later on--this is truly awful. If you think that Sayers is 
in the greenhouse skeptics camp, then if we can find documentary 
evidence of this, we could go through official ATU channels to get him 
ousted. They are trying to ostracize those that are honest enough to 
say that they have some doubts about the theory.
  I will end with this: The theory of global warming caused by mankind 
is just that, it is a theory; it is not a fact. As U.S. taxpayers and 
as the guardians of the U.S. taxpayers, we should demand that the facts 
be made public so that we can make a relevant policy decision.

                          ____________________