Climate Change: Examining the Processes Used to Create Science and Policy

Opening Statement By Ranking Member Eddie Bernice Johnson

OPENING STATEMENT

RANKING MEMBER EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON

March 31, 2011

Hearing

Climate Change: Examining the Processes Used to Create Science and Policy

U.S. House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology

 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.  I appreciate you holding this hearing today.  Political opinions on climate change vary greatly, and nowhere more than here in the U.S. Congress.  As one who accepts the overwhelming scientific consensus around climate change, I welcome the opportunity for this Committee to hear a number of perspectives on climate science.  However, I believe this hearing will fall far short of providing a meaningful discourse on the subject. 

I am disappointed in the very broad scope of this hearing, which arguably ranges beyond the jurisdiction of this Committee, without sufficient numbers of witnesses to do the topics justice.   I believe that a subject as complex as we are attempting to cover today warrants, at the very least, multiple panels, if not multiple hearings.  To hope to adequately cover everything from basic science to regulatory policy in one 2-hour hearing strikes me as too ambitious, if not a little negligent. 

Likewise I am disappointed by the makeup of the panel today.  By that I mean no disrespect to these men or the quality of their work.  However, for years we, Democrats, have been accused of ignoring a large subset of the climate science community that, in varying degrees, does not subscribe to the conclusions of the IPCC or otherwise does not accept that the climate is changing, and that it is largely due to human activity.   We have been told that these scientists’ voices have been quashed by a wide-ranging conspiracy, and that under the new House leadership they would finally have a platform to dispel the alarmists’ mistruths about the science of global climate change.  

I look at this panel today and I must ask, “Well, where are they?”  Where are the masses of leg

Witnesses

Panel

0 - Dr. J. Scott Armstrong
Professor The Wharton School University of Pennsylvania The Wharton School University of Pennsylvania
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0 - Dr. Richard Muller
Professor University of California, Berkeley Faculty Senior Scientist, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory Faculty Senior Scientist, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory
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0 - Dr. John Christy
Director Earth System Science Center University of Alabama, Huntsville Earth System Science Center University of Alabama, Huntsville
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0 - Mr. Peter Glaser
Partner Troutman Sanders, LLP Troutman Sanders, LLP
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0 - Dr. David Montgomery
Economist
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0 - Dr. Kerry A. Emanuel
Professor Massachusetts Institute of Technology Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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