If you thought the days of abusing federal powers to go after climate scientists as they conduct legitimate research went out of style with the Bush administration or the "climategate" affair, think again.

Meet Rep. Lamar Smith, a Republican from Texas' 21st congressional district just north of San Antonio.

Smith chairs the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, a perch he's used to push his anti-climate science views. Smith has sought to cut NASA's earth science budget, for example, while speaking out against the Obama administration's plans to limit manmade global warming.

Smith has also done something unprecedented in the 54-year history of this committee: He has turned it into an oversight body, issuing six subpoenas, including a recent one to the administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) demanding the handing over of internal scientific correspondence concerning a landmark climate study published in one of the top scientific journals in the world earlier this year.

Smith is now effectively at war with climate science at a time when the majority of Americans view global warming as a reality, and a threat to their well-being and their children's future.

The specific study that prompted the inquiry was published in the journal Science in June. It addressed a so-called pause in global warming that scientists had observed from 1998 to 2012. Up until that point, the "warming hiatus" had been a prominent talking point for those arguing that manmade global warming either didn't exist at all, or is less of a problem than most scientists make it out to be.

But the study said that the global warming slowdown never really happened — it was just an artifact of improperly adjusted surface-temperature data. When the NOAA researchers corrected their temperature datasets, the results showed that Earth's climate had warmed by a larger amount than previously assumed.

Chart showing continued increase in global average temperatures during the past two decades, rather than a pause. Image: NOAA/NCEI

The subpoena, issued to NOAA Administrator Kathryn Sullivan on Oct. 13, focuses on those adjustments to the temperature datasets.

Science Committee Chairman Smith was among the lawmakers, nearly all of them Republicans, who ascribed to the hiatus idea. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed published in April, for example, Smith said temperature increases have been "negligible" during the past decade and a half. Smith’s views on climate change are in line with many of his House Republican colleagues, who question the existence and severity of manmade global warming. What sets him apart from his colleagues, though, is the lengths to which he has gone to influence the work of the government’s scientific agencies, from NOAA to NASA and the National Science Foundation.

The subpoena is aimed at discrediting that particular study, just as previous and unsuccessful efforts tried to cast doubt on the "hockey stick" study from climate scientist Michael Mann of Penn State University. That study showed that warming in recent years is highly unusual compared to other times in human history, and that temperatures have marched in virtual lockstep with carbon dioxide levels throughout history.

What the subpoena asks for

For example, the subpoena seeks documents and communications between NOAA employees "referring or relating to the methodology and utilization of Night Marine Air Temperatures to adjust ship and buoy temperature data." It also seeks internal NOAA communications related to global temperature datasets and monthly climate reports.

Kathryn Sullivan, NOAA Administrator, seen in 2014. Image: STAN HONDA/AFP/Getty Images

The subpoena is particularly odd considering that the main author of the study and chief of climate monitoring for NOAA, Thomas Karl, briefed members of the committee on July 16 and Oct. 19, only a few days after the subpoena landed on Sullivan's desk.

Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, the ranking Democrat on the committee, has labeled the subpoena a "fishing expedition" that undermines the credibility of the committee itself. She noted that the dataset used for the study is publicly available.

"It should be emphasized that the issue in question is a scientific research study, not a policy decision by a federal agency," Johnson wrote in her Oct. 23 letter. "As such, this is not an area of delegated legislative authority by Congress to the Executive (unless you are proposing that Congress should somehow legislatively overrule peer-reviewed scientific findings.)"

"Congress' oversight powers are broad, but not unlimited," Johnson wrote. "Investigations conducted solely for the personal aggrandizement of the investigators or to 'punish' those investigated are indefensible."

Johnson compared the Science Committee's demands for information to tactics employed by the fossil fuel industry to intimidate climate scientists and interfere with their work.

Smith's spokesperson on the committee did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Smith's did respond to Nature News earlier this week, however, saying: “NOAA needs to come clean about why they altered the data to get the results they needed to advance this administration’s extreme climate change agenda,” Smith said. “The Committee intends to use all tools at its disposal to undertake its Constitutionally-mandated oversight responsibilities.”

NOAA won't comply

NOAA is not complying with the subpoena, since NOAA sees it as an "overreach" of the committee that threatens the ability of the agency's scientists to conduct their work, according to an agency spokesperson.

"Because the confidentiality of these communications among scientists is essential to frank discourse among scientists, those documents were not provided to the Committee," the spokesperson said.

"It is the end product of exchanges between scientists — the detailed publication of scientific work and the data that underpins the authors’ findings — that are key to understanding the conclusions reached. It is a long-standing practice in the scientific community to protect the confidentiality of deliberative scientific discussions."

Instead, scientists from NOAA have personally briefed Smith and his staff on the study, the spokesperson said.

Coby Dolan, director of NOAA's Office of Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs, wrote to Smith on Tuesday, explaining the agency's attempts to satisfy the committee's requests for information via in-person briefings rather than by combing through internal communications, as the subpoena demanded.

The decision to disobey the subpoena raises the risk that the committee will hold the agency in contempt of Congress, which would then proceed to a full House vote if new Speaker Paul Ryan decides to bring it to the floor.

Alternatively, the committee could hold a hearing specifically on this study, or drop the matter altogether.

"There is no truth to the claim that the study was politically motivated or conducted to advance an agenda," said NOAA spokeswoman Ciaran Clayton.

"This study, led by a renowned climate scientist, was independently peer reviewed and vetted by a well regarded scientific journal. It is standard practice to take new climate data into account to better refine current findings," she said in an email to Mashable.

"We have provided all of the information the Committee needs to understand this issue."