Lamar Smith (R-Texas) today acknowledged he is retiring at the end of his current term. Smith was one of the key sponsors of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which attracted widespread criticism for the powers it would grant companies going after copyright infringement. For the past five years, he has been chair of the House Science Committee, where he has intruded on peer review at the National Science Foundation and gotten into fights with NOAA because he refuses to accept the evidence for climate change.

Smith represents Texas' 21st district, which includes huge tracts of rural Texas, along with small slices of both Austin and San Antonio. He was first elected in 1987, which means he will have served for more than three decades by the time he retires. His retirement was announced in an e-mail to his staff that was obtained by the Texas Tribune. His staff later confirmed to reporters that the e-mail was genuine.

Smith vs. the Internet

Smith's seniority allowed him to assume chairmanship of various Congressional committees, and he used that platform in a way that has attracted extensive criticism. While chair of the Judiciary committee, Smith introduced SOPA. The bill would have also given rights holders the power to get court orders barring ad services and credit card companies from doing business with infringing websites, and it required Domain Name Server providers to blacklist sites that hosted infringing content. It would have also allowed the government to obtain court orders to require search services to stop displaying links to websites that host infringing content. As such, it was opposed by many technology companies and ultimately failed after a huge public outcry.

But Smith attained greater prominence for his ongoing feuds with federal science agencies and the scientists who work there. Shortly after becoming chair of the House Science Committee, Smith started a long-running conflict with the National Science Foundation (NSF), apparently over its funding of social science research that he and other Republicans objected to. In 2013, Smith held up grants in this area as examples of wasteful spending and introduced a bill that would require the NSF to certify that all of its grants were in the "national interest." Similar bills were introduced each year for the next several years, but they were not taken up by the Senate. In some versions, budget allocations were included, and these cut the funding for social sciences research at the NSF.

At the same time, Smith targeted the review process that approved the grants he didn't like. Grant reviewing is provided anonymously by researchers considered experts in the relevant fields. Smith demanded that the NSF hand over all documents related to the NSF's decision to fund specific grants, including “paper copies of the following public records: every e-mail, letter, memorandum, record, note, text message, all peer reviews considered for selection and recommendations made by the research panel to the National Science Foundation (NSF) or document of any kind that pertains to the NSF’s consideration and approval of the grants listed below, including any approved amendments to the grants." This would end the anonymity of the peer reviewers, which the NSF objected to.

Smith vs. NOAA

But Smith's attention later focused on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA. NOAA is one of two federal agencies that maintain an ongoing analysis of the Earth's surface temperatures (NASA being the other), a crucial piece of evidence that our planet is warming. Smith, perhaps through his attendance of climate "skeptic" conferences, became committed to the idea that a brief period of slower warming at the start of this century represented a pause in climate change. NOAA scientists then had the misfortune of updating the agency's temperature record using improved data, a change that eliminated any statistical hint of a warming slowdown.

Smith became convinced that the change represented fraudulent data manipulation, even though the updated data that was used had been published much earlier. He also believed that the release of the paper was timed to influence international climate negotiations, even though NOAA had no control over when the journal Science released the study. So he started subpoenaing NOAA scientists and their e-mails, hoping to uncover evidence of what he was already convinced was fraud. (The research community, meanwhile, was already providing evidence that Smith had no idea what he was talking about.)

NOAA responded by offering to have scientists meet with him, and it pointed to the availability of all the data underlying its analysis. But Smith continued to contend that the e-mails would reveal fraud, and he never gave up his pursuit of them.

Meanwhile, Smith pursued an anti-climate-science agenda more broadly. At a hearing held earlier this year, Smith claimed that when it comes to climate research, "all too often, scientists ignore the basic tenets of science," going on to claim, "Their ultimate goal is to promote a personal agenda, even if the evidence doesn't support it." Meanwhile, the Twitter account for the House Science Committee gleefully shared links to grossly misinformed Breitbart articles on climate change. Smith's motivations for these attacks became apparent when he attempted to interfere with state investigations of fossil fuel companies.

Smith was due to rotate off the chairmanship of this committee at the end of his term regardless. And while his absence may make the House Science Committee somewhat less hostile to science, it's likely that the overall direction will be similar if he's succeeded by current Vice Chair Frank Lucas (R-Okla.). Lucas has boasted of his opposition to the EPA's role in international climate agreements, and his 2016 voting record received a score of zero from the League of Conservation Voters.