Rep. Ralph Hall on climate change science: "Reasonable people have serious questions.” | REUTERS Climate skeptic in line to take over House science panel

The likely next chairman of the House Science Committee says “reasonable people have serious questions” about the science connecting manmade greenhouse gas emissions to global warming.

Rep. Ralph Hall (R-Texas) on Wednesday vowed to investigate the Obama administration’s climate policies if he becomes chairman.


“This administration argues that cutting greenhouse emissions as a policy directive is justified by science,” Hall said at a hearing organized by Democrats and billed as a “rational discussion” on climate science before the GOP takes over. “I think this hearing today will demonstrate and should demonstrate that reasonable people have serious questions about our knowledge of the state of the science,” he added.

Hall, currently the science panel’s ranking member, criticized the administration for proceeding with regulations to slash greenhouse gas emissions despite a staggering national debt and raised doubts about whether those rules are necessary.

“I’ve had people tell me if we had all the money in the world, put it in Texas Stadium, people couldn’t change nature’s future one iota,” Hall told POLITICO outside the hearing. Next year, he pledged to have witnesses “testify under oath what the facts are and not to throw away money on something that has real question whether or not it’s going to do what they say.”

Hall refused to detail which administration officials he’d like to haul before the committee, saying he needs to win the chairmanship first.

He did, however, pledge to scrutinize the so-called Climategate controversy surrounding e-mails stolen from climate researchers in Britain, saying the documents exposed a “dishonest undercurrent” within the scientific community. Investigators in the United States and Britain have cleared the scientists of any wrongdoing.

Meanwhile, Energy and Environment Subcommittee Chairman Brian Baird (D-Wash.) used what will likely be his last hearing in Congress to take a shot at Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.), who told POLITICO last week that his understanding of the Bible reaffirms his belief that government shouldn't be in the business of trying to address rising greenhouse gas emissions.

"I do believe in the Bible as the final word of God," Shimkus said. "And I do believe that God said the Earth would not be destroyed by a flood."

Baird fired back today in his prepared testimony, saying that he wouldn’t presume to know God’s intentions, but noted that “we were given brains for a reason.”

Another lawmaker leaving the Hill, Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.), suggested that the GOP focus on climate scientists was unproductive.

"I want to suggest, to my free-enterprise colleagues especially, ... whether you think it's all a bunch of hooey — what we talk about in this committee — the Chinese don't. And they plan on eating our lunch in this next century" when it comes to technological innovation, Inglis said. "We may press the pause button here for several years, but China is pressing the fast-forward button."