A Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday morning exposed just how unfit former Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-OK) is to run NASA, one of the country’s leading scientific agencies.

At a hearing in front of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, Trump’s controversial climate science-denying nominee revealed that he doesn’t even know the science he denies.

Unlike previous NASA chiefs, Bridenstine is a politician without any scientific credentials, and for that reason alone his nomination had already been blasted by senators on both sides of the aisle. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) told Politico, “I just think [his nomination] could be devastating for the space program.”

And on Wednesday, Rubio’s Democratic counterpart, Sen. Nelson (FL), gave a 10-minute opening statement on just how bad Bridenstine could be for NASA.

Nelson provides a litany of reasons why Bridenstine is unfit — his denial of climate science, his support of “discriminatory policies toward the LGBT community,” and his “divisive behavior” — culminating in this astonishing quote from the nominee:

“You’ve got collusion between Republicans and Democrats in Washington, DC. They’re coming together and they’re making deals…You’ve got Republicans and Democrats trying to come together… But what we need is fighters. We need people who will stand up and say ‘no, we’re not going to do this anymore.’”

“On behalf of every member who has devoted their career to reaching across the aisle to build consensus and to find working solutions for the American people, I take offense to that,” Nelson said. “That line of thinking is why Washington is broken.”


“NASA represents the best of what we can do as a people,” Nelson said. “NASA is one of the last refuges from partisan politics. NASA needs a leader who will unite us, not divide us. Respectfully, Congressman Bridenstine, I don’t think you’re that leader.”

Anyone who thinks Bridenstine is at all qualified to run NASA should watch Nelson’s full statement (above) or read the text (here).

Bridenstine is not merely a climate science denier. He actually gave a House floor speech in 2013 demanding that President Obama apologize for funding research into climate science. Since NASA scientists have led the way in documenting the scientific reality of climate change, it’s no surprise that there is strong opposition to Bridenstine’s nomination.

In a particularly devastating line of questioning during Wednesday’s hearing, Sen. Schatz (D-HI) had Bridenstine repeatedly contradicting himself, demonstrating he doesn’t know the science he is denying. Ultimately, the nominee ended up sputtering nonsense.


At first, Bridenstine said he agrees with the statement “climate warming trends over the past century are extremely likely due to human activity.” (That is the overwhelming consensus of the world’s top scientists and governments, lifted right off a NASA website.) But it quickly became clear Bridenstine didn’t understand what he was agreeing to, since he contradicted himself almost immediately.

Schatz asked Bridenstine if he agreed with an apparently contradictory statement, “Global warming theories should not drive national energy policy without clear evidence” — a quote from Bridenstine himself.

Bridenstine smiled and said, “I’ll tell you what I believe. I believe carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. I believe that humans have contributed to carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.”

Schatz cut in to ask, “To what extent?” and the nominee replied, “That is a question I do not have the answer to. But I do know that humans have absolutely contributed to global warming.”

In fact, there is little dispute that human activity is responsible for essentially all of the CO2 added to the air since the Industrial Revolution. The best estimate is that humans are the entire cause of warming in recent decades. And every major government in the world accepts this science. It is only debate in the halls of Congress, as Schatz said.

“This is a science agency,” Schatz said. “The scientific consensus is not that it’s really difficult to tell how much of climate change is attributable to human activity. The scientific consensus is that is primarily caused by human activity.”

“Do you agree with the scientific consensus?” he asked.

Bridenstine replied, “If that’s the scientific consensus, that it’s primarily driven by human activity, then–”

But he was cut off by an astonished Schatz, who asked, “You don’t know that that’s the scientific consensus?”

In the next 60 seconds, Bridenstine revealed that he has no idea what the scientific consensus is. Instead, he repeated the administration’s convoluted talking points on climate, and, in the end, demonstrated that he doesn’t understand even the most basic science underlying climate change.

Just three minutes earlier, he had agreed with the consensus as it is stated on NASA’s own website.

According to the Washington Post, Sen. John Thune (R-SD), the committee chairman, said he would try to vote Bridenstine’s nomination out of committee and to the full Senate as early as next week.