WASHINGTON—The House of Representatives organized its committees on Tuesday, setting up the ground rules for the real mischief to come. One of these committees is the ironically named House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, and it is chaired by one Lamar Smith, Republican of Texas. Congressman Smith is a complete creature of the fossil fuel industry. Smith is one of the more prominent climate denialists in a caucus full of them. In the previous Congress, as chairman of this same committee, Smith got the committee rules changed so that he was allowed to issue subpoenas acting unilaterally. He then went to town.

He went after the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration when it issued a report saying that there had been no alleged "hiatus" in climate change, burying the scientists behind the report in subpoena. (We will be returning to this topic later in our broadcast.) Not to put too fine a point on it but, as The New Yorker reported last fall, Congressman Smith is completely bananas.

From climate change and evolution to sex education and vaccination, there has always been tension between scientists and Congress. But Smith, who has been in Congress since 1987 and assumed the chairmanship of the Science Committee in 2013, has escalated that tension into outright war. Smith has a background in American studies and law, not science. He has, however, received more than six hundred thousand dollars in campaign contributions from the oil-and-gas industry during his time in Congress—more than from any other single industry. With a focus that is unprecedented, he's now using his position to attack scientists and activists who work on climate change. Under his leadership, the committee has issued more subpoenas than it had during its previous fifty-four-year history. Smith, a Christian Scientist, has steadfastly campaigned against other scientific findings that cut against his a-priori beliefs—he's opposed efforts to allow marijuana use for medical purposes, for example, which he has argued do not exist.

Some of his interventions seem to misunderstand the very nature of science. Last year, for example, Smith introduced legislation requiring that all scientists applying for federal grants guarantee, in a special section of their grant applications, that their work is in "the national interest." It's hard to know exactly what Smith means by this, but whatever it means it sets a dangerous precedent, because fundamental research should be driven by curiosity—by the simple desire to generate new knowledge—rather than by anyone's political agenda. The real national interest is always served by the generation of new knowledge; Smith seems to think that only some knowledge is appropriate. The House passed his bill in February.

That last sentence is the punchline, in case you missed it.

(It only takes one afternoon of watching them organize the various committees to impress upon you what an immense and immovable structural advantage the House Republicans have in all areas of national policy. The power of their committee chairs is as absolute as it ever was in the past. More than anything else, this is the consequence of not voting, or voting badly. State legislatures gerrymandered this powerhouse into existence, one state election at a time.)

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So, anyway, on Tuesday, chairman Smith organized his committee for the coming session. In his opening statement, it became clear that age doth not wither, nor custom stale, his infinite supply of pure Krazee. In his opening statement, Smith made it clear that NOAA is in his sights again, and that he still believes that scientists are conniving to impoverish Good Old Ordinary Americans with their science-y trickeration. But not ol' Lamar Smith. He's got their number. The committee's Tuesday meeting was titled, and I am not kidding about this, "Making the EPA Great Again."

"The Science Advisory Board provides critical feedback to the EPA on its proposals," said Smith in his opening statement, in a way that wouldn't make anyone suspect that he's a little paranoid on the subject. "But in recent years, SAB experts have become nothing more than rubberstamps who approve all of the EPA's regulations. The EPA routinely stacks this board with friendly scientists who receive millions of dollars in grants from the federal government. The conflict of interest here is clear."

So sayeth the man who's taken over six-hundred large in oil and gas money since he's been in Congress. Anyway, Smith hastened to move on to the latest wingnut cause celebre: another attack on NOAA and the science of climate change. An anonymous "whistleblower" told that noted scientific journal, The Daily Mail, that NOAA fudged that report debunking the notion of a climate change "pause" that so exercised Smith in the last Congress. (I told you we'd get back to this.) All of what Smith called "recent news stories" flow from this report in the Daily Mail. Ars Technica has a good rundown on the "controversy," which seems to consist of little more than nasty office feuds that set Smith off on another anti-science rampage.

We will be hearing more about this "controversy." You can count on that. Lamar Smith has not yet begun to subpoena!

In related news, the Dakota Access pipeline got final approval on Tuesday. This is going to be the first time that a federal government under Donald Trump faces direct resistance on the ground to one of its policies. I cannot imagine this ending entirely well.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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