House Democrats to "restore science"
Posted on 11/13/2018 12:27:41 PM PST by ETL
Idiocracy in Effect.
Less harmful than making Hazel O’Leary head of the DOE,I guess.
The only woman more ignorant than Johnson is Sheila Jackson Lee. Wonder what committee she will chair.
Maybe the two of them can get together and prevent Galveston Island from capsizing during the big summer holiday weekend crowd surges.
The results of last week’s divisive midterm elections, with Democrats reclaiming control of the U.S. House of Representatives and Republicans likely strengthening their hold on the Senate, have allowed both parties to claim victory. U.S. scientists are also experiencing mixed emotions.
Many are pleased with what they expect to be a more data-driven approach to science policy under the new Democratic chair of the House science committee. But they also face the sobering reality that, by Science’s count, only seven of the 49 House candidates with technical backgrounds were victorious.
And environmental activists are chagrined by the defeat of a proposed tax on carbon emissions in Washington and an Arizona initiative to increase that state’s reliance on renewable energy, although Nevada voters took a first step toward adopting a similar policy.
In the House, Democrats picked up nearly 40 seats. That outcome gives them control of the 435-seat body for the first time since 2010, meaning they will appoint committee chairs and decide which bills get a vote.
Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson (D–TX) is in line to replace the retiring Representative Lamar Smith (R–TX) as chair of the science committee.
The two Texans represent a stark contrast. Trained as a psychiatric nurse, Johnson has promised to “restore the credibility” of a committee that for 6 years has challenged the findings of climate scientists and questioned the need for many environmental regulations.
“We were not really following our charter [under Smith],” says Johnson, who joined the panel as a new legislator in 1993 and for the past 8 years has been its top Democrat. Instead, she says, “We were trying to uncover any information that would undercut scientific findings and avoid facing what the scientific data were showing us.”
Smith, a lawyer who came to Congress in 1989, regularly convened hearings designed to highlight the views of those opposed to federal action to curb greenhouse gas emissions. He also used his unilateral power to issue investigative subpoenas—an authority traditionally given to just a few committee heads—to attack climate science he found suspect.
Johnson hopes to shift the debate from “ignoring what’s happening” to discussing “what we should be doing to save our planet and the lives and money it takes to clean up after weather-related disasters.”
That move and other changes in tone could help repair a breach between the panel and the scientific community. “Stakeholders have told me they stopped asking for meetings [with the Republican majority] because they didn’t see the point,” says one Democratic staffer. “That’s going to change, because we will be listening.”
All seven winners with technical backgrounds are Democrats, and six were first-time candidates. Two toppled Republican incumbents; the rest won open seats. Four are women—a pediatrician, a nurse, an industrial engineer, and a retired U.S. Navy commander—helping boost overall female representation in the House to nearly 25%.
Newly elected lawmakers rarely get appointed to the appropriations committee and other panels with influence over key sectors of the economy, such as tax and fiscal policy. Accordingly, they are often overrepresented on the science committee. But none of the soon-to-be House members with technical backgrounds is lobbying for a spot on the science panel.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/11/democrats-control-us-house-science-panel-gets-fresh-start
Having a nursing degree, at least she’s taken some science classes....
Cimate is not science. Science is established on observation and experimentation, not unwarrated opinion. Are these appointees degreed in a scientific discipline? If not. why would one be seated to judge those who are?
No, it isn’t funny, and there is an article in the Dallas Morning about Latinos turning Texas blue in 2020. They vote overwhelmingly for Democrats, as do blacks, because of the promise of free stuff. The US is going to be a 3rd world country like those in S. America and Africa. When that happens, whites will be persecuted as they are in S. Africa. This is beyond depressing.
And I agree 100%. You’ll find no argument coming from me. I live in a sanctuary city. I don’t think I need to SAY more
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