BARTON, Joe REP

oppo res on Upton to get comm chair

bak

:{===

pension?

cleta election fuckery 5 26

Georgia Election Integrity Coalition FULTON FUCKERY // PIT BULLS

Gold Institute for International Strategy

FLYNN LARA SMOKY JOE BARTON

off bs

Congressman Joe Barton is a distinguished public servant with over three decades of experience representing the 6th District of Texas in the United States House of Representatives (1985–2019). Renowned for his visionary legislative leadership, Congressman Barton is recognized for fostering bipartisan collaboration and guiding impactful public policy throughout his career.

He most notably served on the influential Committee on Energy and Commerce, where he played a key role in shaping national policy on energy, healthcare, the environment, and telecommunications. Congressman Barton led efforts to pass significant legislation, including the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the COPE Act of 2006, the Gasoline for America’s Security Act of 2005, and the Digital Television Transition and Public Safety Act of 2005. He also spearheaded reforms for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2006 and was instrumental in advancing the ACE Kids Act into law.

Congressman Barton held additional leadership roles such as Deputy Whip under Speaker Newt Gingrich and Chairman of the Texas GOPAC, a grassroots Republican organization dedicated to recruiting and supporting candidates at the local and congressional levels. He also contributed his expertise as a member of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee and was actively involved in various Department of Energy initiatives.

His commitment to public service has been recognized through multiple honors, including being named Outstanding Alumni by the Texas A&M College of Engineering in 2005. Congressman Barton’s career reflects a deep dedication to legislative excellence and positive change for both his constituents and the nation.

LI Gold Institute For International Strategy | LinkedIn

Engaging with current decision-makers and their senior advisors and listening to our citizens, the Gold Institute for International Strategy offers fresh insights and practical solutions to both familiar and imminent problems on the world stage. Conscious of the challenge from authoritarian regimes abroad, popular disenchantment at home, and the emergence of new ideological, biological and technological threats; convinced of the fundamental validity and vitality of our complex and hard-won democracies and of their need to work closely together; the Gold Institute for International Strategy aims to promote the freedom, prosperity and security of our nations, applying western values, strategic vision, and the lessons of the past to the challenges of the future, through a tested international team of experienced political and military practitioners.

Website

https://goldiis.org

Phone

202.938.8893

320

https://www.drillednews.com/post/fake-science-is-a-real-danger

Back in the mid-aughts, I was an editor at Environmental Science & Technology. It's the top peer-reviewed journal for researchers who study complex environmental problems and their impacts, including air, water, and toxic chemical pollution. I worked in the news section, making these studies understandable to average readers, as well as scientists and physicians who were unfamiliar with environmental research.

But over time, I noticed that much of the “new research” we published wasn’t terribly unique. If ES&T put out a study finding that a particular chemical seemed to be toxic to children, or _{The New York Times covered}_ one of our “blockbuster” air pollution studies, I could search for 10 minutes and find multiple papers with similar findings. What was the point of spending all this time and money to study the environment and public health if nothing was being done to address the problems?

During this period, I started hearing complaints from some environmental scientists, that the industries whose products and technologies they studied were funding research to undermine findings that those products harmed public health. At first I thought this couldn’t be true. I had studied biology in college and believed that science was an objective process to reveal the world’s mysteries.

Then I met Fred Vom Saal.

Around 2004, I’d been chosen to attend an exclusive science conference on toxic chemicals, along with Vom Saal, a University of Missouri professor of reproductive biology. Vom Saal studied a chemical in plastics called bisphenol-A, or BPA. In humans and other animals BPA mimics estrogen, meaning it can disrupt our body’s hormonal system. According to Vom Saal, industry-funded scientists were attacking his research by repeating his studies, but with slight changes in the protocols so that the problems he’d discovered with BPA wouldn’t turn up. With these studies in hand, companies then claimed that Vom Saal’s research was shoddy.

I listened to Vom Saal rant for about 30 minutes one summer afternoon during a break in the conference, then exited politely. Science, like every profession, attracts its share of crazies. It was easier for me to accept that Vom Saal was a tad delusional than to believe that industry scientists manipulated research.

But then I started hearing about Tyrone Hayes, a biologist at the University of California, Berkeley. Hayes was studying atrazine, a _{widely-applied herbicide}_ that controls weeds and increases crop yields in corn and sorghum. Scientists were discovering that this chemical was the most common pesticide contaminant of ground and surface waters, and finding it in some drinking water wells, too. Hayes’ research showed that atrazine interfered with testosterone, chemically castrating some animals and turning males into females.

The next question should have been: What was atrazine doing to humans?

But like Vom Saal, Hayes contended that corporate scientists were publishing studies that nearly mirrored his own, with slight changes in protocol to get results that found no problems with atrazine. According to Hayes, these studies _{were part of an orchestrated campaign}_ to make him appear incompetent. But Hayes struck me as an odd fellow and a bit eccentric. As with Vom Saal, I had my doubts about him.

Then along came climate scientist Michael Mann.

In the summer of 2005, Congressman Joe Barton, R-Texas, began investigating Mann, along with several other climate scientists, for allegedly making “methodological flaws and data errors.” _{Barton demanded information}_ on their financial backing from government agencies and access to their data and computer codes. He questioned their relationships to organizations studying climate change. It seemed like a juicy story that was right in line with ES&T's science news coverage, so I contacted sources to learn more and begin writing stories.

Because ES&T didn’t cover climate change, I knew little to nothing about climate science. What I did know came from reading the mainstream news, which put across climate science as controversial, and climate researchers' many troubling claims about global warming as overblown. But I also knew that these outlets were probably getting the story wrong, because of an interaction I’d had the year before with some fellow reporters at the annual conference of the Society of Environmental Journalists.

One day at the conference, while six or seven of us were standing in a circle during a break, the conversation shifted to climate change. Because I didn’t know much about the subject, I kept asking the others questions, trying to understand whether the research was any good. A woman who covered the environment for a newspaper out west began laughing, saying that there were about a dozen scientists who said that climate science was nonsense. She kept contact information around for all 12 of them, she told us, becauseher editors required her to put one of these doubters in every story to provide journalistic “balance."

Several reporters in the circle giggled. This was my first hint that what I was reading in the media on climate science might be overemphasizing contrarian opinions.Because what everyone in that circle already knew, and I was learning, was that by 2004 thousands of climate experts around the world had published research showing global warming was real, and mostly caused by carbon dioxide pollution from burning oil, coal, and gas.

My article about Barton’s investigation of Michael Mann quoted several experts who told me the affair was a “witch hunt.” But a question kept nagging at me: Why had Barton started this investigation in the first place? It didn’t make any sense. So I began looking at the entire sequence of events that led up to it.

In his letter demanding information and records, _{Barton had referenced a front-page article}_ in The Wall Street Journal that discussed research published by Stephen McIntyre,a retired mining consultant. In several of these papers, _{McIntyre had poked holes in Mann’s}_ research. At this point in time, some journalists and activists were beginning to expose many of the scientists questioning climate science as industry lackeys. But McIntyre was retired, creating the appearance of independence from any extraction industry and greater credibility.

On a lark, I called up McIntyre’s former employer. Surprise! I caught him still working for industry. Then I looked into the journal Energy & Environment, where McIntyre had published some studies. It turned out to be _{a sad publication}_ without any substantive peer review process, and operated by an editor without any science credentials — but who assured me that while she didn’t have any training in science, _{her husband had}_ a doctorate in physics.

In short, Barton had launched an investigation based on a Wall Street Journal article with some pretty flimsy reporting. Commenting on this article, former Journal editor _{Frank Allen told me}_, “It was a strange story ’cause it had this bizarre undertone of being investigative but it didn’t investigate. And this piece — what I thought was bothersome about it — it purported to be authoritative, and it’s just full of holes.”

Fred Vom Saal, Tyrone Hayes, and Michael Mann: Three different academics, working in different fields, who didn’t know each other, but who each had a story about industry campaigns to undermine their research. Was I a magnet for paranoid fringe voices in science, or were they telling the truth?

Then I began noticing a link between climate change and smoking. Whenever a group or public expert said that climate change isn’t real, it turned out that about 10 years prior, in the mid-’90s, they were likely to have said that smoking isn’t harmful. I found this out by going through a new archive that the University of California, San Francisco had put online, called _{the Tobacco Archives}_....

==

**The deconstruction continues** –> Steve Horn reports for DeSmogBlog that the Trump administration is considering a fracking lobbyist to head the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Bill Cooper is best known among industry insiders as the man who successfully pushed the “Halliburton loophole,” a provision that exempted fracking from EPA oversight under the Safe Drinking Water Act, making it more complicated for regulators to crack down on gas drillers who polluted water supplies.

https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/03/17/architect-fracking-loophole-trump-environmental-council-bill-cooper

:{

}:

no many link

Architect of Federal Fracking Loophole May Head Trump Environmental Council

By Steve Horn • Friday, March 17, 2017 - 03:58

Confidential sources have told Politico that Bill Cooper — current congressional staffer and former fossil fuel industry lobbyist and attorney — is under consideration to head President Donald Trump's White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ).

CEQ works to coordinate various federal agencies dealing with environmental and energy public policy issues and oversees the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review process for proposed infrastructure projects.

Cooper served as legal counsel for the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee on what is today known as the “Halliburton Loophole,” a clause which exempts hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) enforcement of the Safe Drinking Water Act. The Halliburton Loophole was slipped into the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and became law under President George W. Bush.

A 2005 newsletter published by the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission (IOGCC) credits Cooper specifically for his work in getting the clause inserted into the bill.

“Cooper's concerns about potential EPA regulation of fracking — as championed by Democrats several years earlier — piqued the interest of the Republican chairman of theHouse Energy and Commerce Committee, Billy Tauzin of Louisiana, as well as Joe Barton of Texas, the chairman of the subcommittee on air quality,” industry publication The Oil Daily furhter reported in December 2013. “Their mantra was 'Let's fix it, and let's fix it right.'”

In a Truth in Testimony form Cooper submitted before testifying at a 2013 House Committee on Energy and Commerce hearing, he also cited the central role he played in negotiating and writing the Energy Policy Acts of 2002 and 2003, both of which had Halliburton Loophole provisions. On that form, Cooper also listed his experience as an oil and gas industry attorney.

“Practiced law, serving clients in oil and gas exploration, development, production, including natural gas gathering, transmission, and distribution, provided counsel in the development of litigation, acquisition, and divestment strategies, personnel policies, regulatory compliance, and long-range initiatives,” reads the form. “Conducted due diligence for oil and gas exploration companies for acquisitions, divestitures, and litigation. Supervised survey crews, independent contractor drilling crews, well stimulation, geophysical, and completion crews for oil and gas wells. Prepared budgets and managed expenditures of all funds for the execution of drilling programs.”

Cooper presently serves as staff director for the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee's Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources and formerly was a lobbyist for theCenter for Liquefied Natural Gas (CLNG), American Petroleum Institute (API), and Southern Company.

CLNG, where Cooper worked for nearly a decade before passing through the reverse revolving door and returning to work for Congress, was created by the American Petroleum Institute.

Industry-Sponsored Junkets

Cooper's amicability toward the oil and gas industry was clear during his first stint working as a congressional staffer, before he became a lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute.

For example, he attended the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission (IOGCC) 2004 meeting in Oklahoma City — on the IOGCC dime — while working for the House Energy and Commerce Committee, according to congressional travel disclosure records reviewed by DeSmog. Sponsors of that meeting included BP, Chesapeake Energy, Devon Energy, Dominion Energy, Kerr-McGee (now Anadarko Petroleum), Williams Energy, and others.

:{

}:

IOGCC, a congressionally authorized, interstate quasi-government agency whose members are oil and gas industry state regulators, lobbyists, and executives, played a central role in advocating for the Halliburton Loophole.  

“Thanks to the Halliburton Loophole, the oil and gas industry is the only industry in America that is allowed by EPA to inject known hazardous materials — unchecked — directly into or adjacent to underground drinking water supplies,” Jennifer Krill, Earthworks executive director, told DeSmog.

As a House Energy and Commerce staffer, Cooper traveled on numerous other industry-funded trips beyond IOGCC's 2004 meeting, according to congressional travel disclosure forms reviewed by DeSmog. Among the trips:

-A junket to the Alberta tar sands sponsored by Shell Oil to visit its Muskeg River site.

-A 2003 trip to discuss the Energy Policy Act of 2003 at a meeting of the Independent Petroleum Association of America (which today sponsors the influential fracking front group, Energy in Depth).

-An El PasoCorporation–funded 2002 paid speaking gig at the annual meeting of the Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States (IPAMS, now the Western Energy Alliance, or WEA).

-A BP-sponsored speaking appearance in 2004 in which Cooper discussed energy policy, according to his disclosure form, but was listed by BP as an “industry speaker.”

CEQ Climate Denial History Redux

George W. Bush's CEQ chief of staff Phillip Cooney also was a former API lobbyist-turned-CEQ staffer. During his tenure at the council, Cooney doctored scientific reports about climate change written by U.S. government agencies and then left to become a lobbyist for ExxonMobil.

History could repeat itself, in a sense, if Cooper takes the helm at CEQ.

:{

}:

That's because the Trump White House CEQ, according to a recent story by Bloomberg, may ax climate change impacts from consideration in National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) environmental reviews, a goal of API and CLNG for the past several years. President Barack Obama's CEQ issued the guidance for government agenies to consider climate change in these reviews.

Cooper has publicly supported cutting climate change out of the NEPA process, and according to his bio for a recent speech at a Natural Gas Roundtable, he presently acts as a NEPA senior policy advisor for his Committee on Natural Resources job.

“Without boxing ourselves in [we plan to] look at the CEQ's guide on [greenhouse gases] as a first step” toward streamlining the NEPA process, Cooper told Inside EPA in December 2016. “We think it's an opportunity for us to correct a lot of wrongs, and that in and of itself should streamline the process.”

Some are concerned about such maneuvers espoused by Cooper, however.

The push for climate change's non-inclusion in NEPA appraisals “puts our country, our communities, and our people at great risk,” Paul Getsos, national coordinator for the April 29 People’s Climate Movement march, told Bloomberg. “It also sends a dangerous message to the world that the United States does not care about climate change or protecting front-line communities.”

Cooper did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

==

==

sci suppress, mann: 3 waves/fronts

COI nat gas wells?

:{

}:

smokey b/c wanted expemption for cement ;

pre-emptive action b/c of 2005 energy bill (failed 2004?)

:{

}:

Barton and whitfield sent ltr to MM, bradly co-author, NSF, IPCC for info on whole career? $, locatin of data, changes made ...?! source code

~ by Eur geogr union, Nature Jrnl, NAS, 20 sci, 30 sci orgs

~ waxman and dems and even mod gop  Chair Rep Boehlert who offered a truce to Barton and NAS help but Barton (on staffer rec?) went to Wegman (defense DoD navy data mining.

==

Two weeks ago, President Barack Obama's signature climate action plan was formally published. The new regulations will require many states to reduce their use of coal, the dirtiest form of energy, in an effort to slash greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector by about a third by 2030. Almost immediately, the plan came under a barrage of legal attacks from two dozen coal-dependent states, almost all led by Republican governors and attorneys general. Meanwhile, Republican members of Congress introduced legislation to overturn the plan.

On Tuesday, after the House of Representatives resolution was approved in committee, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) claimed a victory for all Americans. The vote, he said, shows that "the American people are not happy with President Obama's climate change policy."

Except that, they kind of are happy about it. That's according to new polling by Yale University's Project on Climate Change Communication, which found that 61 percent of residents in the states suing the Obama administration support tight limits on emissions from coal-fired power plants. Individual state results are listed in the table above. Even in Kentucky, home to the plan's biggest opponent, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R), most residents support the plan.

61% of texans support cpp

http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2015/11/republicans-hate-climate-plan-poll-chart

--

Climate Scientist Faces Backlash for Urging Investigation of Fossil Fuel Companies

Jagadish Shukla will be questioned by a Congressional committee after he and other scientists called for a racketeering probe of deliberate climate denial.

climate scientist who was the lead signatory on a letter urging President Obama to launch a federal investigation into whether fossil fuel companies "knowingly deceived the American people about the risks of climate change" is now facing an investigation by Congress because of his part in the letter.

Jagadish Shukla, a climate scientist at George Mason University in Virginia, received notice Oct. 1 that the non-profit research organization he runs, the Institute of Global Environment and Society (IGES), will soon be investigated by the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology for suspected misuse of federal funding.

Republican Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, who chairs the House committee, requested that Shukla and IGES "preserve all e-mail, electronic documents, and data (‘electronic records’) created since January 1, 2009," according to the notice.

The investigation stems from Shukla's involvement in the letter to President Obama, Attorney General Loretta Lynch and White House science advisor John Holdren on Sept. 1. The letter's 20 signees—climate scientists from Columbia University, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the University of Maryland and other institutions—asked the administration to explore whether energy companies could be prosecuted under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) of 1970 for purposefully casting doubt on the scientific evidence for climate change. Federal prosecutors used the RICO Act in the 1990s and 2000s to sue tobacco companies for covering up the health impacts of smoking. ScienceInsider first reported Smith's investigation.

Shukla's research organization, IGES, posted a copy of the RICO letter to its website—a move that Smith told Shukla "raises serious concerns" over a taxpayer-funded scientific group "participating in partisan political activity." The research center has received funds from the National Science Foundation, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA.

"Promoting a lobbying effort and publicizing that effort on a website is not an appropriate use of federal research funds," an aide for the House Science, Space and Technology Committee told InsideClimate News.

"Additional questions have been raised regarding the fiscal management of federal grant dollars received by IGES and the transfer of IGES to George Mason University," the aide said. The committee will be looking into the salaries of Shukla and his wife Anastasia, who works as the organization's business manager.

"I signed this letter as a private citizen on personal time, urging action on climate change, and I have been shocked by the reaction," Shukla told InsideClimate News. "Any allegations of inappropriate behavior are untrue."

IGES said the letter was posted on its website inadvertently. It has since been removed.

"IGES's recent decision to remove documents from its website raises concerns that additional information vital to the Committee's investigation may not be preserved," Smith wrote. Smith informed Shukla he and his colleagues had until Oct. 8 to inform the House Committee on how IGES would comply with the request.

"The House Science Committee isn’t going after Dr. Shukla and his colleagues for their scientific work, but for their opinions as private citizens," said Michael Halpern, program manager of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists. "Scientists have the same right as anyone to engage in the political process and express their beliefs without fear of being hauled before Congress for their views."

A History of Inquiries

Smith's investigation is just the latest in a long line of probes into climate scientists by conservative politicians. In 2005, Republican Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, who was then Chair of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, examined the work of climate scientists Michael Mann of Penn State and Ray Bradley of the University of Massachusetts. Over the last decade, the scientific community has had to field an increasing number of public records requests from conservative groups looking to cast doubt on their research.

"Overall, scientists whose work is policy relevant are certainly under more scrutiny than ever before through a variety of means, from subpoenas to open records requests, and need to be prepared to respond to that scrutiny," said Halpern. Such investigations, he said, "can send the wrong message to researchers about how valuable their expertise is to society. We need scientists to engage in public conversations on science-based issues, no matter how contentious the topic."

The biggest difference between Smith's investigation today and the one Mann and Bradley faced in 2005, Mann said, is that "back then, there were a number of moderate pro-science, pro-environment Republicans who came to my defense. Chief among them was Sherwood Boehlert—an old-school Republican from upstate New York."

"Unfortunately, we no longer have moderate republicans like Boehlert chairing the House science committee," said Mann.

Shukla and his colleagues' letter was sent three weeks before an eight-month investigation by InsideClimate News showed that ExxonMobil's own research confirmed fossil fuels' role in climate change in the 1970s and 1980s. The company then spent the next two decades funding a campaign to derail climate regulations and question climate science.

"If corporations in the fossil fuel industry and their supporters are guilty of the misdeeds that have been documented in books and journal articles, it is imperative that these misdeeds be stopped as soon as possible," Shulka and the other climate scientists wrote in the letter.

Holdren wrote back to the researchers that "the [Obama] administration shares the concern expressed in the letter about the seriousness of the threat posed by climate change," according to ScienceInsider.

ScienceInsider also reported that Shulka is not the only signatory of the letter facing backlash. Attorney Christopher Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based libertarian think tank, filed a public records request with several of the signatories' universities for emails contained the words "RICO, racketeer, racketeering, DOJ, prosecute or prosecution."

"If they believe this is part of their job, we will not dispute that, but instead would like to see how the institutions were used in this innovative application of public education resources," Horner told ScienceInsider.

==

see also below

On May 17, a few weeks before the meeting between Bush and Davis, Vice President Dick Cheney, who chairs Bush’s energy task force, was interviewed by PBS’s“Frontline” for a special series on California’s energy crisis. During the interview, Cheney flat-out denied that energy companies ripped off California.[WHAT DID HE KNOW?]

“The problem you had in California was caused by a combination of things – an unwise regulatory scheme, because they didn’t really deregulate,” Cheney said.

When asked whether it was possible that energy companies were behaving like a “cartel” and if some of the high power prices in California could be the result of manipulation, Cheney responded with a resounding “no.”

The Bush administration’s critics have said it’s highly unlikely that the president, Cheney, and members of his energy task force were kept in the dark about the Williams and Reliant scams, especially since the findings of the investigation by FERC took place around the same time the policy was being drafted. According to evidence obtained by Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA.), the energy task force “considered and abandoned plans to address California’s energy problems in its report.”

Reliant has also been connected to Cheney’s energy task force, which met between January and March 2001 to work on Bush’s National Energy Policy.

Reliant, along with Entergy and TXU, two other electricity corporations based in Texas, hired Diane Allbaughas a lobbyist. Allbaugh is the wife ofJoe Allbaugh, a trusted Bush cohort who had served on Cheney’s energy task force and a director of the Federal Energy Management Agency.

Reliant, TXU, and Entergy each paid Diane Allbaugh $20,000 for consulting work during the last three months of 2000. It’s unclear whether she lobbied the energy task force on behalf of Reliant, TXU, and Entergy, which would have certainly been a conflict of interest, but her husband, Joe Allbaugh, “has participated in task force talks with a direct bearing on the energy companies’ interests generally, such asenvironmental rules for power plants and electricity deregulation – a specialty of his wife’s,” the Los Angeles Times reported.

The energy bill signed by Bush in August was a boon to Reliant Energy. House Energy Committee Chairman Joe Barton has for years pushed for legislation to create more competitive electricity markets.Reliant, whose executives enjoy close a relationship with Barton, played a role in shaping the energy bill, and worked side by side with Barton for years in shaping a portion of the energy bill that deals with competitive power markets.

Barton’s staff includes two former Reliant executives, and until recently, Reliant’s lobbying team included two former Barton aides. Reliant employees contributed more than $35,000 to Barton’s political causes between 2001 and 2004. Barton holds about $15,000 in Reliant stock, which has increased nearly tenfold since he bought the shares in 2002.

Jason Leopold is the author of News Junkie, to be released in the spring of 2006 by Process/Feral House Books. Visit his Web site at www.jasonleopold.com for updates.

==

re 5/15 wegman slapp mahey:

today's partisan political climate, science has inevitably become a political football. But I can't remember anything quite as nasty -- or as politically skewed -- as Rep. Joe Barton's recent attack on scientists whose views on global warming he doesn't like.

Barton, an 11-term Republican from Texas, is chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and one of the oil lobby's best friends on Capitol Hill. Late last month he fired off letters to professor Michael Mann of the University of Virginia and two other scientists demanding information about what he claimed were "methodological flaws and data errors" in their studies of global warming.

Barton's letters to the scientists had a peremptory, when-did-you-stop-beating-your-wife tone. Mann was told that within less than three weeks, he must list "all financial support you have received related to your research," provide "the location of all data archives relating to each published study for which you were an author," "provide all agreements relating to . . . underlying grants or funding," and deliver similarly detailed information in five other categories.

The scientists' offense was that they had authored a controversial study that reported a sharp rise in global temperatures during the 20th century, based on an analysis of tree rings, glacial ice and coral layers. The study was an important source for a 2001 report by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that argued the 1990s had been the hottest decade in 1,000 years. A graph summarizing the sharp upturn last century after hundreds of years of flat temperatures became known as the "hockey stick," and it has been derided ever since by skeptics.

There's certainly room for scientific debate about Mann's research. A front-page article in the Wall Street Journal on Feb. 14 cited a rebuttal by two Canadian scientists, focusing on Mann's alleged mathematical mistakes. But other scientists have noted that there is so much other evidence of global warming that even if Mann did make serious mistakes in his statistical calculations, it wouldn't change the scientific picture very much. "[I]ndependent groups, with different analysis methods, have arrived at similar results for the last millennium," climatologists Gavin Schmidt and Stefan Rahmstorf argue in a post on their Web site, RealClimate.org.

Barton's goal wasn't scientific clarity but political intimidation. That was the conclusion of Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, a New York Republican who chairs the House Committee on Science, which also claims jurisdiction on climate change issues. He wrote a blistering July 14 letter to Barton: "My primary concern about your investigation is that its purpose seems to be to intimidate scientists rather than to learn from them, and to substitute Congressional political review for scientific peer review. This would be pernicious." He added that the precedent set by this effort "to have Congress put its thumbs on the scales of a scientific debate" was "truly chilling."

The political mischief in Barton's probe is that it tries to fuzz the climate debate when a consensus is finally emerging that climate change is a serious global problem and one that is man-made. The national academies of science of 11 leading countries, including the United States and Britain, issued a joint declaration this year that "there is now strong evidence that significant global warming is occurring" and that the "scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to justify nations taking prompt action."

This growing scientific consensus prompted a "sense of the Senate" resolution last month that "greenhouse gases accumulating in the atmosphere are causing average temperatures to rise at a rate outside the range of natural variability," and that the problem is caused by "human activity." Another sign of the scientific clarity on the issue came yesterday when the Senate energy committee met with top climatologists and then expressed bipartisan support for taking action. Even President Bush agreed that the scientific evidence is solid by endorsing a Group of Eight communique this month that described climate change as "a serious and long-term challenge" and warning that human activities "contribute in large part to increases in greenhouse gases associated with the warming of our Earth's surface."

The strategy of Exxon Mobil and other business interests that resist action on global warming has been to maintain the notion that the scientific evidence is shaky. That strategy was outlined in a remarkable 1998 "Action Plan" prepared by business opponents of the Kyoto treaty, which argued: "Victory will be achieved when . . . average citizens 'understand' (recognize) uncertainties in climate science."

Barton's investigation may be a last roundhouse swing in this bash-the-science strategy. Perhaps it pleased energy and natural resource interests, which gave Barton $523,099 in his 2004 congressional race, and Exxon Mobil, which has given him $17,500 since 2001. But this battle is ending. A consensus is emerging among responsible Republicans and Democrats. The basic science on climate change isn't in doubt any more. The question is what to do about it.

davidignatius@washpost.com

==

:{GOP Chairmen Face Off on Global Warming

Public Tiff Over Probe of Study Highlights Divide on Issue

}:

:{By Juliet Eilperin

Washington Post Staff Writer

Monday, July 18, 2005 

}: 

House Science Committee Chairman Sherwood L. Boehlert (R-N.Y.) has demanded that another senior Republican, Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton (Tex.), call off his investigation of three scientists who have charted Earth's rapid warming in recent decades.

The unusual public tiff between two powerful GOP lawmakers highlights the sharp divide that drives the nation's climate change debate. Barton, along with President Bush and many other House Republicans, opposes mandatory curbs on greenhouse gas emissions and questions the science underlying such efforts. Boehlert, who backs limits on carbon dioxide pollution, said he fears such attacks could chill future scientific inquiry.

In a sharply worded letter sent last week, Boehlert called Barton's probe into the findings of Michael E. Mann, Raymond S. Bradley and Malcolm K. Hughes a "misguided and illegitimate investigation." Mann will direct the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University as of next month, Bradley is a geosciences professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and Hughes is a professor at the University of Arizona's Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research.

Using climate records culled from tree rings, glacial-ice layers and coral-growth layers, the three professors -- whose research was funded in part by the federal government -- determined in 1998 that temperatures have skyrocketed in the past century compared with the 500 years preceding it. The three men put the figures in a graph now known as the "hockey stick," and their work helped prompt the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2001 to declare the 1990s as the warmest decade in the past 1,000 years.

Barton began investigating Mann and his colleagues late last month, asking them to justify their work with documents from hundreds of studies. Noting that two Canadian researchers[M&M?] had questioned their findings, Barton wrote that he had opened "this review because this dispute surrounding your studies bears directly on important questions about the federally funded work upon which climate studies rely."

In a letter Boehlert publicly released yesterday, the veteran GOP moderate asserted that his panel has jurisdiction over climate change and that Barton is targeting these scientists because he disagrees with their conclusions.

"My primary concern about your investigation is that its purpose seems to be to intimidate scientists rather than to learn from them, and to substitute congressional political review for scientific review," Boehlert wrote.

Barton, however, said he plans to proceed with the probe. He also dismissed a July 1 protest by Rep. Henry A. Waxman (Calif.), a senior Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, who wrote Barton that some might interpret the probe "as a transparent effort to bully and harass climate change experts who have reached conclusions with which you disagree."

"Chairman Barton appreciates heated lectures from Representatives Boehlert and Waxman, two men who share a passion for global warming," committee spokesman Larry Neal said. "We regret that our little request for data has given them a chill. Seeking scientific truth is, indeed, too important to be imperiled by politics, and so we'll just continue to ask fair questions of honest people and see what they tell us. That's our job."

Although senior House Republicans often duel behind the scenes, they rarely issue public rebukes of each other. Boehlert's blunt language, coupled with Barton's harsh response, reveals the extent to which global warming has fostered a rift within the GOP on Capitol Hill.

"It's unusual for a chairman to write this kind of letter, but we feel the situation's unusual," said Science Committee staff director David Goldston, adding that the fight was about the need for independent scientific research, not climate change. "We are surprised at the level of sarcasm Mr. Barton's spokesman has used to respond to our serious concerns."

Several members of the scientific community have protested the probe -- 20 prominent climatologists sent Barton a letter Friday questioning why he has focused on just one of the many studies that underpin current thinking on global warming -- and the president of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) offered to appoint an independent panel to assess the scientific consensus on climate change.

"A congressional investigation, based on the authority of the House Commerce Committee, is probably not the best way to resolve a scientific issue, and a focus on individual scientists can be intimidating," NAS President Ralph J. Cicerone wrote in a letter to Barton.

Barton dismissed the idea as well. "We can't evaluate the idea without having seen it, and maybe it's a darned fine one, but an offer that says, 'Please just go away and leave the science to us, ahem, very intelligent professionals,' is likely to get the reception it deserves," Neal said. "We get a lot of offers to butt out from folks who would rather avoid public scrutiny, and reputable scientists wouldn't feel comfortable in the company of most of them."

In the meantime, the three scientists are assembling documents in response to Barton's inquiry. Mann on Friday defended his work in a letter to Barton, saying he had exposed his research to public scrutiny and shared much of his data with other scientists.

"My research findings, which support the conclusion that the earth's surface is warming, and that recent warming is due in large part to human influences, are consistent with the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change," Mann wrote. "Other scientists have replicated all facets of my research and found it accurate and reliable."

Staff researcher Alice Crites contributed to this report.

==

gore testifies: http://www.c-span.org/video/?285474-1/al-gore-climate-change-legislation

:{

}:

2:53 hrs

:{

}:

APRIL 24, 2009

Al Gore on Climate Change Legislation

:{

}:

Former Vice President Gore and Senator Warner testified on the American Clean Energy Security Act of 2009. The proposed legislation would cut carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by 20 percent by 2020 and by 83 percent by mid-century. It further requires that utilities produce one quarter of their electricity from renewable sources by 2025. In his remarks, Vice President Gore called the bill “a moral imperative” as important as civil rights legislation of the 1960s. close 

:{

}:

Barton ranking member of full comm

(says he passed sulfur in 90's, nod to MonKcton, problems fotball team not win, cites idso that CO2 helps ocean shellfish?!

:{

}:

===

Joe Barton, Congress-critter from Texas

Misdeeds: Started out as an oil and gas company consultant. As former Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, he tapped Wegman to produce the aforementioned report, feeding the statistician spurious source material. Responsible for many of the provisions in the '05 House Energy Policy Act, a huge giveaway to the nuclear and oil industries. Apologized to BP's Tony Hayward for the White House's "$20 billion shakedown" of the criminally negligent oil giant. A global warming "skeptic," Barton has called for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, helped nix Kyoto, and expressed his concern over wind power because he thinks wind is a finite resource. Seriously.

Corporate Teats: Received more from the coal industry in campaign contributions than nearly anyone in Congress, and is close to the top collectors of oil company contributions. Exelon Corp., a nuclear energy producer, just happened to donate $25 K to the Barton Family Foundation at the same time Joe introduced legislation assisting companies with the recycling of spent nuclear fuel.

Most Egregious Lie: "Wind is God's way of balancing heat. Wind is the way you shift heat from areas where it's hotter to areas where it's cooler. That's what wind is. Wouldn't it be ironic if in the interest of global warming we mandated massive switches to energy, which is a finite resource, which slows the winds down, which causes the temperature to go up?"

=

Rep. :{Joe Barton:(style="color:#000000"):}:, already :{implicated:(style="color:#000000"):}: in an effort to mislead Congress about the science of climate change, is obviously choosing offence as his best possible defence, :{renewing his slander :(style="color:#000000"):}:of Penn State climate scientist and ":{Hockey Stick:(style="color:#000000"):}:" author Dr. Michael Mann.

As then-co-chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Barton was responsible in 2006 for inviting the :{increasingly controversial:(style="color:#000000"):}: statistician Edward Wegman to prepare a critique of Mann's iconic hockey-stick-shaped graph illustrating a 1,000-year climate reconstruction. Although Barton has denied that he had a previous relationship with Wegman, implying that the subsequent report and hearing were not a set-up, :{John Mashey has documented:(style="color:#000000"):}: the extensive direction that Barton provided to Wegman through Barton staff member Peter Spencer.

===

Reliant, along with Entergy and TXU, two other electricity corporations based in Texas, hired Diane Allbaugh as a lobbyist. Allbaugh is the wife of Joe Allbaugh, a trusted Bush cohort who had served on Cheney’s energy task force and a director of the Federal Energy Management Agency.

Reliant, TXU, and Entergy each paid Diane Allbaugh $20,000 for consulting work during the last three months of 2000. It’s unclear whether she lobbied the energy task force on behalf of Reliant, TXU, and Entergy, which would have certainly been a conflict of interest, but her husband, Joe Allbaugh, “has participated in task force talks with a direct bearing on the energy companies’ interests generally, such as environmental rules for power plants and electricity deregulation – a specialty of his wife’s,” the Los Angeles Times reported.

The energy bill signed by Bush in August was a boon to Reliant Energy. House Energy Committee Chairman Joe Barton has for years pushed for legislation to create more competitive electricity markets. Reliant, whose executives enjoy close a relationship with Barton, played a role in shaping the energy bill, and worked side by side with Barton for years in shaping a portion of the energy bill that deals with competitive power markets.

Barton’s staff includes two former Reliant executives, and until recently, Reliant’s lobbying team included two former Barton aides. Reliant employees contributed more than $35,000 to Barton’s political causes between 2001 and 2004. Barton holds about $15,000 in Reliant stock, which has increased nearly tenfold since he bought the shares in 2002.

Jason Leopold is the author of News Junkie, to be released in the spring of 2006 by Process/Feral House Books. Visit his Web site at www.jasonleopold.com for updates.

==

coll: barton born waco tx 1949 The Way to Win bio mark halperin and ; hired ROVE 488 got dingell chair house energy and commerce? comm; after merger most 

:{

}:

exxon pac 46K$  barton PO'd at exxon not backing 2005 energy bill b/c they balked at 4 bill$ mtbe fund 488; outed R retire $ later made up b/c 

:{

}:

:{exxon bundled $ 2008 38K$

joe }:wilson :{yelled you lie, not smokey

}:

:{

}:

==

:{http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Gasoline_for_America%27s_Security_Act_of_2005:(style="color:#000000"):}:

===

3. Climate Change Doesn’t Exist, and If It Does It’s Caused By Trees

Not all Republican science denial involves evil lady parts. Their resistance to the very idea of climate change is so staunch that it bred :{an entire theory of GOP-specific ignorance:(style="color:#000000"):}: [16].

The least crazy of the party acknowledge climate change is occurring but refuse to link it to human behavior, instead seeing the rise in temperatures as part of a natural cycle. After all, it’s not like Hurricane Sandy was the first extreme weather event in history. “I would point out that if you’re a believer in the Bible, one would have to say the Great Flood is an example of climate change and that certainly wasn’t because mankind had overdeveloped hydrocarbon energy,” Texas congressman Joe Barton :{said:(style="color:#000000"):}: [17] during a House hearing on the Keystone Pipeline. (You will remember Barton from his :{apology to BP:(style="color:#000000"):}: [18] over the company’s oil spill.)

There’s one problem with this: refusing to link global warming to human behavior greatly reduces your options for curtailing it. See Dana Rohrabacher, a far-right California congressman, who found a :{natural solution to a natural problem:(style="color:#000000"):}: [19]. "Is there some thought being given to subsidizing the clearing of rainforests in order for some countries to eliminate that production of greenhouse gases?” Rohrabacher asked during a House hearing on U.N. climate policies.

This is for the Republicans who actually admit climate change exists. Many don’t, and they made sure we knew about it last year when they :{rejected an amendment:(style="color:#000000"):}: [20] that would have simply acknowledged the occurrence of global warming. The amendment didn’t garner a single GOP vote. 

It gets worse. In 2012, North Carolina’s legislature went the full-ostrich route. Not only did they refuse to admit that global warming was happening, they :{actually banned scientists from researching it:(style="color:#000000"):}: [21], passing a bill prohibiting the measurement of sea-levels so nobody could notice they were rising. (The ocean :{rudely rose anyway:(style="color:#000000"):}: [22].)

:{==

}:

attacked mann hockey stick

attacked b2 on ghg, along with delay, around time of 180 ( history commons)

:{http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a0308001cheneyhagelco2:(style="color:#000000"):}:

:{--:(style="color:#000000"):}:

:{Congressional conservatives swung into action. Rep. :(style="color:#000000"):}::{"Smokey" Joe Barton:(style="color:#000000"):}: [52] (R-Texas), then the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, launched a formal inquiry into the work of Mann and other climate scientists in June 2005. As part of the inquiry, Barton—who believes acting on global warming is ":{absolute nonsense:(style="color:#000000"):}: [53]" and said in a hearing that ":{when it's hot, we find shade:(style="color:#000000"):}: [54]"—enlisted George Mason University :{statistician Edward Wegman:(style="color:#000000"):}: [55] to produce a report on the hockey stick. (In doing so, :{Barton eschewed:(style="color:#000000"):}: [56] (PDF) the more :{traditional route of requesting:(style="color:#000000"):}: [57] (PDF) a report from the National Research Council, a branch of the National Academy of Sciences.) mojo

---

:{owns shares in nat gas: http://www.texasobserver.org/forrestforthetrees/smokey-joe-bartons-sweet-little-gas-deal  r&d, bought from polit contrib

}: 

:{---

}: 

 wegman rept: :{http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2010/11/joe-barton-wegman-report:(style="color:#000000"):}::{  kate s

}: 

---

Coal Contributions

In late October 2010, during the lead up to the Congressional midterm elections, The New York Times reported:

Coal industry spending on campaigns and lobbying is substantial and growing, although it is dwarfed by the far better-financed oil and gas, electric utility, financial services and health care lobbies.Among the largest recipients of coal money are Republican and Democratic members who have sponsored or voted for measures to block new E.P.A. regulations on climate cahnge pollution from the burning of coal and oil and who are most likely to support efforts to block other new rules.These members include Representatives Roy Blunt of Missouri and :{Joe L. Barton:(style="color:#000000"):}: of Texas, both Republicans, and :{Nick J. Rahall II:(style="color:#000000"):}: of West Virginia and :{Rick Boucher:(style="color:#000000"):}: of Virginia, both Democrats. Each had received more than $25,000 in contributions as of early October, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that tracks campaign spending.Two Senate candidates, :{Rob Portman:(style="color:#000000"):}:, Republican of Ohio, and Gov. :{Joe Manchin:(style="color:#000000"):}:, Democrat of West Virginia, have also received sizable industry donations.The political action committee of Representative :{John Boehner:(style="color:#000000"):}: of Ohio, who is in line to become speaker if Republicans capture the House, has received more than $300,000 from mining interests, most of it from coal companies. The industry is counting on Mr. Boehner to reverse the current Democratic leadership's refusal to allow a vote on the measure blocking E.P.A. carbon regulation.^[5]

:{

 }:

===

109th Congress

Rep. :{Joe Barton:(style="color:#000000"):}: (R-Texas) – the ranking Republican member and former chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee – and Rep. :{Dennis Hastert:(style="color:#000000"):}: (R-Ill.) – the ranking member and former chair of its subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality – had blocked previous climate change legislation that had come through their jurisdictions. ^[60]

------

:{http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Joe_Barton:(style="color:#000000"):}:

BP apology

Joe Barton

From SourceWatch

Joe Linus Barton, a :{Republican:(style="color:#000000"):}:, has represented the Sixth Congressional District of :{Texas:(style="color:#000000"):}: in the :{U.S. House of Representatives:(style="color:#000000"):}: since 1984. (:{map:(style="color:#000000"):}:)

Record and controversies

:{ From SourceWatch

Joe Linus Barton, a Republican, has represented the Sixth Congressional District of Texas in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1984. (map)}:

:{

Contents

    1 Record and controversies

        1.1 Oil

        1.2 Iraq War

        1.3 Environmental record

            1.3.1 House Energy Policy Act 2005

            1.3.2 Climate change

        1.4 Digital Television

        1.5 Barton-Rush Act of 2006

        1.6 Pays wife for campaign work

    2 Bio

        2.1 Background

        2.2 Health issues

        2.3 Congressional Career

            2.3.1 2006 elections

    3 Money in politics

        3.1 Contributions from Oil Companies

    4 Committees and Affiliations

        4.1 Committees

            4.1.1 Committee assignments in the 109th Congress (2005-2006)

        4.2 Affiliations

    5 More Background Data

    6 Contact

    7 Articles and resources

        7.1 References

        7.2 Articles

        7.3 Resources

        7.4 Local blogs and discussion sites

        7.5 Reports

        7.6 Documents & News Releases

        7.7 Related SourceWatch Resources

Record and controversies

Oil

BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill [2]

Recently, Barton has caused much controversy when he apologized to BP about the alleged "shakedown" by the White House over the oil spill disaster. Joe Barton stated:

"I'm ashamed of what happened in the White House yesterday," said Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.) during a hearing on Thursday morning with BP's CEO Tony Hayward." I think it is a tragedy in the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown -- in this case a $20 billion shakedown -- with the attorney general of the United States, who is legitimately conducting a criminal investigation and has every right to do so to protect the American people, participating in what amounts to a $20 billion slush fund that's unprecedented in our nation's history, which has no legal standing, which I think sets a terrible precedent for our nation's future. I'm only speaking for myself. I'm not speaking for anyone else, but I apologize," Barton added. "I do not want to live in a county where anytime a citizen or a corporation does something that is legitimately wrong, [it is] subject to some sort of political pressure that, again, in my words, amounts to a shakedown." [1]

 5

Immediately, House Republican leadership threatened to strip Barton of his seniority on the Energy and Commerce Committee. Shortly after, Barton retracted his previous statements and apologized for his original apology to BP. [2] Media bloggers do not seem to buy his retraction. As Jay Bookman wrote in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, "Barton’s apology to BP was not a slip of the tongue; the controversy that resulted is not a media-driven tempest in a teapot, like the mini-scandal about Tony Hayward going to a yacht race or the phrase “small people” escaping from the lips of the BP chairman. Nor was Barton’s sentiment that of some rogue congressman. No, the problem with Barton’s statement is that it honestly expresses core GOP values." [3]

Joe Barton has voted for Big Oil Companies 100% of the time based on important oil-related bills. These include Iraq War Funding, Cutting Oil Subsides, Clean Energy, andClimate Studies. See money-related issues below.[citation needed]

Iraq War

For more information see the chart of U.S. House of Representatives votes on the Iraq War.

Barton voted for the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 that started the Iraq War.[4]

Environmental record

For more information on environmental legislation, see the Energy and Environment Policy Portal

House Energy Policy Act 2005

Barton, Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, was criticized for many provisions in the 2005 House Energy Policy Act, some of which did not make it into the final Act (drilling in ANWR, for example). [3]. "Itemizing the anti-environmental provisions of the House energy bill is a mind-numbing exercise," Frank O'Donnell, president of the Clean Air Watch wrote, including "new loopholes that could reduce gas mileage requirements; weaker protections for coastal communities; tax breaks to promote more coal burning. And that's just the beginning." [4] O'Donnell continued, "Indeed, if the legislation became law in its current form, it would prolong smog problems in much of the nation, shift the burden of cleaning up poisoned water supplies from oil companies to cash-strapped public agencies, and even threaten environmental damage from some forms of renewable energy. These are on top of the well-publicized provisions that would permit big oil companies to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for a few months worth of oil that wouldn't reach consumers for a decade."

After President Bush signed the final form of the bill into law in July 2005, The Washington Post contended that the spending bill was really a broad collection of subsidies for United States energy companies; in particular, the nuclear and oil industries [5].

Speaking for the National Republicans for Environmental Protection Association, President Martha Marks said that the organization was disappointed in the bill: it did not give enough of a short to conservation, and continued to subsidize the well-established oil and gas industries that don't require subsidizing. [6]

In April 2005, the same month full committee mark-up on the bill began,[7] Barton was honored by The Annapolis Center (identified by The Wall Street Journal as a polluter front group) [8] for "work in [his] field supporting rational, science-based thinking and policy-making"[9]. The evening's keynote address was given by Fred Barnes, co-host of the "Beltway Boys" on the Fox News Channel.

Climate change

Barton is regarded as a "skeptic" on global warming [10]. Recently, prompted by a February 2005 Wall Street Journal article [11], he has taken an interest in climate change [12]. In June of 2005 Barton sent letters to three leading climate scientists—Drs. Michael Mann, Raymond Bradley, and Malcolm Hughes—as well as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the National Science Foundation "questioning many aspects of a global warming study"[13]. This has been widely regarded as an attack on the scientists rather than a serious attempt to understand the science [14] [15], although some view it as a normal exercise of the committee's responsibility and an effort to make possible scientific debate on a subject within its jurisdiction [16] [17].

"The National Academy of Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science—which rarely take stands on Congressional investigations—have sent letters of concern to Rep. Barton, as have 20 leading climate scientists. Fellow legislators of both parties also have criticized Barton's approach as "misguided and illegitimate" and "a transparent effort to bully and harass climate change experts who have reached conclusions with which you disagree." [18] [19].

Digital Television

Barton has also been involved in efforts to move local broadcasters to digital television formats:

"When Barton took over chairmanship of the Commerce Committee from Billy Tauzin in 2004, he hadn't been a player on media issues since battles over broadcasters' cable-carriage rights 10 years earlier. Back then, he became a hero to the cable industry by opposing the 1992 Cable Act, which burdened operators with carriage of every TV station in the country.

"Ironically, despite his continuing opposition to must-carry obligations, Barton added digital carriage obligations on cable in order to gain support of the pro-broadcaster faction on the Commerce Committee.[20]

Barton-Rush Act of 2006

In 2006 Barton partnered with Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL) to create the Communications Opportunity Promotion and Enhancement Act of 2006. The COPE Act or "Barton-Rush" bill would allow major telephone companies to compete with cable television companies. It has also been widely critized for making net neutrality impossible, which could possibly lead to a multi-tiered Internet where some websites would move and load faster if they pay an additional fee to providers like Verizon and Comcast.[21]

The leading proponents of the COPE Act have been Verizon, Comcast, SBC Communications, Time Warner, and AT&T. Barton has a potential conflict of interest in that he stands to profit if SBC Communications makes money off of this bill, which it most likely will. Barton owns between $1,000 and $15,000 of dividends in SBC Communications according to his 2004 personal financial disclosure forms.[22]

SBC Communications is also Barton's 10th highest career donor having given Barton $51,109 since 1989.[23] For the 2006 election cycle Barton is the 14th highest recipient of money from the telecom industry.[24]

Pays wife for campaign work

In October 2006, the Sunlight Foundation, a Washington-based non-profit organization which advocates better transparency in government, reported that Barton’s campaign committee paid his wife $27,637 to serve as the campaign’s outreach director during 2005-2006. [25]

Bio

Background

Barton was born in Waco, Texas on September 15, 1949. He received a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering in 1972 from Texas A&M University and a Master of Science in industrial administration from Purdue University in 1973. Barton then entered private industry until 1981 when he became a White House Fellow and served under Secretary of Energy James Burrows Edwards. He then consulted for Atlantic Richfied Oil and Gas Company before he was elected to Congress in 1984.

Barton won his Congressional seat in his first attempt, defeating Democrat challenger Dan Kubiak with 56% of the vote. He received 88% of the vote in 2000, 71% of the vote in 2002 against Democratic challenger Felix Alvarado, and 66% of the vote in 2004 against Democratic challenger Morris Meyer.

In 1993 Barton unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for the United States Senate.

Health issues

Rep. Barton's office announced that on Thursday December 15, 2005 Barton suffered a heart attack and was taken to George Washington University Hospital.[26]

Congressional Career

Barton works "to promote lower taxes, more financial freedom and greater personal freedoms... protect our rights to medical, financial and Internet privacy and... to eradicate the marriage and death taxes, cut capital gains taxes and drastically reform the current tax code." [27]

Barton, a former consultant for Atlantic Richfied Co., serves as the Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. He was the primary House author of the Energy Policy Act of 2005.A number of his former staffersare now lobbyists for the energy industry. The Washington Post reported that, "In his quest for the chairmanship... A network of former Barton staff members-turned-lobbyists-including Jeffery M. MacKinnon(clients: Reliant Energy, Philip Morris, MCI and at least 36 others),

Stephen Sayle (American Chemical Council, AT&T and 19 others) top 2010

http://influenceexplorer.com/organization/dow-lohnes-government-strategies/bb19b7cbd911482985141993acad455e chevron

2004 energy bill booster; industry got him chair via his old staffers:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CDQQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdems.info%2Fdocuments%2FEnergyBill.pdf&ei=l5wDT6fXLMaKiALd5ciaDQ&usg=AFQjCNFlzlJcNQAOwEJiMEOraF1KHxqzGQ

and Stephen Waguespack (Duke Energy, Ford Motor Co. and eight others)-worked the crucial corporate and trade association community on Barton's behalf." [Washington Post, 4/14/05]

"Since 1997, oil, gas, electricity, nuclear, coal and chemical companies have contributed $1.84 million to Barton, more than to any other House member." [Washington Post, 4/14/05]

Barton is a co-founder of the Congressional Privacy Caucus, co-sponsor of the anti-spyware SPY ACT

}:

Money in politics

This section contains links to – and feeds from – money in politics databases. cid=N00005656&cycle=2006

• :{Revolving door profile for Joe Barton:(style="color:#000000"):}: from the Center for Responsive Politics' :{OpenSecrets.org:(style="color:#000000"):}: website.
• :{2006 privately funded travel profile for Joe Barton:(style="color:#000000"):}: from the Center for Responsive Politics' :{OpenSecrets.org:(style="color:#000000"):}: website.
• :{Personal finance profile for Joe Barton:(style="color:#000000"):}: from the Center for Responsive Politics' :{OpenSecrets.org:(style="color:#000000"):}: website.

Contributions from Oil Companies

In the 2007-2008 period of the 110th Congress, Joe Barton has accepted $196,040 from oil companies and $135,549 of those dollars were from industry political action committees. In addition to that, he has accepted $834,386 from oil companies between 2000 and 2007. Also, he has accepted $121,050 from the coal industry, and $119,800 of those dollars were from industry PACS. See oil voting record above.^{[citation needed]}

Committees and Affiliations

Committees

• :{House Committee on Energy and Commerce:(style="color:#000000"):}: - Ranking Member
  • Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection
  • Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality
  • Subcommittee on Environment and Hazardous Materials
  • Subcommittee on Health
  • Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
  • Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet

Committee assignments in the 109th Congress (2005-2006)

• :{House Committee on Energy and Commerce:(style="color:#000000"):}: - Chair

Affiliations

• Co-Chair, Congressional Privacy Caucus, 108th Congress
• Republican Steering Committee
• Republican Study Committee
• Honored by the :{:{Annapolis Center :(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}:for Science-Based Public Policy:(style="color:#000000"):}: 2005^{[5]^}(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Joe_Barton#cite_note-4)

^---^

^chair ^energy ^and ^commerce ^comm ^in ^house, ^attacked ^Mann, ^won ^annapolis ^award ^the ^year ^after ^inhofe

^^

^mojo

Tue Nov. 23, 2010 3:00 AM PST

Back in 2005, Joe Barton (R-Texas), then the chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, made it his personal mission to :{investigate both climate science and climate scientists:(style="color:#000000"):}:. Nicknamed "Smokey Joe" for his efforts to appease polluters, Barton has long made it clear he thinks the science on climate change is ":{pretty weak stuff:(style="color:#000000"):}:."

To prove that climate scientists have been wrong about their predictions, Barton and Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) enlisted Edward Wegman, a statistician at George Mason University, to write a report evaluating studies of man-made global warming. The Wegman Report, released in 2006, has been much-touted by climate skeptics in the years since. But it now looks like large parts of the report used information that was plagiarized, pulled from Wikipedia, or taken out of context—and it appears that Barton's office may have been feeding Wegman's team the information to include in the report

Wegman's report primarily attacked the :{"hockey stick chart,":(style="color:#000000"):}: first published in a 1998 report co-authored by climate scientists Michael Mann (now of Pennsylvania State University), Raymond Bradley of the University of Massachusetts, and Malcolm K. Hughes of the Laboratory for Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona. The chart grew much more notable after it was included in the 2001 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and a version of it was featured in the movie An Inconvenient Truth several years later. But in a searing piece in *:{USA Today:(style="color:#000000"):}:*, reporter Dan Vergano revealsnumerous problems with the Wegman report. Studies of the 91-page text "found repeated instances of passages lifted word for word and what appear to be thinly disguised paraphrases," the piece notes.

Much of the reportedly plagiarized text came from a book written by Bradley, who has asked George Mason University to investigate the matter. Analyses of the text show that some phrases were largely reproduced, and at some points tweaked in order to change the meaning. This was revealed in a lengthy report from retired computer scientist John Mashey of California, who concluded that 35 of the report's 91 pages "are mostly plagiarized text, but often injected with errors, bias and changes of meaning."

Mashey's takedown of the Wegman report also points to evidence that Barton's staff was feeding Wegman’s supposedly unbiased team of scientists material to use in the report. Mashey found a presentation (:{PDF:(style="color:#000000"):}:) online from Wegman report co-author Yasmin Said of Johns Hopkins University chronicling the team's "Experiences with Congressional Testimony." The presentation notes that Wegman's group met with Barton staffer Peter Spencer, who delivered a "daunting amount of material" to use in compiling the report, and that Wegman and his team were charged with evaluating whether criticism of the Mann-Bradley chart was "meritorious." The presentation also notes that Barton's staff saw themselves as "'referees' in the Hockey Game"—even though none of those involved had "any real expertise in paleoclimate reconstruction."

Wegman has denied that his team was being primed by Barton's staff. "Although Dr. Said's presentation seemed to imply that we were being coached by the Republicans being given only their selected materials to look at, this was not true," Wegman told USA Today in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. Barton's office did not respond to Mother Jones' request for comment about the charge that they were feeding information to Wegman's team.

Mashey, though, says all signs point to Barton's office having "manipulated, manufactured" information for the Wegman report. He notes that the report relied heavily on a paper criticizing the hockey stick graph written by two Canadians with no background in climate science, mining consultant Stephen McIntyre and economist Ross McKitrick. McIntyre confirmed in an interview that the Wegman team contacted him for information for their report. However, Mann—the scientist whose work they questioned—was never asked to provide information to the team.

Subsequent studies have found while there was some valid criticism of the statistical methods in the original graph, the McIntyre-McKitrick paper introduced some of its own errors and reached a flawed conclusion. The paper does not, in fact, invalidate the hockey stick—particularly since numerous other studies have reinforced the Mann-Bradley findings. Moreover, Mann and his colleagues acknowledged in the original paper that there are uncertainties and that further study was needed on the subject, and they later issued updates to their findings in response to some valid criticism—but that's all part of the scientific process.

That nuance, of course, was lost in the Wegman report. It's also worth noting that Barton's enlisting of Wegman to conduct the report is also outside of typical protocol for committees looking for an independent read on scientific disputes. Congress will generally request a report from the :{National Research Council:(style="color:#000000"):}:, a branch of the National Academies, when there is disagreement on an issue like multiple climate studies. Ralph Cicerone, president of the National Academy of Sciences, :{wrote to Barton:(style="color:#000000"):}: in July 2005 offering the Academies' services. But rather than asking the NRC to review the science, Barton asked Wegman to write the report.

The chairman of the Committee on Science and Technology at the time, Sherwood Boehlert (R-N.Y.), criticized his colleague's multiple attempts to undermine the science as "misguided and illegitimate." Boehlert wrote in a July 2005 :{letter to Barton:(style="color:#000000"):}:, "[Y]ou have taken a decidedly different approach—one that breaks with precedent and raises the specter of politicians opening investigations of any scientist who reaches a conclusion that makes the political elite uncomfortable."

So Boehlert requested an :{NRC study:(style="color:#000000"):}: on the reconstruction of surface temperature records. The NRC report :{largely supported:(style="color:#000000"):}: the work of Mann and Bradley, noting that while there may have been some justifiable questions about statistical methods and that some uncertainties "have been underestimated," there was nevertheless "an array of evidence" supporting the main conclusion of their work. (Boehlert, now retired, penned an :{op-ed in the :(style="color:#000000"):}:*:{Washington Post:(style="color:#000000"):}:* last week criticizing his party for willfully ignoring the science on climate change.)

Aaron Huertas, press secretary for the Union of Concerned Scientists, also questioned the role Barton and his staff played in shaping the report and called it "an abuse of the power of Congress" to put out a shoddy report for the sole purpose of lobbing baseless attacks at climate scientists. "If something that doesn't meet basic academic scrutiny is being put out there with the congressional seal on it, then that's a problem," said Huertas.

Despite his repeated attacks on the very premise of global warming, Barton has tried to claim that all he wants is an independent evaluation of the science. At a stop at the international climate negotiations in Copenhagen last year, :{Barton claimed:(style="color:#000000"):}: that "the premise that mankind, through the emissions of CO2, is causing the planet to warm...has never been independently analyzed or tested by any scientific group." He asserted that "credible" scientists should look at the evidence, and, in response to a question about who that might include, suggested the National Academy of Sciences—failing to note of course that the NAS had done as much, despite the fact that he has rejected their research on the subject.

Barton and other Republicans have frequently cited the Wegman report as proof that scientists are cooking the books on global warming. The report is also cited heavily in the court filings of crusading Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, who has :{repeatedly tried to force the University of Virginia:(style="color:#000000"):}:, Mann's former employer, to hand over documents that he believes will demonstrate that the scientist committed "fraud" in his research. Cuccinelli mentions the Wegman report five times in :{one subpoena:(style="color:#000000"):}: of Mann's documents and email.

The report is now four years old, but Barton might be getting another turn to fire at climate scientists from the bully pulpit as chairman of one of the top committees with jurisdiction on climate and energy policy.

While caucus rules typically limit Republicans to three terms, Barton is seeking a waiver so he can again serve as chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee. Several other incoming leaders of key committees have already indicated they :{would like to replicate:(style="color:#000000"):}: the kind of investigation into climate science next year.

Meanwhile, Barton continues to tout his "investigations" into Mann and other scientists. He wrote a :{letter to the editor:(style="color:#000000"):}: of the Washington Post last month in response to a :{column from Mann:(style="color:#000000"):}: that criticized Barton and others for politicizing the science, and again went after Mann: "I think Mr. Mann is entitled to make up his own mind, but not his own truth." All the evidence coming in about the Wegman report indicates that someone was bent on making up the truth, and it wasn't Mann.

http://motherjones.com/environment/2010/11/joe-barton-wegman-report

===

related:

==

By :{DARREN SAMUELSOHN:(style="color:#000000"):}: & :{JAKE SHERMAN:(style="color:#000000"):}: | 11/10/10 4:30 AM EST

Rep. Joe Barton is using campaign-style tactics and opposition research dumps in his long-shot quest for a key House committee perch.

---

Spencer, Peter (P.Spencer)

:{

House Energy and Commerce Committee (R), 07/13/01- Professional Staff Member

www.legistorm.com/person/Peter_Spencer/19161.html

www.legistorm.com/trip/list/by/traveler/id/8305/name/Peter_Spencer.html 03/08/09

Activities: US.CONG, A.HOCKX

Organizations: U.S. House of Representatives

People: Barton, Wegman, at least

Heart#2 trip to NYC, paid for by Heartland.

He seemed to be the key Barton staffer in managing the WR.

He was also involved in 07/25/2002 House hearing [DEE2010e]:

republicans.energycommerce.house.gov/107/hearings/07252002Hearing676/print.htm

The 6 testifiers included Janetos, Karl, Lashof, Michaels , O’Brie n, Pielke, Jr … in that order.}:

The Texas Republican and his staff have been digging into the voting record of Barton’s lead rival, Rep. Fred Upton, to show he's not conservative enough to chair the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee, according to three House GOP aides and one high-ranking conservative Republican who serves on the panel.

Barton needs a term-limit waiver to return for another two years atop the committee. Anticipating he won’t get it when GOP leaders meet during the lame duck session, Upton and at least two other senior lawmakers have been busy building support for their bids to get the job.

But Barton isn’t going without a fight. Several sources say that Barton several weeks ago tasked the Energy and Commerce Committee's minority chief of staff, David Cavicke,[well educated, oxford, secur and banking lawyer; kelo v new London takings; rural telecomm fundcap almanc of the unelected] and other aides to comb through Upton's roll calls dating back to his arrival on Capitol Hill in 1987.

On Monday, an :{unsigned 22-page analysis:(style="color:#000000"):}: of the Michigan congressman's voting record surfaced that covers everything from taxes to industry regulations, social issues, health care, defense, energy, environment and telecommunications. There's also a separate :{three-page summary:(style="color:#000000"):}: with the title: "Fred Upton: Part-time Republican?"

Barton's office kept its fingerprints off both documents, but the GOP sources told POLITICO that the Texas Republican is clearly behind the effort.

"This has become his mission, to take out Fred Upton," said one House GOP staffer close to the Energy and Commerce Committee.

House Republican leaders have long been at odds with Barton, dating back to the lawmaker's 2006 campaign to defeat Rep. John Boehner as minority leader. They considered removing Barton as the Energy and Commerce Committee's ranking member this summer after he publicly apologized to BP for how the Obama administration was treating the company during the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

And leadership aides said on Tuesday they didn't think Barton was serving his cause by going after Upton.

“It’s probably not a smart idea to have Energy and Commerce committee staff spending time putting together an oppo file on a member who may be the next chairman,” one staffer in a GOP leadership office said.

Another GOP leadership source took a swipe at Barton’s work ethic.

“If Joe Barton would have put as much effort running the Energy and Commerce Committee as he and his staff did preparing these hit pieces on another Republican, perhaps he would have a chance of becoming chairman,” the aide said.

Several sources say Barton is less to blame than his staff, led by Cavicke, who has served on the panel's GOP staff since 1995.

"Barton is an extraordinarily honest, straight forward, bright dedicated man. He has a lot to offer. But his staff is drowning his ability," said one source familiar with the committee's business. "They're hurting him significantly."

Barton's aides declined comment when asked if they had anything to do with the documents. But spokesman Larry Neal said there’s no reason for anyone to hide from their record.

:{

Read more: }::{http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/44924.html#ixzz1ANV98n6i:(style="color:#000000"):}::{

}:

...more

 ===

:{http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-06/battle-over-climate-change?single-page-view=true:(style="color:#000000"):}::{

}: 

Those crude acts of harassment often come alongside more-sophisticated legal and political attacks. Organizations routinely file nuisance lawsuits and onerous Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to disrupt the work of climate scientists. In 2005, before dragging Mann and other climate researchers into congressional hearings, Texas congressman Joe Barton ordered the scientists to submit voluminous details of working procedures, computer programs and past funding—essentially demanding that they reproduce and defend their entire life’s work. In a move that hearkened back to darker times, Oklahoma senator James Inhofe, the ranking member of the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee, released a report in 2010 that named 17 prominent climate scientists, including Mann, who, he argued, may have engaged in “potentially criminal behavior.” Inhofe outlined three laws and four regulations that he said the scientists may have violated, including the Federal False Statements Act—which, the report noted, could be punishable with imprisonment of up to five years.

:{==

}: 

blog:

more fun at the Mad Mad World of GOP climate science

Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI)

"CO2 Is A Natural Gas. Does This Mean That All Of Us Need To Put Catalytic Converters On Our Noses?"

Ever hear of the greenhouse effect? Apparently not.

Republican Joe Barton introduced Monckton to a U.S. House committee hearing as an expert witness on climate change

Barton (R-TX) describes Christopher Monckton

"as being generally regarded as one of the most knowledgeable, if not the most knowledgeable, experts on the skeptic side."

Monckton is NOT A SCIENTIST

Viscount Monckton as he likes to be called, who the GOP loves to call as an expert witness on climate change, is not a scientist of any kind. His only higher education is in journalism. Monckton is a complete charlatan, who has been completely and devastatingly debunked on many occasions by real scientists.

The GOP has at least twice had him as an expert witness on climate change, at important House Committee hearings.

Monckton had been told twice by the British House of Lords, to stop claiming he is a member. Yet he intoduces himself to U.S. congress as an emissary from Parliament. He embellishes all his fake temperature charts, etc and other publications, with a very close facsimlie of the seal of Parliament, the crowned porcullis. They have told him to stop using their seal.

He claims to have discovered cures for HIV, the flu, the cold, Graves disease. He claims to have been a science advisor to Margaret Thatcher. He never was.

Monckton is also a "birther"

He is looney beyond belief, IMO. And he is well paid by the Koch brothers and others, to spread confusion. Monckton is a showman, very persuasive in front of an audience and knows how to sound scientific, while spreading complete nonsense.

Barton and Inhofe get more oil money than any other legislators, in the House and Senate, respectively.