Senate Committee chairman rejects the existence of climate change, demanded private information from researchers with contrary conclusion

Hunting Witches: "Hunting Witches | Saturday, July 23, 2005; Page A16

'THIS IS HIGHLY usual,' declared a spokesman for the House Energy and Commerce Committee when asked this week whether the request by committee Chairman Joe Barton (R-Tex.) for information from three climate scientists was out of the ordinary. He and his boss are alone in that view. Many scientists and some of Mr. Barton's Republican colleagues say they were stunned by the manner in which the committee, whose chairman rejects the existence of climate change, demanded personal and private information last month from researchers whose work supports a contrary conclusion. The scientists, co-authors of an influential 1999 study showing a dramatic increase in global warming over the past millennium, were told to hand over not only raw data but personal financial information, information on grants received and distributed, and computer codes.

Rep. Sherwood L. Boehlert (R-N.Y.), chairman of the House Science Committee, has called the investigation 'misguided and illegitimate.' Raymond S. Bradley of the University of Massachusetts, one of the targets, calls it 'intrusive, far-reaching and intimidating.' Alan I. Leshner, chief executive of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, said that although scientists 'are used to answering really hard questions,' in his 22 years as a government scientist he never heard of a similar inquiry, which he suspects could 'have a chilling effect on the willingness of people to work in areas that are politically relevant.'"