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Wednesday, Nov 28, 2012 6:00 PM UTC

GOP’s new House Science farce

Rep. Lamar Smith, the likely chair, once decried news networks “slanted in favor of global warming alarmists"

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Topics: Global Warming, Climate Change, House Science Committee, climate skeptics, Lamar Smith, ,

GOP's new House Science farce Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, speaks at CPAC in 2011. (Credit: Facebook/LamarSmithTX21)

Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, will likely be the new Chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, despite his rather skeptical take on the science behind man-made climate change.

From the Huffington Post:

On Tuesday afternoon, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) announced that the Republican Steering Committee had recommended Smith as the new chairman. The full House GOP caucus will vote on all chairmanships Wednesday and is expected to ratify the steering panel’s choices.

Smith once accused ABC, NBC and CBS of coverage that was “largely slanted in favor of global warming alarmists.”

“The networks have shown a steady pattern of bias on climate change,” Smith wrote in a statement in 2009. “During a six-month period, four out of five network news reports failed to acknowledge any dissenting opinions about global warming, according to a Business and Media Institute study.”

Smith is in good company with his fellow GOPers on the Committee, many of whom have made various eyebrow-raising comments about science. As Chair, Smith will replace another Texas Republican, Ralph Hall, who once said of global warming:  “I’m really more fearful of freezing. And I don’t have any science to prove that. But we have a lot of science that tells us they’re not basing it on real scientific facts.”

Jillian Rayfield is an Assistant News Editor for Salon, focusing on politics. Follow her on Twitter at @jillrayfield or email her at jrayfield@salon.com. More Jillian Rayfield.

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