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Senator James Inhofe vows investigation of IPCC
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Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), official photo
Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), having taken cognizance of the CRU Archive Incident, has vowed to call for an investigation of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), to determine whether and in what manner that body has been complicit in scientific fraud.
Senator Inhofe, in separate interviews with Jed Babbin and Melanie Morgan of the Washington Times' America's Morning Show and Ed Morrissey of Hotair.com, has stated that he was not surprised to learn that the East Anglia Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was engaging, as he sees it, in scientific fraud, but only that some person or persons unknown was bold enough to reveal it by releasing an archive of incriminating evidence.
This thing is serious, you think about the literally millions of dollars that have been thrown away on some of this stuff that they came out with.
Earlier last week, after Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), Majority Floor Leader, had postponed consideration of the Kerry-Boxer cap-and-trade bill until next spring, Senator Inhofe said this to Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) on the Senate floor:
I proudly declare 2009 as the "Year of the Skeptic," the year in which scientists who question the so-called global warming consensus are being heard...Until this year, any scientist, reporter or politician who dared raise even the slightest suspicion about the science behind global warming was dismissed and repeatedly mocked...Today I have been vindicated.
Climatic Research Unit (Photo courtesy CRU)
Senator Inhofe, of course, said that before the discovery of the CRU Archive.
Senator Inhofe is no stranger to the controversy surrounding the idea of anthropogenic global warming (AGW). In a 2005 floor speech denouncing the IPCC, Senator Inhofe said:
Today, I will discuss something else – scientific integrity and how to improve it. Specifically, I will discuss the systematic and documented abuse of the scientific process by an international body that claims it provides the most complete and objective scientific assessment in the world on the subject of climate change – the United Nations-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC. I will conclude with a series of recommendations as to the minimum changes the IPCC must make if it is to restore its credibility.
Senator Inhofe was talking about a 1996 IPCC report, a chapter of whicht, Inhofe says, was altered to change its entire meaning at its final peer review. The lead author for that chapter was Ben Santer, one of several scientists implicated in the CRU Archive for complicity in non-compliance with Freedom of Information requests and, in one instance, of threatening physical violence against a noted AGW skeptic. But Inhofe blamed pressure from the US State Department, then under then-Secretary Madeleine Albright, as the key agent of the changes.
Senator Inhofe readily acknowledges that he cannot affect the operations of the IPCC, over which the UN, and not the USA, has jurisdiction. However, he hoped to stall efforts, legislative and executive, to compromise US sovereignty while using AGW as an excuse.
Senator Inhofe has served on the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works for most of his Senate career, either as chairman or as ranking member, depending on which Party controlled the Senate in any given term.
UPDATE, November 25: Senator Inhofe has sent letters to several of the climate scientists named in the CRU e-mails, and to their respective inspectors general, ordering them to retain copies of e-mails on their end, as part of his widely-anticipated investigation.
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