Republicans seek House vote on climate science

A dozen House Republicans led by Rep. Ralph Hall (Texas) want the chamber on record stating that the now-infamous hacked climate research emails may reveal scientific fraud.

Hall introduced a resolution Tuesday stating that strong oversight and protocols governing climate science are needed to “preclude future infringements of public trust by scientific falsification and fraud.”

The resolution lays out a host of allegations about emails among climate scientists hacked from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in the U.K. It says the emails show attempts to manipulate data to support evidence of global warming, and other actions that may constitute ethical breaches.

“There is growing concern and evidence that scientific data, from which global warming theories emerged, has been manipulated, enhanced or deleted, and this is especially problematic since this data could eventually be used as the basis for a regulatory regime in the U.S.,” Hall said in a statement.

The university is investigating the exchanges, which climate skeptics say reveal troubling attempts to squelch research that undercuts the case that human activities are warming the planet.

But many scientists say the messages have been taken out of context and do nothing to dent evidence of human-induced climate change. For instance, a number of members of the National Academy of Sciences recently penned an open letter to Congress calling such evidence “overwhelming.”

Hall is the ranking member of the Science and Technology Committee, and the other 11 lawmakers who co-sponsored the resolution are members of the panel as well. They include Rep. James Sensenbrenner (Wis.), who is also the ranking member of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.