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Mr. SCALISE. I want to thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding and the gentleman from Georgia for opening up this discussion.
Of course, what we are talking about and the reason this is so important is that many of the different world leaders are getting ready to meet in Copenhagen, Denmark, to start discussing a Kyoto II-type treaty--a treaty for many countries, including the United States, to literally change the way our entire manufacturing base operates.
Of course, here in Congress, we've been debating the proposal by Speaker Pelosi and others to codify that type of treaty in the form of the cap-and-trade national energy tax. They are trying to bring a national energy tax to our country to tax businesses, to tax not only businesses but also individuals in their household electricity use for using fossil fuels. It's all in the name of stopping manmade global warming.
So what brings us to this debate that you are focusing on is the fact that we have found out recently through Climategate that the science that they are using is corrupt. In fact, behind much of the data that has been used to try to sell a cap-and-trade energy tax, that has been used to try to sell the Kyoto Treaty and now this new meeting in Copenhagen to have a Kyoto II-type agreement, all of it was based on corrupted data.
If you go back to former Vice President Al Gore, who said, The debate is over, he was trying to imply that all of the scientists are in agreement. Of course, as my colleague from Georgia pointed out, the scientists are not in agreement.
What is even worse is now we have found out and have uncovered this scandal where some of the scientists who have been collecting data through the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC, which is the respected body worldwide on all of this data--it turns out, as the clearinghouse, they were actually corrupting the data that is being used.
In some of the examples through these emails, Phil Jones, who just resigned, said, I've just completed Mike's nature trick--he goes on--to hide the decline in temperatures.
We go back to the infamous hockey stick graph that Al Gore used in his film, ``An Inconvenient Truth.'' I guess the most inconvenient truth for the former Vice President is that these emails have now come out and have exposed the scandal.
If the gentleman from Texas will allow me, I want to read a few other of the emails. I know my colleague from Illinois earlier highlighted some of the other emails.
Yet, just to show how deep this is, first, Phil Jones in an email last year said, Mike, can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith regarding the AR4 data set? Keith will do likewise. He says, Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don't have his email address. We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.
So here he is talking about deleting data, deleting the emails which show that some of this manipulation and corruption of the data was going on. This is the person who is the director of the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit. He is a scientist who should not only understand the importance of following the facts, of following the data, but who should also understand that, as others try to verify this data, that is something that he should be openly and freely willing to share.
Mr. BARTON of Texas. The AR4 data set is the data set that was used in the IPCC report in 2007, so it's a
seminal document that has been used for policymaking decisions, not just in the United States but all over the world.
Mr. SCALISE. Exactly.
Mr. BARTON of Texas. What you are saying is they went to some lengths to manipulate the data that that report is based on.
Mr. SCALISE. They went to lengths to manipulate the data, and then they went to lengths to actually delete, to try to destroy the evidence, in essence--some of that data--as you know as the ranking member of Energy and Commerce and when we were having that debate here in committee and on the House floor on the cap-and-trade energy tax.
Many of the people who have been promoting that national energy tax--Speaker Pelosi and her liberal attendants and others--are using that IPCC data to say, Look, we need to act quickly because the data shows. Of course, now we know that the data was corrupted.
Then he goes on--and we are all familiar in this country with the freedom of information. This administration came in saying they were going to be the most transparent administration ever. Yet you look at these emails further, and he says--this is an email--The freedom of information line we are all using is this. So he is telling this to some of the other scientists who were involved in this corruption. He says, The IPCC is exempt from any country's Freedom of Information Act. The sceptics have been told this. Even though we possibly hold relevant info, the IPCC is not part--and then he goes on to say--therefore, we don't have an obligation to pass it on.
So he is trying to lay out this groundwork so that he doesn't even have to turn over his data. This is, I think, before he destroyed it.
Then he says, If the Royal Meteorological Society is going to require authors to make all data available--raw data plus results from all intermediate calculations--he says, I will not submit any further papers to the RMS Journal.
This is Phil Jones--again, leading scientist--whose data is used by many of these people all throughout the world to try to pass Kyoto-type agreements in the cap-and-trade energy tax that's getting ready to be debated over in the Senate.
Mr. LINDER. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. SCALISE. Yes, I will yield to the gentleman.
Mr. LINDER. Sadly, that data that the IPCC uses from East Anglia is also the basis of the data that NASA uses in Huntsville, Alabama, and all of the other future models that have been built have been somehow shaped by that data. So there is no place to go now, since all of the source documents have been thrown away, to reconstruct all of that.
Mr. SCALISE. It is really frustrating because there are scientists who have different opinions, who have tried to present alternative data to this corrupt scientific data, and they have been blacklisted. In fact, I won't go into detail on this here, but that information will continue to come out. In some of the emails, they actually go on to describe how they are going to try to blacklist other scientists who try to propose data which shows something different than theirs--in fact, even saying that they are going to withhold some of their journal writings so that they won't even publish some of this information.
I go on to say this because they are trying to use this corrupt data, this corrupt scientific data, to pass not only a cap-and-trade energy tax which will run millions of jobs out of this country, but they are also trying to use it now in conjunction with the EPA and their latest ruling to try to literally threaten Congress by saying, Well, okay. If you don't pass cap-and-trade here in Congress, then the EPA will in a de facto way try to pass its own cap-and-trade by using these radical environmentalists in the EPA, again using the corrupt scientific data, to try to pass it even if Congress won't pass it because the American people have realized this will run millions of jobs out of our country.
Many groups, one being the National Association of Manufacturers, on the low end, says, We would lose 3 million jobs in our country if the cap-and-trade energy tax were passed, and every American family would pay over $1,000 more per year in higher electricity rates. All of this is based upon false scientific data that has been corrupted, and we know it from the Climategate emails.
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Mr. SCALISE. I want to thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding and the gentleman from Georgia for opening up this discussion.
Of course, what we are talking about and the reason this is so important is that many of the different world leaders are getting ready to meet in Copenhagen, Denmark, to start discussing a Kyoto II-type treaty--a treaty for many countries, including the United States, to literally change the way our entire manufacturing base operates.
Of course, here in Congress, we've been debating the proposal by Speaker Pelosi and others to codify that type of treaty in the form of the cap-and-trade national energy tax. They are trying to bring a national energy tax to our country to tax businesses, to tax not only businesses but also individuals in their household electricity use for using fossil fuels. It's all in the name of stopping manmade global warming.
So what brings us to this debate that you are focusing on is the fact that we have found out recently through Climategate that the science that they are using is corrupt. In fact, behind much of the data that has been used to try to sell a cap-and-trade energy tax, that has been used to try to sell the Kyoto Treaty and now this new meeting in Copenhagen to have a Kyoto II-type agreement, all of it was based on corrupted data.
If you go back to former Vice President Al Gore, who said, The debate is over, he was trying to imply that all of the scientists are in agreement. Of course, as my colleague from Georgia pointed out, the scientists are not in agreement.
What is even worse is now we have found out and have uncovered this scandal where some of the scientists who have been collecting data through the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC, which is the respected body worldwide on all of this data--it turns out, as the clearinghouse, they were actually corrupting the data that is being used.
In some of the examples through these emails, Phil Jones, who just resigned, said, I've just completed Mike's nature trick--he goes on--to hide the decline in temperatures.
We go back to the infamous hockey stick graph that Al Gore used in his film, ``An Inconvenient Truth.'' I guess the most inconvenient truth for the former Vice President is that these emails have now come out and have exposed the scandal.
If the gentleman from Texas will allow me, I want to read a few other of the emails. I know my colleague from Illinois earlier highlighted some of the other emails.
Yet, just to show how deep this is, first, Phil Jones in an email last year said, Mike, can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith regarding the AR4 data set? Keith will do likewise. He says, Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don't have his email address. We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.
So here he is talking about deleting data, deleting the emails which show that some of this manipulation and corruption of the data was going on. This is the person who is the director of the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit. He is a scientist who should not only understand the importance of following the facts, of following the data, but who should also understand that, as others try to verify this data, that is something that he should be openly and freely willing to share.
Mr. BARTON of Texas. The AR4 data set is the data set that was used in the IPCC report in 2007, so it's a
seminal document that has been used for policymaking decisions, not just in the United States but all over the world.
Mr. SCALISE. Exactly.
Mr. BARTON of Texas. What you are saying is they went to some lengths to manipulate the data that that report is based on.
Mr. SCALISE. They went to lengths to manipulate the data, and then they went to lengths to actually delete, to try to destroy the evidence, in essence--some of that data--as you know as the ranking member of Energy and Commerce and when we were having that debate here in committee and on the House floor on the cap-and-trade energy tax.
Many of the people who have been promoting that national energy tax--Speaker Pelosi and her liberal attendants and others--are using that IPCC data to say, Look, we need to act quickly because the data shows. Of course, now we know that the data was corrupted.
Then he goes on--and we are all familiar in this country with the freedom of information. This administration came in saying they were going to be the most transparent administration ever. Yet you look at these emails further, and he says--this is an email--The freedom of information line we are all using is this. So he is telling this to some of the other scientists who were involved in this corruption. He says, The IPCC is exempt from any country's Freedom of Information Act. The sceptics have been told this. Even though we possibly hold relevant info, the IPCC is not part--and then he goes on to say--therefore, we don't have an obligation to pass it on.
So he is trying to lay out this groundwork so that he doesn't even have to turn over his data. This is, I think, before he destroyed it.
Then he says, If the Royal Meteorological Society is going to require authors to make all data available--raw data plus results from all intermediate calculations--he says, I will not submit any further papers to the RMS Journal.
This is Phil Jones--again, leading scientist--whose data is used by many of these people all throughout the world to try to pass Kyoto-type agreements in the cap-and-trade energy tax that's getting ready to be debated over in the Senate.
Mr. LINDER. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. SCALISE. Yes, I will yield to the gentleman.
Mr. LINDER. Sadly, that data that the IPCC uses from East Anglia is also the basis of the data that NASA uses in Huntsville, Alabama, and all of the other future models that have been built have been somehow shaped by that data. So there is no place to go now, since all of the source documents have been thrown away, to reconstruct all of that.
Mr. SCALISE. It is really frustrating because there are scientists who have different opinions, who have tried to present alternative data to this corrupt scientific data, and they have been blacklisted. In fact, I won't go into detail on this here, but that information will continue to come out. In some of the emails, they actually go on to describe how they are going to try to blacklist other scientists who try to propose data which shows something different than theirs--in fact, even saying that they are going to withhold some of their journal writings so that they won't even publish some of this information.
I go on to say this because they are trying to use this corrupt data, this corrupt scientific data, to pass not only a cap-and-trade energy tax which will run millions of jobs out of this country, but they are also trying to use it now in conjunction with the EPA and their latest ruling to try to literally threaten Congress by saying, Well, okay. If you don't pass cap-and-trade here in Congress, then the EPA will in a de facto way try to pass its own cap-and-trade by using these radical environmentalists in the EPA, again using the corrupt scientific data, to try to pass it even if Congress won't pass it because the American people have realized this will run millions of jobs out of our country.
Many groups, one being the National Association of Manufacturers, on the low end, says, We would lose 3 million jobs in our country if the cap-and-trade energy tax were passed, and every American family would pay over $1,000 more per year in higher electricity rates. All of this is based upon false scientific data that has been corrupted, and we know it from the Climategate emails.
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