By Benny Peiser, CCNet Extra - 1 December 2010

U.S. Republicans Axe Global Warming Panel

Politico, 1 December 2010

House Republicans will scrap the committee set up by Speaker Nancy Pelosi to investigate global warming, the panel’s top Republican announced Wednesday.

Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) made official what many had already expected - the GOP majority will axe the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, which Pelosi created in 2007.

“This hearing will be the last of the select committee,” Sensenbrenner announced.

Committee Chairman Ed Markey (D-Mass.) called Wednesday’s hearing to give witnesses a chance to warn of the perils of climate change before the GOP launches efforts next year to roll back the Obama administration’s climate policies.

Sensenbrenner, a vocal climate change skeptic, had pushed to keep the panel alive to probe the White House’s energy policies. But it was seen as unlikely that GOP leadership would devote resources to the panel created by Democrats at the same time that they called for scaling back government spending.

The Wisconsin Republican may still play a key role in leading investigations into climate science next year. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), who’s vying for the chairmanship of the Science Committee, told POLITICO Tuesday he’d like to see Sensenbrenner lead the panel’s climate science probes.

Markey, meanwhile, assured Republicans that he and others will battle from the minority to slash global warming emissions.

“We are not going away because the problems that climate change presents are too dangerous too urgent for us to disappear into the abyss of cynicism and loss,” Markey said. “We are not going away because China, India, and Germany are not going away as competitors for global energy dominance. We are not going away because the national security threats from our continued dependence on foreign oil are not going away.”

For the Chop: Republicans Put Global Warming Panel Out Of Business

The Wall Street Journal, 1 December 2010

Massachusetts Democrat Edward Markey will hold one last media spectacle at his Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming today, allowing such oracles as green activist Robert Kennedy Jr. to preach about the imminent catastrophe of climate change. Let’s hope Speaker-designate John Boehner makes it the committee’s last hurrah.

Current Speaker Nancy Pelosi created this outfit in 2007 as a way to outflank then Energy Committee Chairman John Dingell, for whom climate change is not a religion. The committee provided Mr. Markey a prominent perch from which to work closely with California’s Henry Waxman (who later deposed Mr. Dingell) on the cap-and-trade bill that passed the House and helped so many Democrats lose their seats in November.

Mr. Markey held more than 50 hearings, at which he demeaned reputable scientists, attacked oil and gas companies, and in general evangelized about the need to replace carbon energy with windmills and solar panels. With no bill-writing powers, committee Members spent $8 million or so on hearings, global “fact-finding” missions and reports of little consequence. Oh, and Mr. Markey elbowed his way into investigating the BP spill, which he used as a platform to demonize oil exploration.

Wisconsin Republican James Sensenbrenner, who voted against establishing the panel, is now pushing to keep it alive - perhaps because he’s in line to run it. Mr. Sensenbrenner wants the committee to investigate the Environmental Protection Agency’s carbon regulations, but Republicans have plenty of committees to do that. A Republican House that claims to favor limited government ought to be able to kill a committee that exists only to provide a forum for a job-killing climate agenda.

Icecap Note: The very same RFK jr. who two years ago had said it was sad the children of the DC area would never get again to see snow and sleds due to global warming. Last winter the Capitol and surroundings experiences “Snowmaggeden” with all-time seasonal snow records shattered and sleds and skis were the only ways to get around at times. He is just the kind of ‘expert’ the clueless, arrogant Markey would call on.

See this Farewell to Markey’s Comedy Central Committee by Climatequotes.com (H/T Marc Morano). In it the author concludes “I propose a toast - to the short lived Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming - may we always remember you as a hyper-partisan pseudo-scientific political sham.” Amen.