I've been planning to write a diary about this, but since there's a
diary on the recommended list by mole333 and a
front page story by DarkSyde on the issue, there's not going to be a better time.
The bullying and censoring of scientists by the Bush Administration has been an issue that the Democrats on the House Science Committee have been raising for some time, well before the articles this year about Jim Hansen and global warming. The Union of Concerned Scientists issued a couple of reports on the muzzling of scientists, and the question has come up in virtually every area of scientific inquiry.
Chris Mooney, who is heading up the science panel at
YearlyKos, has written extensively about the issue at his blog
the Intersection. Mooney
covered a Science Committee meeting on February 15 at which John Marburger, head of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, testified. That morning there was a
column in the Washington Post about the apparent blacklisting of five scientists at Cal Tech who had reached politically inconvenient conclusions from their research. Marburger was at the Science Committee hearing to talk about the Bush Administration's proposed funding for scientific research, but he didn't get off that easy.
I pushed Sherwood Boehlert, the committee chair, on why he hadn't agreed to hearings on the issue of the integrity of scientific research in the Bush Administration, despite the requests of the Democrats on the committee. I like Sherry personally and his politics are not thoroughly odious. I'm not just saying that because Sherry's not running for re-election. The Club for Growth scorns Sherry as a RINO, which makes him our kind of Republican. I think Sherry cares about the integrity of scientific research, but he dismissed the attempt to muzzle Jim Hansen as an isolated instance of an over-zealous, low-level political functionary. Sherry suggested that he might hold hearings if there was evidence of a pattern of muzzling scientists, as opposed to a few isolated instances.
So I'm going to take Sherry at his word, and we're building our case. If you know of other instances of censoring, intimidating, blacklisting or whatever, e-mail my legislative assistant, Heather Parsons, at heather.parsons[at]mail.house.gov, or Dan Pearson of the Democratic staff of the Science Committee at dan.pearson[at]mail.house.gov.
If Sherry doesn't agree to hearings, it is hard to imagine that anyone else from the Republican side would. Of course, if the Democrats are in the majority next year....