House Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) penned an op-ed to the Houston Chronicle Feb. 12 decrying the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) new regulations on power plants, claiming the mandate for carbon capture technology will lead to job loss, decreased revenue, and economic fire and brimstone for Texans.  The letter comes on the heels of a contentious committee hearing on federal intervention in environmental and energy concerns.
 
Given Smith expressed the average conservative stance– less regulation, smaller government, drill baby drill, etc.— it is hardly surprising, except for one thing: Smith is the chair of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology.  
 
Yup, the committee charged with ““maintaining our scientific and technical leadership in the world” is led by a politician who poo-poos away environmental reform and receives the majority of his campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry.  Not to mention, a committee that recently hired a former Chevron lobbyist as one of its senior staffers.
 
The previous week, Smith announced his co-sponsorship of the Secret Science Reform Act, a bill aimed at “[prohibiting] the EPA from proposing regulations based upon science that is not transparent or not reproducible.”   While good on paper, Smith’s actions pose a thinly-veiled attack against the EPA and any federal action to protect the environment.  At the committee hearing Feb. 5, Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), the senior democrat on the committee, said GOP efforts were a “misguided and disingenuous war on the dedicated scientists and public servants of the EPA.”
 
And Smith has enthusiastically led the charge in each battle.  Earlier this year in a Washington Post op-ed, he lambasted President Obama for delaying the implementation of the Keystone XL Pipeline and criticized the EPA’s 2012 carbon emission standards for coal plants– despite significant concern that the pipeline and current inefficient plants will greatly increase greenhouse gas emissions.  In December, the committee hosted another hearing giving voice to climate change deniers.  And, more recently, Smith denounced Obama’s proposal for a “Climate Resilience Fund” to research climate change and prepare for weather-related devastation.
 
I support the Congressman’s ostensible reasoning that we should carefully consider our investments.  But this rhetoric is a ruse to continue our blind descent into inefficient, unclean fuel technologies in order to put money in the hands of big corporations.  We must demand that those charged with preserving scientific integrity are concerned with evidence-based,  scientific interventions– and not obsessed with selling their stamp of approval to the highest bidder.