Democrat challenger Tom Wakely has launched a virulent attack on Congressman Lamar Smith, his Republican opponent for a central Texas congressional seat on the grounds that he does not embrace the reigning climate-change orthodoxy.
The chairman of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, Smith has challenged the science behind popular notions that anthropogenic global warming poses an imminent threat to the human race.
Wakely has attempted to paint Smith as a science-denying puppet of Big Oil.
“Lamar Smith is the major impediment to anything being done on climate change in Congress and absolutely nobody is talking about it,” said Wakely, a former union organizer who supported Bernie Sanders. “People in this district are slowly getting the message that climate change is not a far left wing conspiracy.”
Wakely is not alone in his full-bore assault on Smith. Earlier this year, left-wing Salon magazine went so far as to call for the dismantling of the House science committee headed by Smith, alleging that it “hates science.”
Salon bristled at the Congressman’s investigation into the peer review process at the National Science Foundation (NSF), and his criticism of federal grants such as a $220,000 study of animal photos in National Geographic and a $50,000 study of lawsuits in Peru from 1600–1700.”
For its part, the San Antonio Express-News has refused to endorse Smith for reelection, stating that his “bullying on the issue of climate change that should concern all Americans.”
Smith was one of the first members of Congress to endorse Donald Trump and has stood by the nominee, who like him, advocates tighter border controls.
Smith earned the ire of the Left when he launched an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state. He has also demanded records from the Environmental Protection Agency to challenge President Obama’s heightened restrictions on emissions from power plants.
“As Chairman, I have an obligation to conduct vigorous oversight of agencies and programs within my jurisdiction,” Smith said in a statement. “Under that umbrella, I work to ensure that federal agencies base their regulations and policy decisions on the best available science and not on partisan politics.”
“The Obama administration along with climate alarmists have long pursued climate policies that would cost Americans billions of dollars and put hard working people in my district out of a job,” he said.
Recent studies have debunked a series of climate activists’ claims that global warming was responsible for major warming in the Antarctic Peninsula and that it has decimated the production of coffee, threatening the world coffee supply and the jobs of “125 million people.”
These and other such claims have proven to be nothing but climate hysteria, reinforced by fawning mainstream media.
Follow Thomas D. Williams on Twitter Follow @tdwilliamsrome
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