US Rep. Smith backs off on demands for climate scientists’ emails

Washington Post : US Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX), who recently subpoenaed the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration over a climate change study, has eased off temporarily on his demands for emails and other communications from the climate scientists involved. The controversy centers on a paper published in Science, in which the scientists negated the findings of an earlier study that showed a pause in global warming. Smith, who heads the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, has alleged that the scientists involved in the most recent study altered temperature data in order to promote President Obama’s climate agenda. In a letter to Commerce secretary Penny Pritzker, Smith says that “in order to move the Committee’s work forward,” he is no longer requiring the communications from scientists but still insists on receiving those of nonscientific personnel.