Meet Lamar Smith: SOPA author, climate change skeptic, and Congress' next science boss
A representative at the helm of America's future
By T.C. Sottek on December 5, 2012
http://www.theverge.com/2012/12/5/3725768/meet-lamar-smith
...he’s already served on the science committee for the past 26 years. His votes reflect a pattern of opposition to climate change and alternative energy efforts, sympathy to large industry in matters of copyright and patent law, deference to law enforcement on privacy issues, and moral policing of the internet.
Smith’s record on energy and the environment represents one of his most controversial policy arenas. He voted to bar the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases, voted no several times on tax credits for renewable energy and incentives for energy production and conservation, voted against raising fuel efficiency standards, and rejected implementation of the Kyoto Protocol. Opponents of the appointment have observed in recent days that Smith, like his predecessor Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX), have expressed skepticism about man-made global warming — a question that suffers no serious objection in scientific literature, but has become a contentious topic of debate after conservative groups cast it as a social problem in the 1990s.
Like I've said before, I would just as soon trust educated professional scientist's integrity than some ideological extremism as highlighted by Lamar's embracing the Tea Party Caucus
( http://lamarsmith.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=199502 ).