Congress has denied the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) bid to create a promising “one stop shop” for data and information about climate, according to a scoop in The Washington Post.
NOAA’s budget request for fiscal year 2012 (which began October 1) included a proposal to reorganize its existing climate capabilities and services into “a single point of entry” for users called the Climate Service. The stated goal was to “more efficiently and effectively respond to the rapidly increasing demand for easily accessible and timely scientific data and information about climate that helps people make informed decisions in their lives, businesses, and communities.”
Despite the fact that the proposal did not call for any additional funding to establish the new office, Republican lawmakers opposed it every step of the way, according to the Post’s Brian Vastag, who was seemingly the only reporter one of the few reporters to spot Congress’s decision to scuttle the Climate Service during budget negotiations last week.
[Update: A few people have written to say that Vastag’s piece, though well done, wasn’t a scoop. This is a debatable point, but I stand by that call.
ScienceInsider and E&E Publishing both mentioned Congress’s decision to deny NOAA’s request, and they deserve credit for that, but they mentioned it in passing at the bottom of their stories. Neither went into any detail about the service. More importantly, neither specified that NOAA hadn’t requested any additional money, a key point because of the highly politicized nature of any funding related to the environment right now.
I don’t mean to criticize ScienceInsider or E&E. They have covered the squabble over the Climate Service doggedly since NOAA pitched its idea in late 2010 (see here and here). But in the sense that, on this occasion, Vastag was the only reporter to write a focused article that cast Congress’s decision to abort the service in a new light, yes, he had the scoop.]
NOAA’s plan was to integrate operations like the National Climatic Data Center, Earth System Research Lab, and Climate Prediction Center, which currently belong to separate units. The idea was to mimic the National Weather Service, which provides useful, up-to-date information to those who need it. According to Vastag’s article:
Demand for [climate] data is skyrocketing, NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco told Congress earlier this year. Farmers are wondering when to plant. Urban planners want to know whether groundwater will stop flowing under subdivisions. Insurance companies need climate data to help them set rates.
Somehow, members of the GOP saw more nefarious intentions. During a hearing of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee in June, Rep. Paul C Broun, a Georgia Republican, said the Climate Service sounded “a lot like a propaganda office.” At the same hearing, according to Vastag’s article in the Post, committee chairman Ralph Hall of Texas “said he recognized that ‘certain climate services can provide value.’ But he fretted that the reorganization would “severely harm vital research at NOAA.”
In September, Hall launched an investigation, alleging that NOAA had formed the Climate Service without the required Congressional authorization, calling it a “shadow operation.” Last week, the Post reported, “the Democratic-led Senate approved most of the climate service in its budget. The Republican-led House approved none of it. Led by Hall, the Republicans won.”
Vastag not only deserves credit for noticing the decision, but also for calling out the ensuing effort to spin the news:
After the deal, which passed Congress last week, a House Appropriations Committee news release implied that Congress had saved $322 million in fiscal year 2012 by nixing the climate service.
The reality: Congress is still giving NOAA those funds for climate research and data delivery. But they’ll be distributed across the agency instead of consolidated under an umbrella climate service. The hundreds of millions in savings trumpeted by the Republican-led Appropriations Committee are an illusion.
Let's be clear and factual. The request to create a Climate Service was rejected on a bi-partisan basis due to concerns that this was nothing other than a 1) political ploy to grand stand and, 2) an end around for eventually a significant budget increase. So Mr. Brainard, either 1) get your facts straight and stop prevaricating or 2) seek another "profession" that tolerates less than factual screeds.
#1 Posted by B Johnson, CJR on Mon 21 Nov 2011 at 05:21 PM
Bi-partisan? Who? Mary Landrieu? Senator from British Petroleum? Give us your stats.
Political ploy to grand stand? Grandstanding is claiming you care about the deficit while lobbying to make tax cuts for the rich permanent. Putting together a climate data shop that organizes and makes accessible government research on climate is a basic service that republicans don't like providing. Just one of many.
An end around for eventually a significant budget increase?
They just cut the agency by $58.6 million last year. "That's 58.6 million more for tax cuts! Derpa Derp derp! Mongo like tax cuts!"
Republicans aren't interested in government, economics, nor science. They are interested in getting tax cuts and blowing cash on war and security. I for one don't care to hear about fiscal responsibility from "Lost a coupe trillion in Iraq. Whoops! Sorry." republicans.
Especially after when, in the wake of their financial meltdown largely a result of derivatives, they do this:
http://www.federaltimes.com/article/20111115/CONGRESS01/111150301/
"Lawmakers generally rebuffed the White House's call for budget increases for agencies picking up new or heightened responsibilities. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, for example, would essentially be level-funded at $205 million, even though it is charged with regulating a $3 trillion derivatives market under the Dodd-Frank financial services overhaul approved last year."
Idiots.
#2 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Mon 21 Nov 2011 at 06:09 PM
Thimbles, Your posts could be improved if you would tell us what you think in your own words. The links are ineffective. I once posted at a blog every once in a while where the major contributor offered two huge chunks of Wikipedia stuff every day, replete with endless links.
As if nobody had ever heard of Wikipedia.
In scanning Internet reader comments, you will see a lot in your format, mixing invective with links with quotes. These are almost all 'vanity' unreadable comments. So many readers may take a look and assume that you have nothing to say.
Your rhetorical questions and slapdash paragraphs do not inspire confidence.
It is as if you are programmed to write this text. Perhaps it is a futuristic computer experiment. Can a computer approach simulating a human? It probably would not be too difficult.
#3 Posted by Clayton Burns, CJR on Mon 21 Nov 2011 at 07:21 PM
"Thimbles, Your posts could be improved if you would tell us what you think in your own words."
Who owns words? Is language not but series of meaningful iterations?
"I once posted at a blog every once in a while where the major contributor offered two huge chunks of Wikipedia stuff every day, replete with endless links."
I've heard of that guy.
http://www.google.co.jp/search?&q=cb_brooklyn+truth
It's not my thing.
"In scanning Internet reader comments, you will see a lot in your format, mixing invective with links with quotes."
Now that's more my thing. Notice the invective? Usually my words - as far as any person can lay claim to such.
But enough about me :)
#4 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Mon 21 Nov 2011 at 08:04 PM
You seem to have taken "invective" literally, Thimbles.
(You have got the wrong person.)
Thanks for more rhetorical questions. They are obviously working well for you as a form of communication.
You seem to be a flippant, or even a silly, computer iteration. Thimbles.
At least you are not obnoxious, as is the killer. The flailing, inept killer. Maybe you don't have it in you. Wrong genes or not to be found in the program. All to the better, then.
#5 Posted by Clayton Burns, CJR on Mon 21 Nov 2011 at 08:33 PM
Brian's story was a good recap of the fight, but not as much of a scoop to some--we noted the decision last week on our news blog http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2011/11/noaa-environmental-satellites.html
#6 Posted by John Travis, CJR on Tue 22 Nov 2011 at 09:08 AM
Here's this little gem from an email fro the BBC's "environmental journalist" Alex Kirby to Warmingist-in-chief Phil Jones:
Yes, glad you stopped this — I was sent it too, and decided to
spike it without more ado as pure stream-of-consciousness rubbish. I can
well understand your unhappiness at our running the other piece. But we
are constantly being savaged by the loonies for not giving them any
coverage at all, especially as you say with the COP in the offing, and
being the objective impartial (ho ho) BBC that we are, there is an
expectation in some quarters that we will every now and then let them
say something. I hope though that the weight of our coverage makes it
clear that we think they are talking through their hats.
#7 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Fri 25 Nov 2011 at 01:32 PM
There will be consequences for your behavior, 'padikiller.'
You are to apologize for your libel of me at this site.
You can't harass anyone on the Internet.
It is the same as walking up to someone and spitting in that person's face.
#8 Posted by Clayton Burns, CJR on Fri 25 Nov 2011 at 01:53 PM
So we have in the Chevy Volt a $45,000 car (that nobody wants) that on a 20 degree day goes 25 miles on charge (without heat) - a charge that only takes a mere 12 hours to complete... And NOW we learn that perhaps it's also prone to exploding like a Pinto...
http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/25/business/chevy-volt-investigation/index.html?hpt=hp_t3
Ah yes... Gubmint intervention into the market is wonderful thing to behold!
#9 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Sat 26 Nov 2011 at 03:35 PM