Big Oil and the GOP Order A Hit On Climate Science

I read in the Washington Post this morning that a Republican/Oil Company congressman is demanding the internal memos and emails of climate scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). This extortionist is Lamar Smith (R-TX). His constituents will cheer; he is from Texas and Texas is owned by the oil industry. He and they are employed by Big Oil. He is doing their bidding. Unfortunately the internal memos and emails between Smith and his handlers in Big Oil are confidential. He'll ask the questions. The public is not going to know how his thoughts are controlled or his actions are directed.


We should be demanding the internal memos and emails of the fossil fuel companies and lobbyists and congressmen. We should be demanding this loudly, but we don't have a congressional subpoena power or a congressional microphone. The oil and gas companies' enormous taxpayer subsidies entitle us to know how much they are lying to us. Why exactly are we subsidizing them anyway? They are obscenely profitable. They don't need subsidies. Why are they subpoenaing scientists? Call it blackmail. Call it intimidation. Business as usual.

If this congressional operative of the fossil fuel companies thinks scientists’ casual banter can be twisted into something the public might be persuaded to dislike by an expensive oil-funded ad campaign, well, the toadying congressmen like Smith do to get paid by the oil companies doesn’t need twisting. The congressional GOP has its own private intellectual kama sutra, a set of bizarre positions it assumes to pleasure their funders. They probably keep it under their pillows.

Which is funny until you realize they are accepting money in exchange for allowing the extremely profitable destruction of our civilization. Their only “out" being that this destruction will occur after they’ve been paid all the money and retired from their corrupted offices.

It might give them pause if they realized that their longterm strategy includes an even better paid period working as a lobbyist. In that role they will be reaping the whirlwind they’ve sown. They will be right there in the oil and coal company’s employ, wearing their black hat, explaining why Baltimore and New Jersey port facilities are under water, explaining why it was worth it to turn our nation’s breadbasket into a near-desert thus making it vital that we import our food via the port facilities that their decades of fossil fuel shilling has rendered unusable. The anger of millions of persons who have lost their homes in submerged coastal regions will not be a fun thing for them to deal with. Climate change will create more refugees than the war in Syria and they will be Americans with American voices and American families and an American level of resentment and anger.

Hostage Situation

Obama is in a difficult position. He wants to protect the essential programs many millions of middle class and working class households rely on, and wants to do so by removing the tax breaks enjoyed by the very rich, who pay much lower tax than everybody else. The Republicans are willing to crash the economy to protect the rich and are happy to gouge everybody else if they can. I am reminded of the National Lampoon cover from 1973: "If You Don't Buy This Magazine We'll Kill This Dog." The dog is us. The Republican goal is to nail down an economy like the one we are living through right now, one that doesn't work for anyone but the upper class.

It's a hostage situation. President Obama is trying to free 300 million hostages (the American people) from a set of ruthless well-armed and cold-blooded extortionists, which requires very careful negotiating. Problem is half of the hostages don't seem aware which side is holding them hostage and which side is trying to get them released unharmed.

Here's a pretty good analysis from my friend at Forbes.