House science chairman gets heat in Texas race for being a global warming skeptic
By Lisa Rein November 7 at 6:00 AM
In the race for the White House, the climate change debate has been more or less missing in action. In the race for a central Texas House seat, the Democrat hoping to topple 30-year incumbent Republican Lamar Smith has made global warming his top campaign issue.
Wakely is campaigning as a champion of climate science in a year when Democrat Clinton and Republican Trump — and most other candidates for Congress, for that matter — have barely touched on the issue, in what is shaping up to be the hottest year on record. Wakely has seized on a theme that has defined Smith’s run in Washington as chairman of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology: He’s a climate change skeptic.
Smith, 68, an attorney from San Antonio who’s represented the area northwest of the city since 1987, rejects the scientific consensus that man-made pollution is behind global warming. He’s used his perch as committee chairman to subpoena federal climate scientists to discredit their research, issuing a record number of legal summonses this Congress and turning a panel that was once a sleepy backwater into an aggressive attack dog.
This has made Smith a polarizing figure in Washington, beloved by oil and gas interests who give generously to his campaigns and vilified by those fighting to reduce global warming pollution.
Now his attacks on scientists are percolating back home in a district buffeted in recent years by drought and water shortages. And while Smith does not often highlight his views on climate change on the campaign trail, Wakely, a little-known Democratic activist, saw an opening this year to pounce.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/11/07/house-science-chairman-gets-heat-in-texas-race-for-being-a-global-warming-skeptic/?wpisrc=nl_politics&wpmm=1