Barton blasted by peer

DallasNews.com | News for Dallas, Texas | Nation: "The chairman of the House Science Committee has accused Texas Rep. Joe Barton of launching a 'misguided and illegitimate' inquiry to intimidate top climatologists and discredit warnings about global warming.

Mr. Barton, chairman of the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee, has demanded extensive data and financial records from the researchers. On Monday he said he wouldn't back down, despite mounting pressure from scientists, environmentalists and Democrats.

Now, in an unusually testy and public exchange between chairmen from the same party, Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y., accused Mr. Barton of ignorance of the relevant science.

'It is certainly appropriate for Congress to try to understand scientific disputes that impinge on public policy,' Mr. Boehlert wrote his fellow chairman, in a letter released Monday. 'But you have taken a decidedly different approach – one that breaks with precedent and raises the specter of politicians opening investigations against any scientist who reaches a conclusion that makes the political elite uncomfortable.'"