Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), who failed in his bid to take the chairmanship of the House energy committee from Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), has begun the new congress with a new assault on his fellow Republican. In the first day of the 112th Congress, Barton led a pack of 13 anti-innovation Republicans with the introduction of legislation (H.R. 91) to strike down Upton’s 2007 lighting efficiency standard, painted by conservative activists as a “light bulb ban.” In a statement, Barton accused Upton of legislating an assault on “personal freedom” and “manipulating the free market”:

This is about more than just energy consumption, it is about personal freedom. Voters sent us a message in November that it is time for politicians and activists in Washington to stop interfering in their lives and manipulating the free market. The light bulb ban is the perfect symbol of that frustration. People don’t want congress dictating what light fixtures they can use.

“From the health insurance you’re allowed to have, to the car you can drive, to the light bulbs you can buy,” the polluter-funded Barton concluded, “Washington is making too many decisions that are better left to you and your family.”

Barton’s attack on the tyranny of energy-efficient light bulbs is consponsored by Reps. Marsha Blackburn (TN), Michael Burgess (TX), Rob Bishop (UT), Tom McClintock (CA), Howard Coble (NC), Ron Paul (TX), Todd Akin (MO), Ann-Marie Buerkle (NY), Cynthia Lummis (WY), Steve Scalise, Paul Broun (GA), Dan Burton (IN), and Cliff Stearns (FL). Of these 14 representatives, only Rep. Coble admits that global warming pollution is a real threat.

Upton has already reneged his position on light-bulb efficiency, which was supported by former speaker Rep. Denny Hastert (R-IL), Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN), and the light bulb industry itself. In December, Upton told Politico “he’s not afraid to go back after an issue he once supported but that has come under withering assault on the conservative airwaves, including on Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck’s talk shows.”

There was, in fact, no bill to ban incandescent light bulbs. Because of the advanced light-bulb standards Upton helped pass in 2007, “the incandescent bulb is turning into a case study of the way government mandates can spur innovation,” the New York Times reported last year. “There have been more incandescent innovations in the last three years than in the last two decades.”

WI Republican has called for blacklisting climate scientists

The NYT/Climate Wire reported yesterday that House Science chair Ralph Hall wants to investigate “doubts about the quality of the climate science”:

Hall said his vice chairman, Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), an outspoken climate skeptic who served as ranking member on the recently disbanded Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, will take the lead on the issue.

Of course, Hall is not aware of multiple vindications of climate science since “The first rule of vindicating climate scientists is you do not talk about vindicating climate scientists.”

While Hall himself is not an outright denier of basic climate science, Sensenbrenner (R-WI) is.   Here’s some background on the Wisconsin Republican, starting with an interview by conservative radio show host Jay Weber:

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Today’s guest blogger is D. Salmons.

Today the trend for the environment-conscious consumer is to live in more modest means. Instead of searching out the next McMansion, we are looking for practical size homes that are easier to maintain and has less of an impact on our limited resources. But some people are following this to an extreme, and are living in what could be considered a tiny home.
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Renewable energy industry shows surprising clout

Toward the end of September last year, in the midst of Ohio’s heated gubernatorial campaign, Republican candidate John Kasich gave an interview to the Dayton Daily News in which he raised the possibility that as governor he might try to axe the state’s mandate that electric utilities expand their renewable-energy portfolios.

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Architecture professor and columnist Larry Bell has a new book of climate science disinformation out, Climate of Corruption.  You can save yourself the trouble of buying it by reading RealClimate’s evisceration of a recent column by Bell in Forbes.  The RC debunking is reprinted with permission below.

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The Koch family of polluting billionaires put together the Tea Party movement and much of the modern right-wing infrastructure.   Koch Industries has surpassed Exxon Mobil in funding climate science disinformation and clean energy opposition.

Amazingly, Lee Fang of ThinkProgress, who has led the way in exposing the Kochs, pulled off an extended video interview with David Koch this week.  Below is Part 1.

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Pollution machine Koch Industries is taking to court to defend its reputation as a cesspool of global warming denial. The right-wing carbon industry giant, owned by Tea Party billionaires David and Charles Koch, has filed a lawsuit in Utah to punish anonymous pranksters who claimed on the company’s behalf that it was discontinuing funding to climate denial front groups. According to Koch’s lawyers, as a result of the rumor that the company believes in climate science, its “business and reputation were harmed“:

Defendants issued the false press release and set up the fake website with the intent to deceive and confuse the public, to disrupt and harm Plaintiff’s business and reputation, and to draw attention to and funding for Defendants’ activities. . ..

In addition, as a result of Defendants’ actions, Plaintiff’s business and reputation were harmed, and Plaintiff incurred monetary damages, including costs associated with spending time and money to respond to inquiries about the fake press release and Defendants’ other fraudulent activities, investigative and legal expenses associated with determining the host for Defendant’s website and contacting the host to have it taken down, and investigative and legal expenses associated with ascertaining the identity of Defendants.

The lawsuit claims that “the public was deceived and confused because news organizations published the false press release,” even though the few news outlets that wrote about the release identified it as a “spoof” (New York Times blog) or “phony” (The Hill blog).

The spoof release noted that Koch Industries bankrolls denier groups like Americans for Prosperity, Fraser Institute, Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment, the Manhattan Institute, and the Marshall Institute, and argued that “best course forward includes a discontinuation of funding for these organizations, and organizations like them, whose positions on climate change could jeopardize America’s continued global competitiveness in the energy and chemical sectors and Koch Industries’ ability to provide high-quality products and services to the American people.”

That statement is, of course, entirely true. The only thing false in the spoof was the recognition by the pollution company of scientific reality.

Download the Koch Industries complaint.