House science chairman seeks to block funding for new ‘Climate Service’

Rep. Ralph Hall (R-Texas), the chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, is seeking to block funding for the overhaul of major federal climate change research and monitoring programs.

Hall – who questions climate science – wants to amend House spending legislation to prevent the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) from proceeding with creation of a new “Climate Service.”

{mosads}Hall’s plan would amend the continuing resolution that’s on the House floor this week – it’s the bill to fund the federal government through the end of fiscal year 2011. His amendment would prevent any of the money from being used to “implement, establish, or create” the Climate Service.

NOAA is seeking to better integrate its various climate-related functions.

“The proposed Climate Service will bring together NOAA’s existing climate research, observations, monitoring, modeling, information product development and delivery, and decision support functions from NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, the National Weather Service, and the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service, which will be renamed the National Environmental Satellite Service,” according to NOAA’s proposal.

NOAA first announced plans for the Climate Service a year ago.

Hall’s amendment is among several House GOP efforts to block the Obama administration’s climate change efforts. The underlying spending bill would prohibit funding for EPA’s climate regulations, while several proposed amendments also address global warming.

For instance, Rep. Steve Pearce (R-N.M.) has floated an amendment that would prohibit any federal funding for the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which studies climate science but has come under attack from skeptics.