Ralph Hall Gearing Up for New Role as Chair of House Sci & Tech Comm

FYI,

"Ralph Hall Gearing Up for New Role as Chair of House Sci & Tech
Committee"
Dallas Morning News

Rep. Ralph Hall has waited 30 years for this chance.

: The Rockwall Republican, the longest-serving Texan in Congress,
: will finally ascend next year to the plum position that most
: lawmakers never get to enjoy: committee chairman. The oldest member
: of Congress will chair the most future-looking panel of them all,
: the House Science and Technology Committee.

: The committee's agenda is highly technical but central to building
: a competitive economy and skilled workforce. Its jurisdiction
: includes scientific research and education, space exploration,
: clean energy innovation and climate change research.

: Hall is steeped in the legislative battles around those issues. But
: in a caucus full of self-styled reformers, he remains a type of
: throwback legislator a guardian of home-state interests and
: federal programs, including NASA.

: "I'm satisfied with what I have," said Hall, 87, adding that he
: pondered running for chairman of a more prominent panel, House
: Energy and Commerce. "It's a good Texas launching pad to do things
: for Johnson Space Center."

: NASA could be one of Hall's first tests. House Republicans have
: pledged to reduce spending to 2008 levels. It's not clear the GOP
: will exempt any nonmilitary agency from cuts, even one that is
: championed by Texas' influential GOP delegation.

: Earlier this year, Hall and other Texans opposed President Barack
: Obama's effort to end the human space flight program, which was
: sharply curtailed by a law signed by Obama in October.

: Hall remains protective of the International Space Station, which
: is controlled from Houston, and skeptical of the private companies
: that will ferry astronauts and cargo there in future years.

: "I do have [concerns] because it's so important and it's so
: dangerous and it's so subject to failure," Hall said. "I want to be
: assured that they're not going to run out of money."

: Hall said that Elon Musk, the founder of Space Exploration
: Technologies Corp., and other major space contractors would be
: asked to testify before his committee. SpaceX successfully launched
: its first test capsule last week from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

: John M. Logsdon, a space policy expert at George Washington
: University, said Hall's committee also will have to monitor NASA's
: progress on a deep-space rocket and crew capsule that must be built
: by 2016.

: "I can say with a fair degree of assurance that NASA is finding it
: technically and financially difficult to meet some of the targets
: in the authorization bill," Logsdon said.

: "I would expect him to raise some of the questions to NASA about
: how they are planning on going forward," he said.

: Global warming

: If Hall remains enthusiastic about space policy, he is skeptical of
: another NASA mission: climate-change research. The agency spends
: about $1.4 billion annually to collect and analyze climate data.
: NASA scientists assert that increased industrial emissions of
: carbon dioxide are forcing climate change.

: Like many Texas Republicans, Hall questions those conclusions.

: Studies to be studied

: With the House GOP full of climate-change skeptics, Hall's
: committee is likely to investigate the scientific studies that say
: man-made activities are to blame for global warming. Environmental
: groups say that debate is settled. Nonetheless, Hall said he plans
: to appoint an aggressive legislator, Rep. James Sensenbrenner, to
: chair the subcommittee that investigates scientific activities.

: Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., can be expected to hold hearings that
: question "uncertainties" in climate-change science that impact
: public policy, said John Mimikakis, a former deputy chief of staff
: for the science committee. Sensenbrenner recently referred to the
: scientific consensus on global warming as a "massive international
: scientific fraud."

: "I'm interested in the truth on that," Hall said. "There are a lot
: of people who believe that a lot of decisions were made on the
: false statements of others.

: "I'll try to find out who those others are, and ask them to come
: before the committee," he said. "And if they don't come before the
: committee, well, we might subpoena them."

: Research funding

: Hall's other major responsibility next year will be passing a bill
: that reauthorizes a raft of programs supporting scientific
: research, energy innovation and education activities. Hall didn't
: support the Democratic version of the bill, which he'll get to
: rewrite next year because the legislation didn't advance in the
: Senate.

: Hall said the $86 billion bill was too expensive for his taste,
: even though he got phone calls from civic leaders in Dallas urging
: him to support it.

: Having promised to look for savings in "wasteful and duplicative
: programs," his version of the legislation probably will be more
: modest.

: That could put him at odds with the Obama administration, which
: aims to prioritize research, particularly for what it calls clean-
: energy innovations.

Mark Reiff