The News & Observer today remembers back
to last year when Rep. Brad Miller tangled with
the State of Alaska over the listing of the polar bear as an endangered
species:

Some Democrats in Congress might not know of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, but Rep. Brad Miller of Raleigh does.

Miller last year accused the state of Alaska of using an opinion
essay written in part by known “climate-doubt” scientists to back its
opposition to listing the polar bear as a threatened species.

I wrote about the conflict in greater detail last year for Carolina Journal:

Miller, chairman of the House
subcommittee on investigations and oversight, under the Science and
Technology Committee, challenged efforts by ExxonMobil to fund research
on how global warming affects the habitat of polar bears.

In a letter
(.pdf) dated Oct. 17 to ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, Miller criticized
the company?s sponsorship of an article penned by seven scientists for
the journal Ecological Complexity. The scientists concluded
in their article that no evidence exists that the diminishment of polar
bears in the Western Hudson Bay area is caused by global warming.

Here’s what Palin had to say about the matter:

?If the government is going to
discredit all such scientists? research, as Miller does, needed
research will not be done,? Palin said. ?Competent scientists will no
longer be willing to undertake required studies or accept industry
grants to conduct vital research.?

Palin?s office noted that many government agencies require oil
companies to conduct environmental research and that if the bear study
should be questioned because of funding from petroleum companies, then
all research they do for the government should be doubted.

?The United States is a world leader in science because it
encourages academic debate among scientists,? Palin said. ?We stand by
our use of the study and by our commitment to free and open scientific
debate.?

Sounds promising, doesn’t it? On the other hand, the governor is
among the many of her executive colleagues across the nation who created a state commission to study climate change. Worse, her Department of Environment (despite forewarnings) hired the Center for Climate Strategies to manage the program. More on this in coming days, which will include documents I have obtained from the state of Alaska.

Cross-posted at Cooler Heads.