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cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and who had considerable experience with such matters, was
particularly helpful.
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In my remarks, I stated for the record that I was choosing to respond to Barton
voluntarily, and that I recognized no authority on his part to demand any materials from me; this was
important, as Boehlert had already challenged his jurisdiction over the matter. I then proceeded to
respond to each of Barton's claims, assertions, and questions. I began by affirming the overwhelming
body of evidence—of which our work was only a small part—that human-caused climate change is
actually occurring. I stressed that our own finding that recent decades were unusually warm had been
independently reaffirmed by many other researchers. The IPCC Third Assessment Report's
conclusions, I noted, were based not on my work alone, but on multiple studies coming to these same
conclusions. Further, the criticisms of our work he had cited had been rejected by other scientists.
I then addressed the details of his claims and allegations. I pointed out, for one, that the data he
was demanding that I make available were already available in the public domain, and had been for
years. Furthermore, the NSF general counsel had affirmed—in response to Stephen McIntyre's
allegations—that my coauthors and I had in fact disclosed all of the data and materials expected of
any researcher and that the computer code—the actual computer program that we had written to
tactics of intimidation, I also wanted to make clear that we had absolutely nothing to hide, so I added
the source code to our public archive and pointed out to Barton in our letter that it was available
there.
Despite all of the push-back by the scientific community, the castigation by prominent politicians
in his own party, and the exceedingly bad press he was getting in the mainstream media, Barton
forged ahead. In November 2005, Boehlert, seeking perhaps to preempt Barton's misguided further
efforts, formally commissioned the U.S. National Academy of Sciences to review the science behind
paleoclimate reconstructions, including our own work. He even extended an olive branch to Barton,
asking him to join with him in commissioning the study. Barton, however, would not be deterred. He
rejected Boehlert's offer, and instead announced in February 2006 that he had commissioned his own
investigation by a statistician from George Mason University named Edward Wegman, much of whose
research was defense-related and classified, involving the use of so-called data mining for
intelligence gathering purposes.
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The Dog Days of Summer
As it happens, back in March 2005, months before the Barton affair had begun and before my tenure
case at the University of Virginia (U. Va) had proceeded to completion, I had already privately
tendered my resignation from U. Va and accepted a position at Penn State University—with tenure.
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I
would start there in August. None of this was public in June, when Barton sent out his letters. As for
the energy bill, the Energy Policy Act of 2005 would pass Congress and be signed into law by
President Bush in early August. Among the provisions in the original bill favored by
environmentalists were higher vehicle fuel efficiency(“CAFÉ”) standards and greater incentives for
non-greenhouse-gas-generating energy sources. Both provisions were stricken from the bill before
passage, though I doubt the Barton controversy had anything to do with it. At the time, I was in China
to attend a scientific conference and to do some sightseeing with my wife. Our first child was due in
