Jim Bridenstine doesn’t even believe in climate science, which “should disqualify him” for the job, says Sen. Patty Murray.
Senate Assistant Democratic leader Patty Murray (D-Wash.) is taking the lead in trying to bring down President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-Okla.), because, for starters, he doesn’t believe in climate science.
“Rep. Bridenstine’s failure to accept fundamental scientific truths about Earth’s climate make him an ill-suited and dangerous choice to lead the agency,” Murray says in a Thursday letter to members of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, which is holding a confirmation hearing Nov. 1 on the nomination.
Bridenstine, a Navy Reserve pilot who has no scientific background, has made it clear that he doesn’t accept scientific consensus on climate change. In a June 2013 speech, the congressman repeated the debunked claim that global temperatures “stopped rising 10 years ago.” He also criticized President Barack Obama for a “gross misallocation” of funds because he spent “30 times as much money” on climate change research than on weather research. (That wasn’t true, by the way.)
In July 2013, Bridenstine sponsored a bill to gut funding for climate change studies conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
A few months earlier, he tweeted that a House hearing on global warming was “canceled because of snow!”, suggesting he does not recognize the difference between local weather conditions and the broader planetary climate.
