WASHINGTON, D.C., JULY 31, 1997--In remarks entered into the Senate record, Senator Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska) made it clear that Senate Resolution 98 (the Byrd-Hagel Resolution), while focusing on the economic damage of limiting greenhouse gas emissions, made no concessions on the global warming science. Murkowski underscored the lack of scientific agreement on the data and severely criticized Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt for suggesting that scientists skeptical of the Clinton Administration's global warming proposals were "un-American." Here is the full text of Senator Murkowski's remarks:

Mr. President, today our negotiators are gathering in Bonn, Germany to continue negotiations toward a new climate treaty, so it is appropriate to address the Senate on this issue.

My comments today will focus on the issue of science, scientific certainty, and scientific honesty.

During the Senate’s debate on Friday there were some general and specific comments made about climate science that were simply wrong, and I’d like to begin by addressing some of the general misunderstandings that may exist.

First, some of our colleagues seem to have it in their minds that there is scientific certainty and consensus over the issue of whether or not human activities are causing global warming. This is simply not true.

While it is true that Undersecretary of State Tim Wirth said that "the science is settled," it is clear that there is not a broad scientific consensus that human activities are causing global warming.

Don’t take my own word for it:

The prestigious journal Science, in its issue of May 16th, says that climate experts are a long way from proclaiming that human activities are heating up the earth.

Even Benjamin Santer, lead author of chapter 8 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report admits as much.

Here is what Dr. Santer says:

"We say quite clearly that few scientists would say the attribution issue was a done deal."

Indeed, the search for the "human fingerprint" is far from over with many scientists saying that a clear resolution is at least a decade away.

Even the Chairman of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Dr. Bert Bolin, says that the science is not settled. When told that Undersecretary of State Tim Wirth had said the science was settled, Dr. Bolin replied: "I’ve spoken to [Tim Wirth], I know he doesn't mean it."

Mr. President, the science is not settled. We continue to spend over $2 billion on the U.S. Global Climate Change Research Program for the simple reason that the science is not settled.

We know human activities result in carbon emissions. We also know that land-based records indicate that some warming has occurred. We do not know that one has caused the other.

Let me now turn to some specific statements that were made during the debate last Friday that simply don’t agree with the latest scientific literature:

My good friend, Senator Kerry, said (on page S8118 of the Congressional Record) that the "global average temperature has changed by less than a degree Celsius up or down for 10,000 years... [and that] the projected warming is expected to exceed any climate change that has occurred during the history of civilization."

Unfortunately, the facts simply don’t match up with Senator Kerry’s statement. According to data from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, temperatures were up to 3°C higher than present values some 2500-3000 years ago. (Reference: L. Keigwin, Science, volume 274, p. 1504-1508, 1996.)

In addition, independent studies using a different set of data indicate abrupt worldwide changes in temperature about 8000 years ago. (Reference: Stager and Mayewski, Science, volume 276, p. 1834, 1997.)

Another statement made by Senator Kerry (on page S8137 of the Congressional Record) claims that "..we are living in the midst of the most significant increase that we have seen in 130 years, and the evidence of the prognosis of our best scientists is that it is going to continue at a rate that is greater than anything we have known since humankind, since civilization has existed, civilization within the last 8,000 to 10,000 years on this planet."

Well, the facts are somewhat different. The most significant temperature increase in the last 130 years occurred between 1900 and 1940, and is generally believed to be a natural warming, a recovery from the Little Ice Age.

In pointing these facts out, it is not my contention that Senator Kerry is trying to mislead anyone. He is merely repeating some of the information that has been provided to him by his staff or others, and I know he believes them to be correct.

But they are not correct.

I believe this makes my point that there is a great deal of misunderstanding about this issue, in addition to the lack of scientific certainty I alluded to earlier.

I’d like to briefly turn my attention to a few statements made by others outside the Senate about the science of Climate Change.

When I opened the newspaper on Saturday I was amused to see the level of "spin control" that some were attempting with respect to the Senate’s actions of Friday.

Indeed, on page A11 of Saturday’s Washington Post, in an article by Helen Dewar, I read that Phillip Clapp, the President of the Environmental Information Center, said the Byrd resolution "endorses the science on global warming..."

Well, I hope the public and the press will follow the wise counsel of Senator Byrd and allow the resolution to speak for itself.

Indeed, the resolution does not say anything about endorsing the science of global warming.

If it had, it would not have passed the Senate at all... much less than by a vote of 95-0.

Special interest groups will, I suppose, do their best to advance their special interests. But we should demand a certain level of integrity and scientific honesty in our public debate of this issue.

This brings me to the final issue that I wish to address today—the issue of scientific honesty and integrity.

As pointed out above, there is a great deal of scientific uncertainty about climate change. Well respected, highly qualified scientific experts disagree over this issue.

The hearings held before the Energy Committee, the Foreign Relations Committee, and the Environment and Public Works Committee have all featured solid, respected scientists—some of whom question the link between human activities and a warming planet.

Before the Energy and Natural Resources Committee which I chair, Dr. Sallie Baliunas of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for astrophysics questioned the link between human activities and climate change.

Before the Environment and Public Works Committee, Dr. Richard S. Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, pointed out problems with the General Circulation Models that are the basis for the predictions of warming.

My Committee also heard from Dr. V. Ram Ramanathan of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, about the role of water vapor as a confounding factor in these models.

In the Environment and Public Works Committee, Dr. John R. Christy of the Earth System Science Laboratory at the University of Alabama in Huntsville discussed the satellite temperature records that conflict with ground-based data.

Before the Foreign Relations Committee, Dr. Patrick Michaels, professor of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia, directly challenged the links between human activities and observed warming.

These are all respected scientists. They are not crackpots, nay-sayers, or as some press accounts have branded them, a "small and noisy band of skeptics."

Instead, they are scientists, doing what scientists do. Consistent with the scientific method, they are challenging the findings of other scientists, in an open, intellectually honest manner, using all the data and analysis that they can bring to bear.

That is how the system is supposed to work.

Unfortunately, the proponents of the view that we must take extreme actions now to address climate change have been attacking the credibility and the reputations of some scientists who do not share their view.

Instead of attacking their science, they attack the scientist.

They claim that scientists who disagree with the so-called consensus view of climate change are part of some kind of anti-science conspiracy, funded by big oil and big coal to deliberately mislead the American public.

That sounds silly, doesn’t it?

Yet, on the Diane Rehm radio program which aired locally on WAMU-FM on July 21st, a prominent guest made some pretty remarkable assertions. Let me quote from the transcript of this radio interview:

"...it’s an unhappy fact that the oil companies and the coal companies in the United States have joined in a conspiracy to hire pseudo scientists to deny the facts... the energy companies need to be called to account because what they are doing is un-American in the most basic sense. They are compromising our future by misrepresenting the facts by suborning scientists onto their payrolls and attempting to mislead the American people."

A "conspiracy," Mr. President.

"Pseudo scientists."

"A deliberate attempt to mislead the American people."

"Un-American."

These are serious charges.

Who was the guest who was making these charges of a conspiracy designed to deliberately mislead the American people?

Was this guest calling Dr. Lindzen a pseudo scientist? Or Dr. Baliunas? Or any of the others I mentioned?

Are they part of this conspiracy?

Sadly, a member of the President’s Cabinet—the Secretary of the Interior—was responsible for these remarks.

Here is a political appointee who appears to be making judgements about the scientific integrity of others.

Those were unfortunate remarks, Mr. President. And they are the sort of remarks I hope that the Senate will avoid as we continue the debate on climate change.

Let us keep to the high road.

Let us appreciate the fact that scientists, and indeed, all Americans, are free to disagree and to challenge the views of others in honest, public debate.

There will be disagreements. Just as I challenged the scientific understanding of Senator Kerry on several issues earlier in my remarks, others will surely challenge my understanding of the science at some point in the debate.

And in the process, we will all learn. That is the way it should be.

But there will be some, Mr. President, who will attack the scientist instead of the science.

There will be some who say that you must agree with me, or you must be part of some conspiracy that is trying to mislead the American people.

That, to use Secretary Babbitt’s words, strikes me as un-American.

Let’s not fear a healthy scientific debate. Instead, let’s depend on it.

I yield the floor.