Harlan Watson Moves to House 1
E&E News reports that Harlan Watson, Bush’s Special Envoy to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change at the U.S. Department of State, will join the minority staff of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. As the lead negotiator for the United States, Watson opposed U.S. involvement in emissions reductions. Watson will become a “distinguished professional staff member” for Rep. James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, the ranking minority member of Rep. Ed Markey’s (D-MA) non-legislative committee.
In other staff moves: Sources tell Hill Heat that Andrew Wheeler, the Republican staff director for the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, is leaving Sen. James Inhofe’s (R-OK) employ.
Re Watson, as Tim Flannery noted “For decades both the tobacco and asbestos industries found scientists prepared to be doubtful about discoveries linking their products with cancer. A non-specialist cannot know whether the view being presented is fringe or mainstream thinking, and so we may come to believe that there is a real division in the scientific community on these matters. In the case of asbestos and tobacco, the situation was made worse because cancers often appear years after exposure to carcinogenic products, and no one can say for certain just who, among the many exposed, will be struck down. By creating doubt about the link between their products and cancer, the tobacco and asbestos companies enjoyed decades of fat profits, while millions of people met with terrible deaths.” Lourindal