Skeptic Project

A House Energy and Commerce Committee panel met yesterday to approve a ridiculous measure: members were asked, as Brad Johnson explained, to "overturn the scientific finding that fossil fuel pollution is causing dangerous climate change."

But before the vote was held, Rep. Ed Markey (D) of Massachusetts explained why his colleagues were making a mistake.

"I rise in opposition to a bill that overturns the scientific finding that pollution is harming our people and our planet," the Democrat said. "However, I won't rise physically, because I'm worried that Republicans will overturn the law of gravity, sending us floating about the room.

"I won't call for the sunlight of additional hearings, for fear that Republicans might excommunicate the finding that the Earth revolves around the sun. Instead, we will embody Newton's third law of motion and be an equal and opposing force against this attack on science and on laws that will reduce America's importation of foreign oil.

"This bill will live in the House while simultaneously being dead in the Senate. It will be a legislative Schrodinger's cat killed by the quantum mechanics of the legislative process. Arbitrary rejection of scientific fact will not cause us to rise from our seats today. But with this bill, pollution levels will rise. Oil imports will rise. Temperatures will rise.

"And with that, I yield back the balance of my time. That is, unless a rejection of Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity is somewhere in the chair's amendment pile."

Soon after, the subcommittee's Republicans approved the measure. Markey probably talked over their heads.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2011_03/028399.php