It Begins

...or more accurately, it continues - and accelerates.

Union For Concerned Scientists:

The increasingly reckless House of Representatives, caught up in a public mutiny, may have walked back its abandonment of congressional ethics. But it simultaneously took several other steps that will enable corruption and greatly expand political influence over the work of experts at NASA, NOAA, EPA, and other science agencies, compromising their ability to serve the public interest.

This week, the House made significant changes to the rules under which it operates. First and foremost is the Holman rule, resurrected from the 1870s, just at the end of Reconstruction. This rule allows Congress, through spending bills, to target specific initiatives and reduce the salaries of individual federal employees whose work they find irksome to $1.

Does your research suggest a chemical company that happens to be located in the district of a powerful member of Congress is responsible for environmental contamination? You could be on that list.

So, Repubs are saying they'll keep science from becoming politicized by subjecting scientists to political pressures and ideological tests.

OK and away we go.