Corroboration of data and an unwelcome witness

Two days ago, I saw this entry by Marc Morano at Climate Depot (since updated) regarding Viscount Monkton of Brenchley being denied the opportunity to speak at the at the House Energy and Commerce hearing on Friday. Reader Spork sent me a private email pointing to this website. As I explained to him, I was not familiar with Climate Depot and could not find corroborating entries on other climate websites (or on the Energy and Commerce hearing website) so I held off on posting. Boy Howdy! Turns out it was true - from Viscount Monkton in a communication with Anthony Watts:

Once again I�m most grateful to Anthony Watts and his hard-working team for their kindness in exposing the less than democratic tactics of the Obama Democrats. The story circulated by the indefatigable Marc Morano is - as one would expect - accurate in every particular.

Early this week the Democrats told the Republicans they would have a �celebrity witness� for this morning�s hearing on the Waxman/Markey Bill, but they would not say who. The Republicans immediately contacted me and asked if they could tell the Dems they too were putting forward an undisclosed celebrity witness - me.

When the Dems eventually revealed that their �celebrity� was Al Gore, the Republicans told them I was to testify at the same time. The Dems immediately refused to allow the Republicans their first choice of witness. By the time they had refused, my jet was already in the air from London and I did not get the message till I landed in the US.

At first the Dems tried to refuse the Republicans the chance to replace me with a witness more congenial to them, but eventually - after quite a shouting-match - they agreed to let Newt Gingrich testify. The former Speaker of the House gave one of his best performances.

I attended the session anyway, as a member of the public, and tried to shake hands with Gore when he arrived, but his cloud of staffers surrounded him and he visibly flinched when I called out a friendly �Hello� to him.

His testimony was as inaccurate as ever. He repeated many of the errors identified by the High Court in the UK. He appeared ill at ease and very tired - perhaps reflecting on the Rasmussen poll that shows a massive 13.5% swing against the bedwetters� point of view in just one year.

My draft testimony will be posted at http://www.scienceandpublicpolicy.org shortly, together with a brief refutation of Gore�s latest errors.

From Marc Morano:

UK's Lord Christopher Monckton, a former science advisor to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, claimed House Democrats have refused to allow him to appear alongside former Vice President Al Gore at a high profile global warming hearing on Friday April 24, 2009 at 10am in Washington. Monckton told Climate Depot that the Democrats rescinded his scheduled joint appearance at the House Energy and Commerce hearing on Friday. Monckton said he was informed that he would not be allowed to testify alongside Gore when his plane landed from England Thursday afternoon.

�The House Democrats don't want Gore humiliated, so they slammed the door of the Capitol in my face,� Monckton told Climate Depot in an exclusive interview. �They are cowards.�

According to Monckton, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), Ranking Member on the Energy & Commerce Committee, had invited him to go head to head with Gore and testify at the hearing on Capitol Hill Friday. But Monckton now says that when his airplane from London landed in the U.S. on Thursday, he was informed that the former Vice-President had �chickened out� and there would be no joint appearance. Gore is scheduled to testify on Friday to the Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment's fourth day of hearings on the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. The hearing will be held in 2123 Rayburn House Office Building.

According to Monckton, House Democrats told the Republican committee staff earlier this week that they would be putting forward an unnamed 'celebrity' as their star witness Friday at a multi-panel climate hearing examining the House global warming bill. The "celebrity" witness turned out to be Gore. Monckton said the GOP replied they would respond to the Democrats' "celebrity" with an unnamed "celebrity" of their own. But Monckton claims that when the Democrats were told who the GOP witness would be, they refused to allow him to testify alongside Gore.

Here are the testimonies of Al Gore and Newt Gingrich