Mr. Speaker, I rise today to discuss the growing antiscience attitude in Washington. This attitude has manifested itself even on the cover of the respected National Geographic magazine, titled ``The War on Science.'' The war on science is being conducted in two ways. First, by rejecting or trying to discredit legitimate science. Second, by reducing Federal science funding.

Skepticism of science is hardly new and is sometimes well founded, but what is happening today is different and is part of a trend in the United States to discount or disbelieve experts in any field. I hear from scientists who are very worried that the quality and quantity of science produced in this country will decline as a result.

American inventors and innovators have improved our lives and have given our country an economic edge, helping make us the strongest country in the world. Let me share a partial list of revolutionary achievements by American scientists: airplanes, phonographs, practical incandescent lamps, wireless communications, microwave ovens, lasers, personal computers, washing machines, cyclotrons, 3D printing machines, polio vaccinations, the nuclear bomb, light-emitting diodes or LEDs, fiber optic cables, mobile telephones, computer mouse, public key cryptography, global positioning systems or GPS, and social media.

Now let's recall an earlier battle against science that used the discredit tactic; namely, the tobacco companies' effort to dispute the science that smoking is addictive and causes deadly diseases. The tobacco industry tried to both discredit and threaten the scientists who were advancing the facts, and funded questionable scientists to create doubts about the actual scientific results. The tactic worked for a time while tobacco producers were able to continually hook millions of new people on their dangerous product. Eventually the science won out, but the cost was terrible.

Today a similar effort is underway with respect to climate change. The science is clear, with a vast majority of climate scientists agreeing that the climate is warming and that continuing to emit carbon into the atmosphere at current levels will bring significant and mostly detrimental change to our environment. Moreover, even though the evidence that climate change is already taking place and is overwhelming and increasingly obvious, there is widespread denial that climate change is even happening or that it would be possible to help combat it. But the things that need to be done to address climate change, such as taxing carbon emissions, can be done gradually, predictably, and in a way that helps the economy grow and puts people to work.

So why is there so much resistance?

The resistance in America is caused by a well-funded campaign to create doubt about obvious scientific facts. The fossil fuel industry, in particular, has been paying its own scientists to go on talk shows, to publish in their own denial journals, and generally to create doubt whenever possible about climate change, suggesting that it would be better to wait for conclusive evidence before doing anything. But to wait for conclusive evidence is to wait for catastrophe.

While Republicans in Washington are trying to reduce or eliminate funding for climate change research, there also seems to be an effort by Republicans to reduce science funding across the board. This will result in fewer scientific advances in the U.S., which will likely cause us to fall behind our competitors. But this is part of a larger trend that denies there are real experts. Science denial has become a pop culture. This is dangerous because modern society is built upon the things that science got right.

I see the war on science in this country as shortsighted and very damaging to our economy. We need to change the tone and direction toward a positive process that acknowledges and supports the role science has played and will continue to play for our country. That means working with legislators and getting more scientists and other concerned citizens involved in the political process to ensure that our Nation can continue to benefit from new scientific discoveries and innovation and which will help create the jobs we need to continue to be a great economic power.

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