By Ainsley Kilpatrick
Following the GOP’s win in the 2014 Congressional Election, there has been a significant reshuffling of committee ranks. This has extended to the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Space, Science and Competitiveness. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has been appointed chair for this subcommittee within the 114th Congress.
As the new chair of this subcommittee, Cruz will be the direct supervisor of the National Aeronautics Space Administration (NASA). He has been outspoken in his support for space exploration recently, claiming that the United States should again be leading the venture into space. Since the suspension of NASA’s shuttle program in 2011, the U.S. relies on Russian Soyuz spacecrafts in order to reach the International Space Station. According to a press release entitled “Focus NASA on its Core Mission: Exploring Space and More of It,” Cruz believes that the current dependence on other nations is crippling U.S. space exploration and innovation.
He claims, “Russia’s status as the current gatekeeper of the International Space Station could threaten our capability to explore and learn, stunting our capacity to reach new heights and share innovations with free people everywhere. The United States should work alongside our international partners, but not be dependent on them. We should once again lead the way for the world in space exploration.”
This is all well and good, but declarations of intent are only so valid compared to the record of those who propose them. In 2013, Cruz attempted to cut funding to NASA as a part of greater government budget cuts. Further, he has publicly denounced claims that global warming is a threat to the world.
This denial of the seemingly obvious has the scientific community, and myself, concerned about how Cruz’s appointment will affect NASA’s, as well as other programs’, research into global warming, and potential solutions. Senator Cruz has deliberately turned a blind eye to the facts presented by NASA, saying in a statement to CNN, “The last 15 years, there has been no recorded warming. Contrary to all the theories that they are expounding, there should have been warming over the last 15 years. It hasn’t happened.”
Contrary to this claim, the Washington Post states that 2014 was the hottest year since temperature record keeping began in 1880. Not only this, but according to NASA and The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) the new record of 58.24 degrees Fahrenheit beat out records set in 2005 and 2010. Members of the scientific community are seeing a long-term trend; the ten hottest years on record all occurring since 1997. Dr. Gavin Schmidt of NASA says that the components that lead to climate change create a complicated fingerprint. Despite this, Schmidt claims it remains clear that greenhouse gases are a large contributor to the change scientists have been seeing.
In light of all this data, I am concerned what Cruz’s appointment will mean for further research. Apprehension is understandable, considering the clear conflict of interests between the senator and the organizations within the committee he now oversees. I fear that Cruz’s conservative position on budgeting will lead to eventual cuts to NASA’s research into climate change. The discontent over this appointment reaches beyond the scientific community and onto campuses as well. Our generation was raised with recycling assemblies in our elementary schools. We watched videos about Captain Planet and his team who were out to save our world from pollution. These environment friendly clubs and programs have followed us through our education, where we are now well aware of the impacts humanity has on the environment around us. As the youngest generation of voters, it is up to us to hold our politicians accountable for recognizing the problems, and seeking out the solutions. We are no longer in a position of being able to deny the deterioration of the environment. We can no longer claim ignorance, and those in positions of power cannot ignore the facts either. Research has to now be redirected towards finding a solution for the damage pollution has done. The need for this research has only increased as the list of side effects of global warming has grown to include the extinction of species, rising sea levels and the deterioration of environments in the arctic. While President Obama attacked the popular Republican line of “I’m not a scientist” in his State of the Union this past Tuesday, Cruz’s goals seem to run from research into global warming.
With Obama pushing for the realization that climate change is an imminent problem, it seems that the individual now in charge of assuring the research being done is stuck considering climate change to be simply a “scientific theory,” which he intends to treat as a myth. This disbelief seems to be leading towards inevitable disruption of the research process. I believe that opposites attracting may not always be the best policy when it comes to the future of the United States’ research programs.
Instead of appointing someone who has opposing views when it comes to the committee’s intended purpose, the Senate should take greater care when deciding who should be the chair. Ted Cruz may well have been a good addition to the committee, as he represents the views of a small percentage of Americans. However, as the chair of the committee, he has too much power that could enable him to hinder the advancement of important scientific findings. Ted Cruz’s judgement could prevent the public from vital information occurring within our natural world. I hope Cruz makes decisions that will truly benefit the American public.
Ainsley Kilpatrick, FCRH ’17, is a philosophy and anthropology major from East Greenwich, RI.
