Jim Baird: “I appreciate the sense of what the gentleman is raising with his second order amendment. Having taught science myself, I…”

“I appreciate the sense of what the gentleman is raising with his second order amendment. Having taught science myself, I believe it is absolutely important to share different sides of it. My concern is I think you are sort of micromanaging the education process, however, positive your intent may be. And the gentleman himself just acknowledged that students from K-12 need to have balanced information. I question whether we really want to mandate that a kindergarten teacher educate her or his students on the impact of greenhouse gases on U.S. energy security, global developing nations, et cetera. I think it is a fair point and absolutely an important point that we present different sides of this issue, and I applaud the gentleman for raising that. I would, however, note that the International Panel on Climate Change, which we have had two hearings of in this committee, has clearly unanimously agreed on some general principles: That the climate temperature is increasing; that humans are significantly responsible for at least a substantial portion of that increase; and, that it will have very important consequences for the well-being of the world. So one of the problems I have is the gentleman's amendment would seem to suggest that there is an equal weight of evidence against that perspective as there is in favor of it.”