The chairman of the Science committee in the US House of Representatives told a cheering crowd of Climate change doubters and skeptics that his committees’ job is to school boffins until they understand that science is whatever politicians say it is.

Lamar Smith basically admitted that his committee is now a tool to advance his own political agenda rather than a forum to examine important issues facing the US research community.

“Next week we’re going to have a hearing on our favourite subject of climate change and also on the scientific method, which has been repeatedly ignored by the so-called self-professed climate scientists,” Smith told the Heartland Institute’s 12th annual conference on climate change in Washington, D.C.

The audience cheered loudly as Smith named the boffins who he was summoning to reinforce his view that climate change is a politically driven fabrication which is designed to stop America being great again.

He is also calling out Michael Mann, a climate researcher at Pennsylvania State University in State College and a frequent target of climate change doubters. “That’s why this hearing is going to be so much fun,” Smith said with a huge grin on his normally impassive face.

Since President Donald (Prince of Orange) Trump was elected, Smith is a lot more public about dismissing those who disagree with his flat earth view of the world. One of his efforts involves changing the vocabulary of the debate so that instead of talking about climate science, people about “climate studies”.

He also wants the word progressive to be replaced by the much tainted word “liberal”. Liberal should also be used to replace the word ‘mainstream’ when used with media.

Smith also signalled that he wants an end to federally funded research that doesn’t fit his definition of “sound science”. He expressed support for writing legislation that would punish scientific journals that publish research that does not fit standards of peer review designed by Smith and his committee.