Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) said yesterday he intends to block Democrats from passing a mandatory federal cap on heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions. “I will be an active part of any leadership effort to prevent it passing in the House,” the outgoing chairman of the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee told reporters after speaking at an event hosted by the American Petroleum Institute and the Energy Department.

Barton says his action is justified because global warming science is “pretty weak stuff.” Barton added, “But for us to try to step in and say we have got to do all these global things to prevent the Earth from getting any warmer in my opinion is absolute nonsense. It’s not going to happen.”

Barton is the same Congressman who attacked IPCC scientist Michael Mann when he ordered Mann and two colleagues to turn over all their raw data to his own staff — even after the Wall Street Journal exonerated Mann for its allegations of faulty science. He was also cited in the infamous Vampire Memo" as an ally of the coal industry in fighting action against global warming. Barton was also listed in last summer's "Vampire Memo" by the coal industry which detailed plans for a new campaign of disinformation to counter Al Gore's film and raise hundreds of thousands of coal dollars to amplify the voices of the industry-funded skeptics.