"About 600 scientists and engineers, including former employees of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), have signed on to letters urging the head of that agency, Kathryn Sullivan, to push back against political interference in science.

For months, Sullivan has been tangling with U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, a Republican from Texas and chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, as he investigates a climate change study done by NOAA scientists.

That study, published earlier this year in the journal Science, cast doubt on the what some have called a global warming hiatus — the idea that global warming has slowed in the last two decades."

Nell Greenfieldboyce reports for NPR's Morning Edition December 7, 2015. [2]