"The scientific cat fight of our time"

The Cato Institute's Patrick Michaels, writing at The Hill, predicts the thwacking of the hornet's nest that is going to take place when the EPA under Pruitt reverses the present regime's "finding of endangerment" for CO2:

It may very well be held that the EPA remains responsible for regulation under the Supreme Court’s 2007 decision unless there is a specific act of Congress reversing its progeny policies, such as the Clean Power Plan. So the Endangerment Finding must be reversed.

But how to do it? For years, federal agencies have thrown massive support at scientists who, as human beings, serve their best interests (and their employer-universities) by generating horror-show results that also generate more support and professional advancement.

The Trump administration is going to have to stock up on scientists and administrators who are savvy to this game, and they are going to be very hard to find, as there’s very little incentive to not play along.

There’s going to have to be a massive effort to pick apart failing climate models and questionably-adjusted data. They’re going to have to find people willing to expose the current regime’s blatant abuse of logic in generating inflated “costs” of global warming, while largely ignoring the co-benefits of fossil fuel power, like doubled life expectancy and undreamt-of wealth.

The academy is going to howl, and Washington’s science lobbies, like the American Association for the Advancement of Science (headed by Democratic ex-congressman Rush Holt) are going to go berserk.
Fasten your seat belts, for we may be about to witness the scientific-cat fight of our time.

On one side will be a massive and entrenched establishment, defending models that we now know were (and this is truly shocking) often adjusted to give a predetermined result. On the other will be a dogged and far smaller clan, tearing apart the code of these models, much like the ENIGMA busters of Bletchley Park. This will get ugly.

But truth will prevail now.