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Enlarge / Texas' Eddie Bernice Johnson.

Lamar Smith, head of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, has a penchant for releasing letters in which he complains about issues related to climate change. He has targeted everyone from state attorneys general who are investigating fossil fuel companies to NOAA scientists (and their e-mails).

But Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas), the ranking Democrat on the committee, has released a letter or two herself, including one in which she sharply questioned whether Smith was appropriately overseeing scientific research. Now, Johnson and two other Democrats on the committee have turned their attention to Scott Pruitt, head of the Environmental Protection Agency. The subject? Pruitt's plan to have the EPA engage in a show debate over our understanding of climate science.

For the letter, Johnson was joined by Don Beyer (D-Va.) and Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.), fellow members of the Science Committee. The letter cites a Reuters report about Pruitt's idea of creating a "red team" with the goal of poking holes in our current scientific understanding of climate change. The letter notes that Pruitt has claimed that "there are lots of questions that have not been asked and answered" about climate change, though he hasn't clearly specified what those are.

The Democrats' letter helpfully notes that lots of questions regarding the climate have been asked and answered by the reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It and many scientific academies have examined the extensive scientific record and concluded that the evidence for a human influence on the climate is unequivocal.

"In the face of this overwhelming agreement on the basic fact of human-caused climate change by the world's scientists, your efforts seem to be divorced from reality and reason," the Representatives wrote. "This only reinforces our skepticism of your motives in engaging in a clearly unnecessary, and quite possibly unscientific, red-team-blue-team exercise to review climate science."

Still, as part of their function in governmental oversight, the representatives would like to know what the exercise would look like. So, they're asking Pruitt to specify what the procedure will be, how long it will take, and what the end product will look like, as well as how the members of the two teams will be selected. Finally, they ask that Pruitt specify what the purpose of revisiting the IPCC reports is and how the results will be used. They would like Pruitt to provide the details by mid-August.

The questions Representative Johnson and her colleagues are asking are not unreasonable. The EPA has made no official statement on whether the red-team-blue-team debate is actually being considered. Instead, Pruitt has said that planning has started in an interview with Reuters, inspired by (of all things) Op-Ed pieces in major newspapers. He even suggested that the debate might be broadcast on TV. During the interview, he did lay out a number of questions that presumably fell into his "not been asked or answered" category (three of the four had been answered; the fourth is an opinion).

While dismissing the idea of a debate as political posturing might be tempting, it could have significant consequences. Under the Clean Air Act, the EPA is committed to an Obama-era endangerment finding regarding greenhouse gases. Unless that endangerment finding is reversed, the EPA will be compelled to formulate some form of emissions regulations. A show debate may signal that Pruitt is ready to attempt the process of formally rejecting the scientific evidence behind the finding.

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Democrats slam EPA head, want to understand his climate inquiry - Ars Technica

Northam, with his wife Pam, left, son Weston, and daughter Aubrey celebrate his victory in the Democratic primary during an election party on June 13, 2017 in Crystal City, Virginia. Cliff Owen / AP

The DNC is all-in in Virginia, DNC Chairman Tom Perez said in a statement. We are training organizers, doubling our boots on the ground, and making significant investments in our digital and data operations that will help lift Democrats to victory up and down the state ballot.

In addition to doubling the number of paid field organizers in the state, the money will be used to beef up the partys operations in the state, including training, digital and tech.

Perez is also sending three of his top political aides, including Chief of Staff Sam Cornale, DNC Political and Organizing Director Amanda Brown Lierman, and DNC political adviser Ramsey Reid, who ran get-out-the-vote operations for the Virginia Democratic Coordinated Campaign in 2016.

Northam comfortably won his primary against former congressman Tom Perriello, but it left him with

A new Monmouth University poll released Monday shows the

Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) remains popular, but Virginia's constitution prohibits governors from serving more than one term.

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Democrats Go 'All-In' for Virginia Governor's Race - NBC News - NBCNews.com

Fighting corporate power is a big theme of the Democratsnew agenda, but three of the worlds most powerful companies arent feeling the heat, at least not yet. Google, Facebook, and Amazon.com escaped criticism on July 24, when Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer of New York and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California unveiled what the party is calling its Better Deal agenda.

One problem for Democrats is that these companies have been seen as friendly, as allies, as contributors to the cause,says Barry Lynn, who directs the Open Markets program of New America, a think tank whose ideas helped shape the Democratsnew platform.

Another problem for Democrats in confronting the power of the tech giants is thattraditional antitrust policy isnt well-equipped to deal with them, Lynn says.The companiesdont jack up prices to consumers, which is the usual litmus test for anti-competitive behavior.In fact, Google and Facebook Inc. offer their services free, and Amazon.com Inc. tends to push down prices in markets it enters. Instead, the giantsvictims tend to be other companiessuch as newspapers, whose advertising revenue has dried up as advertisers have migrated to Google and Facebook.

But Lynn says that, as awkward as it may be for the Democrats, a day of reckoning is inevitable. The window is closing,he said in an interview on July 24. Its becoming harder and harder to ignore the power that is controlled by Google, Facebook, and Amazon.

Some liberal Democrats have already gone after the tech giants. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who was a Harvard Law School professor before entering politics, gave a speech at New America in June 2016 in which she argued that Amazon,Google, and Apple Inc.are uniquely powerful because they control widely useddigital platforms that lots of other companies depend on for survival.

More recentlyJuly 22, to be exactRepresentativeKeith Ellison of Minnesota tweeted abouta Bloomberg Businessweekcolumn by Paula Dwyer that was headlined Should Americas Tech Giants Be Broken Up?His one-word answer: YES!

If Democrats are looking for a sure vote-getting issue to use against Republicans in 2018 and 2020, going after three or four companies that Americans have a close working relationship with might seem like a long shot. Lynn admits as much but says some private polling indicates a strong current of distrust of the companieseven stronger than distrust of banks.His explanation? People can like an interface, their personal relationship, while at the same time thinking that the corporation has too much power.

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That said, Lynn doesnt see this as primarily a consumer issue, at least at first. Its not a wide uprising. What we do see is a number of other businesses with a lot of influence are starting to say that something has to be done about these three companies.Adds Lynn: Once people get their heads around the idea that action by the government wont wreck the economy, wont wreck these companies, but will make them serve the interest of the average entrepreneur, customer, civilian, we shouldnt have much of a problem.

I also spoke with Marshall Steinbaum, a fellow and research director of the Roosevelt Institute in New York. We have the strongest antitrust laws in the world, but we have the weakest enforcement of any leading economy,he said. I definitely think this is a step in the right direction.If they live up to those words, it will represent a major change in policy.

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Democrats' 'Better Deal' Is Silent on Google, Facebook, and Amazon - Bloomberg

Helping out the GOP.

Democrats relish the Republicans' inability to pass even a pathetic alternative to Obamacare.

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For seven and a half years, Republicans have campaigned and voted to replace the Affordable Health Care Act. When given a real chance at success, with governing control, they were impeded by a president who's ignorant on the issue. Then, after Republican senators slipped behind closed doors to come up with their own plans, they provided products that voters, even some Trump supporters, overwhelmingly spotted as frauds.

As justified as the Democrats' ridicule is of this, it's also creating a trap for them: They overreach if they think they can now push for a single-payer, government-run system. Such a course threatens to be a problem in the 2018 midterm election cycle and certainly would be in 2020.

Turning to a single-payer system, instead of trying to improve the Affordable Care Act, maybe with a public option, is a loser on the politics and policy -- "a fool's errand," says Ezekiel Emanuel, a leading Democratic health-care expert who helped craft Obamacare.

The pressure on Democrats is building, as conversations with several members of Congress suggest. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, leaders of the influential left wing, are pushing a single-payer system. In the House, 115 members have sponsored this initiative, and more state and county Democratic Party committees are embracing it.

On single payer, says U.S. Representative Rick Nolan of Minnesota, rank-and-file Democrats "are energized in a way I have not witnessed in a long, long time." He's a veteran liberal who wins in the populist Iron Range district of Minnesota that Donald Trump also carried.

But this won't play out well for Democrats. If the U.S. were starting anew on health care, perhaps it would have been better to enact something like the systems in Canada or Australia, praised by Trump. But to try a radical overhaul, throwing out the entire system with a new one funded by federal taxes, would be a humongous jolt.

Changing one-sixth of the American economy would be traumatic for the system and the public. Look at the fallout from the far milder Obamacare changes or the agony the Republicans are currently enduring.

A public option for those people in the federal exchanges would be resisted by the insurance industry and most all Republicans. But it's far less radical, and potentially more feasible, than a single-payer system that nationalizes coverage for everyone.

To their dismay, Republicans now own health care, whether they try to repeal and/or replace the Affordable Care Act or let the issue wither away. Obamacare today is far more popular with voters than any alternative Congress has suggested.

But Republicans could lighten the load of their albatross if Democrats also propose to repeal Obamacare and instead spend trillions of federal tax dollars on a government-run system. That debate might energize a depressed Republican electorate and turn off a lot of swing voters.

It's worth reprising the wisdom of one of America's great pollsters, the late Bob Teeter, a Republican, who two decades ago foresaw that the political party that owns health care will suffer.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

To contact the author of this story: Albert R. Hunt at ahunt1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Katy Roberts at kroberts29@bloomberg.net

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Democrats and the Single-Payer Trap - Bloomberg

I agree with Scot Lehighs assessment that the Democrats have essentially lost their way (Two political parties, two difficult dilemmas, Opinion, July 14). The Democrats were once a big tent party that appealed to all segments of society based on a set of basic ideas, best articulated by Franklin D. Roosevelt in his second bill of rights.

These included the right to a useful and remunerative job ... ; the right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation; ... the right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home and abroad; the right of every family to a decent home; the right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health; the right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment; the right to a good education.

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Roosevelt said, We are trying to construct a more inclusive society. We are going to make a country in which no one is left out. I would argue that the Democrats need again to embrace these rights as their basic goals, which would get them and the country back on the right track.

Len Solo

Marlborough

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Democrats need to channel FDR - The Boston Globe