The three lawmakers vying to chair the House Science, Space and Technology Committee next year all opposed federal action on climate change.

Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), for one, delivered the keynote address at a conference in May of the Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based think tank that promotes climate skepticism. He also served as ranking member of the now-defunct Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming in the last Congress and has chaired the Science and the Judiciary committees.

In an email, Sensenbrenner said he wanted to chair the Science panel again in part to exercise oversight of the Obama administration on issues such as climate change.

"The Obama administration has shown its willingness to manipulate science for political ends and threaten our domestic energy production and our economy in the process," he said. "I have a record of effective oversight, and I will continue to keep the administration accountable for their use of science in crafting regulations and policies."

Sensenbrenner will face off against Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) and Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas). The current Science chairman, Texas Republican Ralph Hall, will step down next month because of GOP term limits.

In a statement earlier this year, Rohrabacher said that one of his top priorities as chairman would be to "make the committee a forum for respectful debate and discussion of science and science policy."

Smith appears to have the edge in the race at this point, said former Rep. Bob Walker (R-Pa.), who preceded Sensenbrenner as Science chairman before his retirement from the House in 1997. This might mean that climate change will be a slightly less prominent issue for the committee next year than if Sensenbrenner headed it, he said.

"I know Jim has been a long time questioning some of the data points that are being used on all that," Walker said of climate science. "And I really don't know where Lamar is. And from everything I hear, it sounds as if Lamar has the inside track with the committee on committees to get the chairmanship."

In a statement, Smith said he wanted to serve as chairman in part because he studied astronomy and physics in college.

"Through the work, research and development of American innovators, we can reach our goal of energy independence, develop new technologies to save lives, and discover new worlds in outer space," he said.

Walker, who is now a partner with the policy firm Wexler & Walker Public Policy Associates, said the Science panel had always supported federal research efforts on climate change. The problem, he said, was that government scientists appeared to have developed a taste for environmental advocacy in recent years that threw doubt on their scientific impartiality.

"I think that there is some concern on the behalf of the committee that some of the people have ceased being scientists and have begun being advocates," he said in an interview Tuesday.

"I'm a huge proponent of trying to find out what we can about climate change," he added. "I am less of a proponent of making grandiose economic decisions that have more political science connected with them than climate science."

Myron Ebell of the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute said that both Sensenbrenner and Rohrabacher, the fourth most senior member of the panel who has also expressed interest in the position, are outspoken critics of climate science. Smith's views are less well-known on the issue, he said, though he has voted with his party on bills that would have rolled back U.S. EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

Rohrabacher and Sensenbrenner have both "shown a lot of interest in the shenanigans that have gone on at [the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] and at NASA," Ebell said.

Of particular interest, Ebell said, has been the work of NASA climatologist James Hansen, who has freelanced as a climate change advocate outside of his research duties.

Ebell said that Hansen may have improperly accepted payment to speak on subject matter he is researching for NASA and recommended that whoever chairs the science panel next year look at this and other instances of "institutional malfeasance at federal agencies."

Former Science Chairman Sherwood Boehlert (R-N.Y.), who retired from the House in 2007, declined to be interviewed at length for this story.

"You would come up empty in a conversation with me," said Boehlert, a moderate who advocates for climate action, in an email.

"Despite all the evidence, the majority on the committee remains in either a denial or 'not now' stance with respect to the need for action on climate change legislation," he said. "Forget about the National Academy [of Sciences'] repeated warnings and weather events like [Superstorm] Sandy. The loudest voices still belong to the deniers."