Despite efforts by members and the chairman of the Senate Education Committee to convince their House counterparts to go along with approving new state science standards without deleting five sections referring to climate change, the senators reported today that the House wouldn’t sign on.

“Those rejections by the House are standing,” Senate Education Chairman Dean Mortimer, R-Idaho Falls, told the Senate panel this afternoon. “And so with that in mind, I think that it’s important that we maintain the 370 out of the 375 standards.” So Mortimer moved to match the House panel’s action – approve the new standards with the exception of the five on climate change.

“This is a real dilemma,” said Sen. Janie Ward-Engelking, D-Boise, “because I realize if I do not support the good chairman’s motion, it could mean we reject standards and go back to two-decade-old standards. But I cannot in good conscience reject sections that deal with biodiversity, human impact and climate change, so this senator will be voting no.”

Mortimer’s motion, seconded by Sen. Lori Den Hartog, R-Meridian, passed on a party-line vote, with Ward-Engelking and Sen. Cherie Buckner-Webb, D-Boise, dissenting.

The standards set minimum benchmarks for what students should learn in school each year; they don't prevent schools from teaching additional topics beyond those.

Thayn said after visiting with House members and House GOP leaders, “I believe it’s the intention of the Legislature not to reject the topics, that we think climate change needs to be studied, that CO2 levels need to be studied. What we’re basically sending to the committee is that those standards need to be rewritten. There’s a couple of words in them like ‘overpopulation’ and ‘overutilization’ that tend to be conclusions, rather than leading to scientific inquiry, open inquiry. So we’re hoping to give some suggestions to the committee to come back so that we can have the standards adopted next year.”

He added, “I don’t think there’s anyone in the Legislature that does not want to have the discussion … at least the majority of us do.”

Sen. Chuck Winder, R-Boise, said he feels the same way as Ward-Engelking, but would support the motion. “I did go over and talk with House members and talk with leadership about this,” he said. “They’re not rejecting the idea of climate change … but they want a balanced approach to it.”

“We do need concurrence from both houses on it in order for this to pass and be in effect,” Winder said. “I don’t want to run the risk of losing the whole thing.”

At a hearing on the standards before the Senate committee on Thursday, nearly two dozen people spoke, ranging from young students to university professors, parents to scientists. All but one spoke out strongly in favor of adopting the proposed new school science standards in full – not deleting the five portions that refer to climate change as the House Education Committee did.

Because the standards are contained in a temporary rule, they’ll still come back in revised form next year for lawmakers to review once again. At that point, it would take both houses to reject the rule, in whole or in part, or it would stand.

After today’s meeting, Mortimer said, “Many of us visited with them.” He said, “Let’s take the thoughts that have been expressed and re-do the temporary standards and look at them again next year.”