First comes the plan, then comes the sales pitch.

Following the release of President Obama’s FY2012 budget request earlier this week, John Holdren, Assistant to the President’s for science and technology, took center stage yesterday to defend strategic increases for science funding.

In his first appearance before the now Republican-led House Committee on Science, Space and Technology on 17 February, Holdren (pictured, left) tried to smooth the path towards increased science funding in the face of a Republican House majority that wants to cut, cut, cut. Republicans offered a revealing look at how they will try to discredit Obama’s approach while members from both parties sought assurance that science funding will translate to economic benefits – a central theme of the president’s budget and recent state of the union address.

The most pointed questions were aimed at the administration’s proposed funding for climate change research. Chairman Ralph Hall (R-TX) threw the first punch in the political stage fight when he took issue with an interview in which Holdren said that there’s a need to “educate” Republicans about climate change. Hall (pictured, right) also questioned whether the projected effects of climate change were based on “bad science,” given that dire sea level rise predictions from 2006 had been scaled back the very next year.

“Given the disparity of these projections, why should the American taxpayer have confidence in the administration’s assurance of the global calamities to come or trust your climate change education campaign?” Hall asked.

Holdren responded that evidence for climate change is “very robust indeed” and that every major national academy of sciences agrees that harm will grow unless we stabilize and reduce our emissions.

“This is the overwhelming view of scientists who study this matter around the world,” said Holdren. “There are always skeptics… but public policy, in my judgment, should be based on the mainstream view because to base it otherwise is to risk the well-being of the public against very long odds.”

Climate change theatrics aside, the majority of members’ questions related to the economic returns of government funded research. Donna Edwards (D-MD), among others, asked if companies would be encouraged to manufacture federally-funded innovative products in the U.S., rather than ship jobs overseas in favor of cheaper labor.

Holdren responded that a new subcommittee on advanced manufacturing in the National Science and Technology Council would address the issue. New efforts are also underway to link innovation to the private sector, including small businesses, he said. He referred to an experimental manufacturing lab at the University of Michigan that businesses can use to design nanotechnology products.

“It’s a wonderful example of how we can do better at translating the capabilities of our universities and national laboratories into tighter interactions with the private sector and particularly the smaller business that wouldn’t be able to muster the capital to develop these kinds of innovations on their own,” said Holdren.

Among other committee members’ concerns during the hearing were cuts to NASA’s funding, cuts to certain science education programs, and funding for experimental physics facilities such as the tevatron particle accelerator at Fermilab and DUSEL, an underground laboratory.

But more than once, the questioning circled back to climate change. At one point, representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) submitted a list of 100 “prominent scientists” who he said had “serious disagreement” about man-made climate change. Later on in the hearing, Holdren said it was unlikely that most of those scientists studied climate change, and that well over 95% of climate change scientists believe humans are changing the climate.

Hall ended the hearing by scolding Holdren: “Don’t pooh-pooh what you call the minority of people that don’t believe what [a group ] trying to be sold as the majority [believes].” Hall then expressed his desire to have the scientists named on Rohrabacher’s list before the committee for “us to have a shot at them, and then decide.”

The House Committee will hear testimony from individual science agencies over the next few weeks as the process of negotiating a comprehensive budget for2012 gets underway.