Lawmakers Probe Taxpayer-Funded Academic Who Wants Obama to Prosecute Climate Change Skeptics
Taxpayer-funded college professors and researchers who cite climate change to advocate regulations that would raise energy costs for consumers have some explaining to do, congressional investigators say.
A House committee wants to know more about the relationship between taxpayer money received by the academics and their urging of President Obama to use federal racketeering law to go after businesses and other groups that oppose his aggressive agenda against climate change.
The panel’s investigators also are curious to hear a George Mason University environmentalist, leader of the publicly supported researchers, explain a growing disparity between computer models showing global warming and fresh scientific evidence suggesting Earth’s temperatures have been flat for 18 years.
Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, chairman of the Committee on Science, Space and Technology, cites “serious concerns” in a stern letter to Jagadish Shukla, a professor at George Mason University who specializes in atmospheric, oceanic, and earth studies.
Shukla’s environmental institute, Smith writes, “appears to be almost fully funded by taxpayer money while simultaneously participating in partisan political activities by requesting a [federal] investigation of companies and organizations that disagree with the Obama administration on climate change.”
In a followup letter Monday, Smith asks Shukla for financial documents …read more