House Science Panel Turns Up Heat on State AGs Over Ties to Climate Change Activists
House Republicans are pressing efforts to safeguard the First Amendment rights of scientific skeptics who dissent from what they consider the Obama administration’s alarmist position on climate change, according to letters to 17 state attorneys general.
The series of letters, sent Friday and signed by 19 of the 22 Republican members of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, renew an earlier request to the state attorneys general for information detailing their communications with environmental organizations.
They also ask for communications between employees for the state attorneys general and the Justice Department, the Environmental Protection Agency, or the White House.
“The committee intends to continue its vigorous oversight of the coordinated attempt to deprive companies, nonprofit organizations, and scientists of their First Amendment rights and ability to fund and conduct scientific research free from intimidation and threats of prosecution,” the letters say.
The top state law enforcement officials on the receiving end are given until the close of business June 24 to provide the House committee with “all documents and communications” between their offices and environmental activist groups pertaining to their potential prosecution of nonprofit groups, companies, and individual scientists for not toeing the official line on global warming.
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