Science Agency Eyes Climate Change Professor’s Use of Millions From Taxpayers

 
 

A federal science agency is “seriously” interested in reviewing tens of millions in taxpayer-funded grants awarded to a university professor who wants President Obama to prosecute those who don’t share the administration’s view that mankind is changing the world’s climate.

The National Science Foundation’s inspector general appears poised to look into Jagadish Shukla’s management of federal grant money, much of it from the science agency itself.

The science agency has its own rules and guidelines governing grants, which would be applicable to the millions Shukla, 71, received from the agency.

“The longstanding cozy relationship between [government] grantmakers and grantees makes them blind to even the most obvious conflict of interest,” Bonner Cohen, a scholar with a free-market think tank in Washington, told The Daily Signal.

Shukla, a professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., led the charge by 20 college professors to urge a federal investigation aimed at scientific skeptics who differ with their views on climate change.

At the same time, Shukla, his wife, and his research center were awash in taxpayers’ money, according to an internal audit by the university on which The Daily Signal previously reported.

A House panel looking into Shukla’s activities sent related information to Allison Lerner, …read more