Climate Change Skeptics Threatened

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WASHINGTON (ChurchMilitant.com) - A gang of U.S. attorneys general are abusing their power to quash any objections by the scientific community to the prevailing doctrine that climate change is caused by humans — and congressional Republicans are pushing back against the intimidation.

New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman and U.S. Virgin Islands attorney general Claude Walker are leading an investigation by 17 AGs into research at over 100 scientific institutions. These institutions are undermining the dominant accepted belief that humans are responsible for climate change and global warming.

The group of AG's (or the "Green 20") held a press conference March 29 explaining its plan to take action against critics of man-caused climate change. Before the conference got underway, the AGs were briefed by Matthew Pawa, head of the Global Warming Legal Action project, and Peter Frumhoff, member of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Pawa and Frumhoff have been attending and sponsoring conferences aimed at finding legal ways to go after ExxonMobil since 2012, a prime target of the climate change crowd. The Fortune 500 company gives grants to various scientists who are working to debunk the current belief in anthropocentric climate change.

Speaking to the press, Schneiderman claimed, "We stand ready to defend the next president's climate change agenda, and vow to fight any efforts to roll back the meaningful progress we've made over the past eight years."

Part of this plan is to file a subpoena for all communication and research over a 10-year span (1997–2007) of nonprofit organizations, research centers and learning institutions, even those with private donors, like natural gas giant ExxonMobil.

Schneiderman launched an investigation accompanied with a subpoena in November 2015, trying to find out if Exxon lied to its investors about the potential dangers of its research on climate change.

Claude Walker commented, "The Virgin Islands, which is especially vulnerable to environmental threats, has a particular interest in making sure that companies are honest about what they know about climate change. If ExxonMobil has tried to cloud their judgment, we are determined to hold the company accountable."

Seventeen Republican members of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee signed and issued a letter to each member of the Green 20 requesting that they release their own communications with environmental agencies since 2012.

The letters explain that this coalition of AGs are failing at their duties and taking away the First Amendment rights of these institutions they are threatening to penalize:

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.

President Kent Lassman of Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), which is under subpoena, claimed, "Somewhere along the line, dissent from orthodoxy has transformed from a uniquely American virtue to a crime."

CEI filed an objection two weeks after the subpoena was issued and then requested the D.C. Superior Court to fine Walker for violating the institution's rights. In an e-mail response, the agreement was made that the subpoena would be revoked within the following five days, but also warned that another would be issued in the future.

After rejecting the first request to reveal their own communications, the letters are now allowing members of the Green 20 until the end of this month to release the requested information.

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