Reprinted with permission from the authors.
Yes, Virginia, you do have to produce those ‘Global Warming’ documents
Today, Virginia taxpayers, a state lawmaker and a public interest law firm are asking the University of Virginia to produce important “global warming” records under that state’s Freedom of Information Act. These are records the school no longer denies possessing but nonetheless refuses to release, even to Commonwealth Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. They address one of the most high-profile claims used to advance massive economic-intervention policies in the name of “global warming.”
In response to a previous FOIA request, U.Va. denied these records existed. However, during Cuccinelli’s pre-investigation under the Virginia Fraud Against Taxpayers Act (“FATA”), a 2007 law passed unanimously by Virginia’s legislature, which clearly covers the work of taxpayer-funded academics, U.Va. stunningly dropped this stance. For this reversal, the taxpayers of Virginia owe Cuccinelli a debt of gratitude.
Still, the school has spent upward of half a million dollars to date fighting Cuccinelli’s pursuit, now before the Virginia Supreme Court. However, Virginia’s transparency statute FOIA gives the school one week to produce the documents, and offers no exemption for claims U.Va. is using to block Cuccinelli’s inquiry.
These e-mails and other documents relate to claims made by Michael Mann to obtain, and claim payment under, certain taxpayer-funded grants. Mann worked at the university’s department of environmental sciences when he produced what was hailed at the time as the “smoking gun” affirming the theory of catastrophic man-made global warming.
Despite that lofty honorific, persistent controversy led promoters of this notorious “Hockey Stick” graph (principally, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change or IPCC) to stop advancing it as serious work.
Leaked “ClimateGate” e-mails discussing these same controversies prompted Cuccinelli’s pre-investigation. Sadly, in order to keep the taxpayers’ advocate from examining the evidence, U.Va. has offered a series of twists on a novel defense of “academic freedom.”
Now we with the American Tradition Institute’s environmental law center have requested these documents under FOIA and will presumably put an end to these tactics of denial followed by delay.
Importantly, also under FOIA in late 2009, the pressure group Greenpeace sought, and was promised, e-mails and other materials of Patrick Michaels, who also formerly worked in the same university department.
While the university proceeded to compile the material for Greenpeace, one of us, Virginia Del. Bob Marshall, R-Prince William, thought to ask for records relating to Michaels’ former colleague, Mann. Oddly, the university informed Marshall that such records no longer existed because Mann had left the department.
Michaels has stated that the university, in explaining to him these disparate responses, asserted that some people’s records are treated differently than others. Mann’s were allegedly destroyed; Michaels’ were being packaged for delivery to Greenpeace.
One disparity possibly helping to explain the other was that Mann had been an active participant in the IPCC, obtaining many research grants for his work at U.Va. But Michaels had been a very politically incorrect, high-profile “skeptic” of catastrophist claims such as those represented by the IPCC, and particularly Mann’s Hockey Stick.
In court in August, U.Va. opted against robustly defending, as a legal argument, its academic-freedom rationale for refusing to produce the records. Yet even this week, it is asking the Virginia Supreme Court to deny Cuccinelli’s request for documents possibly showing whether the dense Hockey Stick smoke indeed indicates fire. This does Virginia taxpayers a disservice.
Other records obtained under FOIA reveal that U.Va. has been paying Washington lawyers several thousand dollars per day to deny the requested transparency. As such, in a separate request, we also seek information about this privately underwritten effort to avoid complying with Cuccinelli’s inquiry.
The university has previously demanded taxpayers pay thousands of dollars for a FOIA search for Mann’s records, on the grounds that it maintains a broadly dispersed record-keeping system. Therefore, we have specifically directed the school to only search the backup server it claimed to the attorney general’s office that it finally located as the likely home of the Mann records. As such, demands for huge search fees should not be an obstacle.
We hope for prompt university compliance with FOIA, although we are prepared to fully protect our appellate rights. As Virginia taxpayers, we also hope to see U.Va. rise to its reputation and reflect the highest fidelity toward its statutory and other obligations.
We can then, finally, determine what it is that so many have gone to such great lengths to keep the public from knowing about that for which the public has paid.
Christopher C. Horner is senior director of litigation for the American Tradition Institute’s law center and a Virginia resident; David W. Schnare, Ph.D is a Virginia resident and a federal attorney, Del. Bob Marshall is a Virginia Republican delegate representing Prince William County.
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/2011/01/yes-virginia-you-do-have-produce-those-global-warming-documents#ixzz1AEpTl1dZ
http://www.atinstitute.org/blog_post/show/58
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What the VA AG is doing is a C-I-V-A-L investigation which could result in civil penalties such as returning grant monies. The FOIA penalties are civil as well and are mostly trivial – a few hundred dollar civil penalty for first timers, up to a few thousand for each one after that.
If the VA AG was interested in criminal action, he’d just convene a Grand Jury. Actually, therein lies Mann’s main potential problem. Lying to get grants is one thing, lying under oath is another. Ask Scooter Libby.
Regarding “political motivations”. Do you think laws are immaculately conceived? Go reread the “We the People” intro to our justice system. Maybe even the Declaration that Obama seems to not get right most of the time and, if really serious, the Federalist papers are good. And as if the global warming fraud and con folks aren’t. Gee.
CodeTech says:
January 6, 2011 at 8:02 am
I keep hearing variations of this “I don’t like Cuccinelli’s actions because they’re political”. Quite frankly, it annoys the hell out of me.
Me too. Contrary to the way this charge is often so stupidly presented, why can’t a “political” act also be the the right thing to do and also judged by this merit? If Cuccinelli’s act is the right thing to do, it makes the charge that Cuccinelli’s actions are “political” sound political itself and almost against doing the right thing – which I know people around here are not against, although some are probably still having a hard time understanding how and why the machinations of the CO2AGW “scientific” process have gotten us to this otherwise absurd point.
Politics is also a proxy for War, which is effectively what we’re in as a result of the ipcc Climate Science Propaganda Op., enc., trying to control and parasitize us. So if we don’t wage war by proxy ourselves, potentially using all legal means available, then we’re either going to be enslaved without a fight or else in a real War again against the all-too-familiar Totalitarian dead-enders. To me it’s really just that simple.
My, how the worm has turned. Grist Magazine’s staff writer David Roberts referred to Skeptics as the “climate denial industry”, and in the issue of on September 19, 2006 wrote : “When we’ve finally gotten serious about global warming, when the impacts are really hitting us and we’re in a full worldwide scramble to minimize the damage, we should have war crimes trials for these bastards — some sort of climate Nuremberg.”
Possible jail time for the would- be jailers? We can bask in that irony.
Here’s an irony; with the private money springing to the Piltdown Mann’s defense, he never needed government money at all to do his manufactured research and deceitful science. This half a million bucks provided privately to the University of Virginia, and dirty money it is, pales in comparison to the $300,000,000 that Gore bragged he had available for his advertising campaign. Even Andy Revkin blanched at Gore’s excuse for hiding the donors’ identities by claiming the money came from ‘anonymous and internet donors’.
Yeah, who wants to hide the fact that they are defending the earth? Out with these private backers of the University’s intransigence. And out with Gore’s craven backers, too, while we’re at it.
Where’s the punishment for lying about their possession of the critical emails?
==================
ALL of the data and code in question available and easily obtained:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/
You don’t need FOIA to get it, but there isn’t a single person commenting here who seems to know or care that it is available as that doesn’t fit with the delusional storyline here.
This happened in May last year, has anyone got an update?
The “academic freedom” defense is starting to sound a lot like the “executive privilege” and “national security” defenses Nixon used during Watergate. Wrongdoers shouldn’t be allowed to hid behind it.
The UVA law school is one of the best in the nation. I wonder what the wise ones in it think about what the UVA administration is doing to evade the FOIA requests in some instances while bending over backward to expedite them in others…
One of the saddest parts of the whole process is the unknown number of students who have lost out on an opportunity to attend what has always been considered a highly respected, top-25 academic institution because $500,000 and counting have been piddled away on legal fees instead of scholarships. As a native Virginian myself, I am sure that Thomas Jefferson would be dismayed at the state of the university he founded.
Well, let me deduce what Dr. Terence Kealey would have to say about any of us who would be disturbed by the UVa and Mann’s lack of openness wrt to the State of Virginia inquiries. [ NOTE: remember the December 29, 2010 WUWT post by John A entitled “Terence Kealey: What Does Climategate Say About Science?”]
I think Dr. Kealey would say we are all naive. That’s the problem, that people critical of the UVa and Mann are naive.
I am sure the UVa and Mann appreciate that timely clever defensive strategy from Dr. Kealey.
John
so what if he is politically motivated ? If you are telling the truth and your science is clean you have nothing to worry about …
More theft, not releasing the information is this, to use tax payers money to stop them having access.
So much for transparency of science. What do these people have to hide? What are they so afraid of? It can only be the truth!
Folks,
Wake up.
The University of Virginia will deflect this and any other FOI
requests concerning Mike Mann’s work while at their insitution by
simply claiming:
Their appeal to the Virginia Supreme Court may actually qualify the
material and information as an exception to the release of requested
material under the Virginia and Federal information acts.
… and it will take more trips through the courts to make any FOI
request stick.
The private group that’s funding the University of Virginia’s efforts
to resist the letter and spirit of the law might be found to
be co-conspiritors in the abrogation of the law… but that would take
even more discovery hearings and trips to the courthouse to simply
find out who “they” are.
Virginia Attorney General Cuccinelli’s efforts seem slow, but the
results seem to be unavoidable.
fuddy man says:
“January 6, 2011 at 11:53 am
ALL of the data and code in question available and easily obtained:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/”
fuddy man, it would be illogical for UVA to spend $500,000 resisting the production of materials that are already public. The AG and the subsequent FOIA are seeking records on how Mann spent grant money. There are indications that he might have used grant money to cover-up adverse data and to promote information that he knew to be false.
fuddy man says:
January 6, 2011 at 11:53 am
ALL of the data and code in question available and easily obtained:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/
You don’t need FOIA to get it, but there isn’t a single person commenting here who seems to know or care that it is available as that doesn’t fit with the delusional storyline here.
########
huh, I would hazard that a large number of readers here are aware of the code and data that has been made available. What’s not clear is the following.
1. All of the extant code, versus that made available
2. all of the extant data, versus that made available.
3. The actual documents requested by the FOIA. I would suspect this goes beyond the documents presently available. For example, correspondence. like mails and memos
and things written that relate to various grants etc etc. drafts of documents, etc.
Fuddy. You should take more care in thinking and writing. Just a suggestion
I would also like to see a copy of the information that was handed to GreenPeace, just to make sure that nothing was hidden away. There again , I’ve never subscribed to any “conspiracy theory”, but I’m getting a mite bit suspicious of the conduct of UVa!
Why would U of VA cover up for Mann? I know of very few academics that would be protected by a university like this. I’ve seen some very good scientists in my day treated like trash by the schools and departments in which they work; it’s a real shame. Mann must be something very special, have some real dirt on the university, or the university itself has some stake in all this. Mann doesn’t even work there anymore! What could U of VA possibly benefit from not complying?
Can’t wait for Issa’s hearings on the EPA/CO2 – That will be very entertaining.
As a Virginia taxpayer, I paid good money for Mann’s useless hockey stick while my son attended UVA (or just “Virginia”, “Mr. Jefferson’s University”, or worst of all just “The University”). He got an engineering degree and had to suffer through “Science, Technology, and Society” requirements. If you go to the Engineering College website, you can read all about its view of the way they think science should interact with society. No facts please, this is political “science”.
Note that Mann worked in Environmental “Science” which is a department within the College of Arts and Sciences (aka the College of Arts and Crafts to the engineers) and not in the School of Engineering and Applied Science. I’d like to backcharge UVA for that shoddy work. UVA also has a nice School of Education where students are indoctrinated with all the environmental soft science and “teaching”.
UVA has been eager to break away from Commonwealth control (we are a Commonwealth) for a long time now and this is yet another example of how the Trustees are trying to steal the institution away from the people and insulate themselves from distasteful accountability.
My second son is about to head off to Virginia Tech (no fancy nicknames for that engineer cow college). That is where the engineers who have to build stuff that works go to learn hard sciences like physics and thermodynamics.
Tenure should be abolished, Environmental “Science” should be eliminated, and UVA’s appropriation from the Commonwealth General Fund should be cut accordingly. Tough love is the only way to correct entitled dependents. It is still one of the least corrupted “elite” Universities wrt political correctness, but the disease is virulent and is much easier to cure now than later.
OK, enough of the political fencing, when can we expect arrest warrants to be issued?
David L says:
January 6, 2011 at 2:56 pm
Why would U of VA cover up for Mann?—-
——– What could U of VA possibly benefit from not complying?
===================================================
David, it’s climate science. They have built an entire department around it and now have students paying them to teach climate science. It’s big business now.
Obviously…….
The release another teachers files, same department, no questions asked. He was anti-university-making-money.
Yet, spend over a half million dollars (+$500,000) to try and not release Mann’s files, because Mann is university-making-money
What are they going to say? “our reputation is based on the quality education we provide, and we’ve been teaching crap”
Why not just allow the federal, state and local government and the police to to get a hold of everybodies email? There must be a lot of evidence of illegal activities contained in the emails. Or we could take a more conservative approach and just study the emails and correspondance of professors, since most of them are trying to mislead our youth.
This seems to ‘mind me of someone else who’s spending a million or two on lawyers to prevent release of info and public documents … Who is it now? I think the name begins with “O” …
fuddy man says:
January 6, 2011 at 11:53 am
ALL of the data and code in question available and easily obtained:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/
You don’t need FOIA to get it, but there isn’t a single person commenting here who seems to know or care that it is available as that doesn’t fit with the delusional storyline here.
=======================================================
Hey fuddy, why did the UofVA spend over $1/2 million to keep it a secret then?
If you don’t need a FOIA, if all of the data and code is on the internet, why did the UofVA spend over $1/2 million to keep it a secret?
BillD,
I await your letter of complaint to Greenpeace.