UPDATE: (9:20 PST 10-17) the FOI request has been released, a copy of which is now linked below. This story will remain at the top of WUWT for a day or two. New stories will appear below this one.
CEI has learned of a UN plan recently put in place to hide official correspondence on non-governmental accounts, which correspondence a federal inspector general has already confirmed are subject to FOIA. This ‘cloud’ serves as a dead-drop of sorts for discussions by U.S. government employees over the next report being produced by the scandal-plagued IPCC, which is funded with millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars.
By Christopher Horner, CEI.org for WUWT
Although this is seedy and unlawful at any time, it also goes in the ‘bad timing’ file. Or it’s good timing, depending on one’s perspective.
Just as a brand new book further exposes the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)(which scam I dissected here, and in more disturbing detail here), and on the heels of the weekend surprise of a 2005 memo showing President Obama’s cooling/warming/population zealot of a ‘science czar’ John Holdren is the kind of guy Mitt Romney turns to to develop his ‘environmental’ policies, we’ve exposed the Obama administration and IPCC have cooperated to subvert U.S. transparency laws, run domestically out of Holdren’s White House office.
With this morning’s Freedom of Information Act request, the explaining they have to do must begin by providing the taxpayer certain records regarding — including but not limited to user name and password — for a backchannel ‘cloud’ established to hide IPCC deliberations from FOIA.
The IPCC, you will recall, is Al Gore’s co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. And the host over the years of numerous scandals involving fudged and twisted data, cut-and-pastes from student theses, popular magazine articles and green-group press releases and of course the infamous “hide the decline” in temperatures. This is not just one more scandal, however.
Until the FOI request is posted at CEI.org (later today), here is a snapshot:
CEI has learned of a UN plan recently put in place to hide official correspondence on non-governmental accounts, which correspondence a federal inspector general has already confirmed are subject to FOIA. This ‘cloud’ serves as a dead-drop of sorts for discussions by U.S. government employees over the next report being produced by the scandal-plagued IPCC, which is funded with millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars.
As our FOIA request details, the UN informed participants that it was motivated by embarrassing releases of earlier discussions (“ClimateGate” key among them), and to circumvent the problem that national government transparency laws were posing the group.
CEI reminds OSTP that this practice was described as “creat[ing] non-governmental accounts for official business”, “using the nongovernmental accounts specifically to avoid creating a record of the communications”, in a recent analogous situation involving lobbyist Jack Abramoff. CEI expects similar congressional and media outrage at this similar practice to evade the applicable record-keeping laws.
This effort has apparently been conducted with participation — thereby direct assistance and enabling — by the Obama White House which, shortly after taking office, seized for Holdren’s office the lead role on IPCC work from the Department of Commerce. The plan to secretly create a FOIA-free zone was then implemented.
This represents politically assisting the IPCC to enable UN, EU and U.S. bureaucrats and political appointees avoid official email channels for specific official work of high public interest, performed on official time and using government computers, away from the prying eyes of increasingly skeptical taxpayers.
CEI also reminds OSTP of a similar, ongoing effort by the administration to claim that records on U.S. government computers belong to the UN IPCC, refusing to produce them under FOIA. This practice was affirmed in a report by the Department of Commerce’s Office of Inspector General earlier this year.
As talks resume next month to forge a successor to the failed Kyoto Protocol, CEI looks forward to OSTP ceasing this unlawful activity, and providing prompt access to the requested records so the taxpayer can know what they, and the IPCC, are up to.
So this morning we requested all relevant records under FOIA, including all records sitting on that server, as they all were provided to U.S. government employees for official purposes. This was filed with OSTP run by controversial ‘science czar” and, we now know, former Mitt Romney ‘climate’ advisor John Holdren. The taxpayer deserves to know about this coordinated effort between OSTP and the IPCC to subvert U.S. law.
Possibly one Republican candidate will call in the next debate for ending US funding of the IPCC, now shown to be actively working (with the Obama White House) to subvert US law. Enough is enough is enough. Possibly Gov. Romney could defend Holdren and the IPCC.
In the meantime, we look for Rep. Henry Waxman’s outrage over Abramoff to prove it was also not political, and come down hard on the practice he so aggressively condemned and pursued, demanding preservation of records, threatening subpoenas, the whole works. With our request, that’s essentially what we’ve done, and we’d appreciate the company. You too, NPR.
Of course, it may not be of interest to the media because it only uncovers unlawful dealings to hide an effort impacting our entire economy, the premise for that “fundamental transformation” of America, with the sleazy lobbying operation being the UN. We’ll wait on OSTP’s response and hope for the best from the Hill and Republican candidates.
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UPDATE: The FOI request document: OSTP_IPCC_Elec_Comm_FOIA1 (PDF 112k)
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Why can’t the U.S. government prosecute any U.S. citizens participating in this scheme?
Chris Hanson says:
October 17, 2011 at 6:48 am
It seems criminal in intent.
==================================
It certainly does, and fortunately we have an attorney general whose integrity is beyond…… oh wait, nvm…..
Nick Stokes admits the IPCC secrecy practice is culpable because it allegedly matches actions by the (always presumptively evil) Bush administration. So I would not describe Stokes’ comment as a ‘defense’ as another commenter did.
Some points to keep in mind are (a) the RNC is not a taxpayer supported entity;(b) it would be entirely lawful for WH personnel to communicate via RNC channels regarding any matter not covered by the records act; (c) such lawful communications are presumptively private and not subject to FOI, unlike matters involving government-funded activities.
The notion that the IPCC, which is almost entirely funded by governments can selectively exempt itself from transparency requirements is not only unlawful but utterly stupid as a matter of policy. To attempt to build a private channel encourages partisanship, petty scheming and ideological corruption–which, come to think of it, is the way the IPCC appears to operate now. Those who want the IPCC project to succeed should be at the forefront demanding unconditional transparency.
Given the incompetence and corruption of the UN, and the shoot the message approach is has to those inside that point these out , this is hardly a surprise. It just a shame as much effort does not go into making the IPCC work in the way it should , they people may not need to question it so much and it would be a lot less likely to get caught-out in the first place .
The only reason a person does not let their spouse read their e-mail and blames them for “digging too much” is because they are actually cheating on them. The obvious alternative is to have a secondary, secret e-mail account to cheat with. It is pretty obvious to anyone with common sense that the IPCC and “the team” are cheating on all of us.
This is basically the same thing as classifying FOIA material. If you remove the existence of correspondence on official channels and move it to areas unknown by outsiders, it becomes un-acknowledged and hence effectively need-to-know. This is effectively the same thing as making it classified, and highly illegal for activities that are designated as subject to FOIA.
If true, we are no longer in a “danger zone” with regards to government officials removing visibility of government activities from the voting public, this would unquestionably be a war on fundamental rights granted to the people of the U.S.
And here’s some more grist for the phony carbon mill — Solyndra Redux?
Extract from National Review Online
It’s remarkable to see how similar the arguments being put forward by wind-energy proponents are to those that the Obama administration is using to justify its support of Solyndra, the now-bankrupt solar company that got a $529 million loan guarantee from the federal government. But in some ways, the government support for the Shepherds Flat deal is worse than what happened with Solyndra.
The majority of the funding for the $1.9 billion, 845-megawatt Shepherds Flat wind project in Oregon is coming courtesy of federal taxpayers. And that largesse will provide a windfall for General Electric and its partners on the deal who include Google, Sumitomo, and Caithness Energy. Not only is the Energy Department giving GE and its partners a $1.06 billion loan guarantee, but as soon as GE’s 338 turbines start turning at Shepherds Flat, the Treasury Department will send the project developers a cash grant of $490 million.
The deal was so lucrative for the project developers that last October, some of Obama’s top advisers, including energy-policy czar Carol Browner and economic adviser Larry Summers, wrote a memo saying that the project’s backers had “little skin in the game” while the government would be providing “a significant subsidy (65+ percent).” The memo goes on to say that, while the project backers would only provide equity equal to about 11 percent of the total cost of the wind project, they would receive an “estimated return on equity of 30 percent.”
The memo continues, explaining that the carbon dioxide reductions associated with the project “would have to be valued at nearly $130 per ton for CO2 for the climate benefits to equal the subsidies.” The memo continues, saying that that per-ton cost is “more than 6 times the primary estimate used by the government in evaluating rules.”
In fact, it is illegal to conduct strictly political business (RNC, DNC, re-election activities) using the WH mail system.
Where is WIKI leaks when we need ’em.
Contrary to Nick Stokes, the IPCC’s business is inherently governmental and inter-governmental in nature. US Federal government employees who work on inputs to the IPCC using government time are subject to disclosure of their activities. The OSTP is inherently a governmental agency, and it is functioning as a means of consolidating information from Commerce (NIST), EPA, NASA and other government agencies to support an international effort. It appears that the segregated servers and back-channel communications lines are deliberately created to subvert FOIA and other disclosure requirements. This is clearly illegal and could legally be construed as a conspiracy and be subject to both civil and criminal prosecution (as noted, see J. Abramoff). If personal cell phones or electronics are used for business purposes they become subject to disclosure.
Someone must be trying to hide something.
xiver1972 says:
October 17, 2011 at 7:05 am
Why can’t the U.S. government prosecute any U.S. citizens participating in this scheme?
Because the US government is a willing and active participant and facilitator.
Why am I NOT surprised?
If you are going to engage in deception, it’s best not to leave a record!
Subversion is obvious, always has been. No conspiracy here. It is just an agreement between persons to accomplish a legal purpose through illegal action. Just another innocent “boys will be boys” caper. You people just don’t realize how grave a threat climate is! These people are trying to save your grandchildren, for pity’s sake. Don’t you care about the planet?
Where are the tough MSM investigative reporters, like yesteryears’s Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein? Shouldn’t they be all over this, like stink on a pig? Shouldn’t the president be answering some tough questions, this morning, regarding policy?
Is it OK, to attempt a government within a government?? GK
So 6 years ago Romney (or was it just someone on Romney’s staff?) talked with Holdren and others about CO2 regulations in Massachusetts. The memo doesn’t seem to support the idea that Holdren was Romney’s “science advisor” in any kind of ongoing capacity. Rather, Holdren was then the professor of environmental policy at Harvard, in Massachusetts. Seems Romney could have gotten severly criticized had he not at least reached out to the most prestigious institution in the State for input on the State’s environmental policies. Holdren is of course not playing with a full deck, but I’m not sure comparing Romney’s inclusion of Holdren in the process of looking at a specific environmental policy at that time in Massachusetts can compare with Obama’s appointment of Holdren as the chief science official in the country.
Do we know how much Holdren had to do with the ultimate position taken by Massachusetts in the memo (or was he one of many who weighed in during the process)? Do we know if Mitt Romey has continued to work with Holdren over the years or plans to keep him on if Romney is successfully elected?
“Why can’t the U.S. government prosecute any U.S. citizens participating in this scheme?”
The people in charge of any such prosecution would be the US Justice Dept. Who’s head Eric Holder is appointed by, and serves at the pleasure of Barack Obama.
steven mosher says:
October 17, 2011 at 12:12 am said “If you look in the climategate mails you will find that Jones planned a meeting with patchy and Tom Stocker to discuss strategies for “handling” FOIA and the IPCC.”
Conspiracy to engage in unlawful acts?
It used to be that TALKING ABOUT killing a bald eagle was enough to get you a jail term, as killing one is a federal crime. I guess if the warmists had a hate-on for bald eagles that wouldn’t have happened, either.
The “Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Chicanery.” Mitt for brains Romney needs to be questioned about his RINO tendencies. OMG! (Obama Must Go!) Can’t this be the nail in the coffin for AGW? Why doesn’t Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh use their bully pulpit to bury this nonsense? I’ll keep the USA. Ya’ll can keep the change. Also, the article WAS poorly written. I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who noticed.
And we never found out was in the precious e-mails deleted at the request of Phil Jones and his co-conspirators.
Where were the forensic investigation to recover the deleted emails from back-up tapes?
This makes complete mockery of Obama’s call for open and transparent administration.
I read a fair bit of the new book on the IPCC this weekend, and totally agree with the criticism of the “tabloid approach” The very title (Delinquent Teenager) is not needed. The facts speak for themselves and are better reported without the sense of editorial outrage.
I think there was a hint ~12 days ago about what the ATI revealed today concerning alleged IPCC plans to hide official correspondence on non-governmental email accounts.
As you may recall, on Wednesday, October 5 @ur momisugly 2:15 PM at the David Skaggs Research Center in Boulder, Colorado there was a seminar given by Dr. William Burne (“consultant” to the Penn State Inquiry Committee on M. Mann) on the Penn State Inquiry into M. Mann.
A commenter at CA, who was at the seminar given by Brune, provided some of his personal notes from the seminar. The following comment was posted on CA’s thread “Seminar on Penn State Inquiry” at Oct 5, 2011 at 9:49 PM.
Although I do not know the full context in which Brune was reported to make that statement . . . think about this.
If this comment by Brune is confirmed it implies that the IPCC had an intention to avoid info exposure by FOIA. The intent to avoid, if confirmed, is another very damning piece against the IPCC’s integrity and trustworthiness.
John
Re Nick Stokes says:
October 17, 2011 at 3:00 am
UK Sceptic says: October 17, 2011 at 1:06 am
“The kind of nefarious, White House dirty deeds that impeachment was designed for…”
Nick, Source your data.
Did my good deed for the day and left a tip at Drudge … but I guess a breaking story about attempts to avoid FOIA laws doesn’t interest him … yet.
Holdren’s email address on his business card is:
jholdren@ostp.eop.gov
Let him know of your displeasure.
Doug,
Au contraire, mon ami. I think the setting of the IPCC discussion within the context of the behavior and credibility of an un-enlightened and disturbed pre-adult is very clever of Donna L.
It is fruitful on many levels, not the least of which it sets the tone of the dialog about the IPCC appropriately in a way that shows the IPCC is not to be respected prima fascia . . . . it has yet to earn respect in any objective and open way.
John