CEI wins FOIA tiff with NASA via judicial order

From AllGov.com with lots of spin (h/t to reader Dennis)

Judge Orders NASA to Release Climate Change-Related Documents

A climate change denial group once funded by oil giant ExxonMobil (2012 revenues: $453.123 billion) won a legal victory last week over NASA when a federal judge ordered the space agency to turn over more documents related to its 2007 revisions of global temperature data. Release of the information will have no effect on the climate change data that scientists are using to determine the extent of global warming that is occurring.

The controversy started in August 2007, when statistician Stephen McIntyre found an error in NASA’s temperature data sets that he said caused temperatures in the U.S. from the year 2000 onward to be overstated. After posting “his findings on his website ClimateAudit.org,” according to Judge Barbara Rothstein’s decision, McIntyre “emailed them to NASA climate scientists” at the Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS), which quickly “revised values in its temperature data set…[and] did not issue a press release announcing or explaining the corrections.”

Sensing a potential scandal, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) submitted three Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to NASA, two in August 2007 and one in January 2008. After NASA released 2,500 pages of data in response, CEI filed a FOIA lawsuit in federal court in the District of Columbia in 2010.

Among the materials NASA withheld were two electronic directories referred to as the “Steve” and “alternate cleaning” directories, media inquiries about the data corrections, and two email accounts of Dr. Gavin Schmidt, a NASA scientist who teaches at Columbia University and contributes to a blog called RealClimate.org. Although CEI wanted all that and more, Judge Rothstein ordered NASA to release only the “Steve” directory and one of Dr. Schmidt’s email accounts, finding that the other materials either held no responsive documents or fell within a valid FOIA exemption.

Source: http://www.allgov.com/news/controversies/judge-orders-nasa-to-release-climate-change-related-documents-131110?news=851618

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Steve Garcia
November 10, 2013 4:16 pm

Wow – August 2007? Has it been that LONG since that?
Time really flies when we are in denial, doesn’t it?…LOL
it’s been a cool and fun journey – although sometimes I wonder if Steve M thinks so…
I wonder if Steve M ever smiles when he finds some of this stuff?… 🙂

TerryS
November 10, 2013 4:17 pm

A climate change denial group once funded by oil giant ExxonMobil (2012 revenues: $453.123 billion) won a legal victory last week over NASA funded by the US Government (2012 spending $3.6 trillion) …

Jquip
November 10, 2013 4:26 pm

“‘cui bozo’ would mean ‘who clowns’ surely.”
Et tu, andyd?
/eesflay

Louis Hooffstetter
November 10, 2013 4:45 pm

Enough is enough! Urge your Senators and Representatives to pass legislation requiring all data and email funded by public tax dollars to be made publicly available (state secrets being the exception). The penalty for failing to provide such data and email needs to be mandatory and immediate jail time in a Federal Prison. Mann and Schmidt (and whole bunch of others) deserve jail time for repeatedly refusing to provide taxpayer funded data and correspondence to those who paid for it.

Brian H
November 10, 2013 5:07 pm

Jquip;
the phrase you need is perhaps “bozo bono”. No relation to Sonny. Maybe.

@njsnowfan
November 10, 2013 5:13 pm

Anthony
How do you sleep at night? Do solar panels on your home really block satellite heat sinking devices?
NSA and President Obama must be moderating everything you do.
If not for people like you, we would all become government servants.
Keep up the great reporting Anthony,and hope I did not scare you, I am scared just being a realist(they call me a denier) and feel I may be on some sort of deportation list even though I was born in the USA including my parent and their parents. Go back a little further and my Great Great grandmother was True blood American Indian.

November 10, 2013 5:26 pm

Reblogged this on CACA and commented:
A BIG win for Science.
A MASSIVE blow to NASA, the climate alarm industry and perpetrators of scientific fraud.
Real Science Fraud File | CACA
http://climatism.wordpress.com/2013/08/17/real-science-fraud-file/

Greg Goodman
November 10, 2013 5:47 pm

“Among the materials NASA withheld were two electronic directories ”
I get the impression that the writer does not even know what he’s writing about . He seems to think its like a big, thick e-book or something. Maybe we should says “folders” and he may catch on.

November 10, 2013 8:50 pm

Brian H says:
November 10, 2013 at 5:07 pm
Jquip;
the phrase you need is perhaps “bozo bono”. No relation to Sonny. Maybe.

Probably related to Cher.

Eric H.
November 11, 2013 1:55 am

Isn’t CEI a free market think tank? The article tries to make it look like all CEI does is deny climate change while sucking up the profits of big oil. Wouldn’t it be nice to just once hear of profits in percentages from these left wing propogandists? “ohhhh, look at the shiney big numbers”

Bravery
November 11, 2013 2:08 am

Revenues do not equal profit. Why did they not also include capital investment data too? That would have put profit and revenues into perspective. Balanced reporting anyone?

Gail Combs
November 11, 2013 3:56 am

Jimbo says: November 10, 2013 at 3:21 pm
When I get smeared my friends I fight fire with fire…..
>>>>>>>>>>>>
Great lists. Thanks
The general public does not understand science much less physics and you get absolutely no where if you try to use science to counter emotional thinking and faith in what IPCC psuedo-scientists say. (After all YOU don’t have a PhD in Climate science and besides you are a Din!er.)
However the public does understand hypocrisy. Add to your lists Enron and BP invented the Global Warming Industry and Shell Oil funded the founding of the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia and watch the light bulbs go on. This is the main reason the Warmists keep smearing skeptics with the ‘Big Oil’ brush and why ‘Big Oil’ occasionally tosses crumbs at skeptics that soon after show up as headlines in articles written by Greenpeace and the MSM.

Enron bought, on the cheap of course, the world’s largest windmill company (now GE Wind) and the world’s second-largest solar panel interest (now BP) to join Enron’s natural gas pipeline network, which was the second largest in the world. The former two can only make money under a system of massive mandates and subsidies (and taxes to pay for them); the latter would prosper spectacularly if the war on coal succeeded.

(Natural gas is the only viable energy source of the three. So follow natural gas.)
There is also the Ged Davis, VP of Shell Oil, e-mail on IPCC storylines and Scenerios:

4.2 Scenarios
4.21 Energy Resources/Technology
Energy efficiency innovations, and successful institutional innovations
disseminating their use, result in much lower levels of energy use relative
to historic patterns….
1. Widespread expansion of natural gas, with a growing role for renewable
energy (scenario B1N)….
2. A more rapid development of renewables, replacing coal and oil; the bulk of the remaining energy coming from natural gas (scenario B1R).
http://assassinationscience.com/climategate/1/FOIA/mail/0889554019.txt

To add the final nail you have the outcome of all this political maneuvering:
Energy Prices to Soon Skyrocket

Obama’s war on coal hits your electric bill
The market-clearing price for new 2015 capacity – almost all natural gas – was $136 per megawatt. That’s eight times higher than the price for 2012, which was just $16 per megawatt. In the mid-Atlantic area covering New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and DC the new price is $167 per megawatt. For the northern Ohio territory served by FirstEnergy, the price is a shocking $357 per megawatt…. These are not computer models or projections or estimates. These are the actual prices that electric distributors have agreed to pay for new capacity. The costs will be passed on to consumers at the retail level….

So as coal plants are closed the cost of energy will go up by a factor of 10 or more. That is your $200/month bill becomes $2000 a month. This depends on how much is from the much more costly solar and wind energy. See R. Courtney’s comment HERE
Cape Wind project in Nantucket Sound calculated cost per Megawatt $162.72.
Combined Cycle Natural Gas Turbine studied by DOE cost per Megawatt $3.48.
This does not include the cost of the Smart Meters and Smart appliances needed to turn off your electric so power companies can be supply continuous power to government and corporations. (You get the rolling blackouts not them.)
The UK shows the results of their Clean Energy Policy. It is fuel poverty. In the UK ‘Fuel Poverty’ is killing 65 people per day in the winter. Article: Fuel poverty deaths three times higher than government estimates

Gail Combs
November 11, 2013 4:26 am

My links showing Ged Davis’s connections to the IPCC and Shell Oil were stale so I went hunting for an active link. It is rather interesting.
UNFCCC is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. USA Entry went into force March 21, 1994 per the United Nations. SEE: http://unfccc.int/essential_background/convention/status_of_ratification/items/2631.php
The objective of the treaty is to “stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system”. The treaty itself set no limits on emissions and contains no enforcement mechanisms. This explains the positions of the DOE and EPA on CAGW. Their job now is to change public opinion so those limits can be set and enforcement mechanisms can be put in place. Make you wonder just who the DOE and EPA actually are working for doesn’t it? (The USDA and FDA did the same sort of propaganda footwork for the UN and WTO to make sure that US law is now written to comply with the WTO, OIE and FAO standards.)
The Kyoto Protocol is part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and was signed but was not ratified by the USA.

A special report on selected side events at UNFCCC SB-12
Published by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) in cooperation with the UNFCCC Secretariat (June 2000)
Title: Special Report on Emissions Scenarios
Sponsor: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
Contact: Dr. Renate Christ (email ……)
At the launch of its Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES), the IPCC announced that circumstances since the 1992 Report (IS92) have changed dramatically. The SRES team was lead by Nebojša Nakićenović, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Austria, who also presented the findings. Also present were Prof. Emilio Lebre La Rovere, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, and member of the IPCC, and Ged Davis, Shell International.
The event was chaired by Bert Metz, Co-chair of IPCC Working Group III. Davis stressed the difficulty of predicting what may happen in the next 100 years and noted that today’s circumstances may not provide reliable guidance for future projections. He outlined different energy and carbon scenarios, with variations in population growth, technological change, levels of convergence between poor and rich, and market-based solutions. He stressed that no probabilities can be assigned to each of the total of 40 scenarios.
….
Title: Article 6: Education, Training and Public Awareness: Learning from National and International Experience
Sponsor: UNFCCC
Internet: http://www.unfccc.int
Hanna Hoffmann, UNFCCC, presented an overview of FCCC Article 6 (education, training, public awareness)*. She noted that while the Article has received increased recognition much remains to be done to bring it into operation. Peter O. Odhengo, Kenya Industrial Research and Development Institute (KIRDI), Paul Stolpman, United States Environmental Protection Agency, and Ep Booneman, Ministry of Environment, Netherlands, made presentations on their national experiences with implementation of Article 6. Odhengo reported on many difficulties in disseminating information and building awareness in Kenya, particularly in rural areas….
Title: The World Bank/Donor Countries Programme of National CDM/JI Strategy Studies (NSS Program)
Sponsor: World Bank
Contacts: Peter Kalas (…@worldbank…)
Thomas Black-Arbeláez (……)
In this special event representatives from the World Bank and the Colombian Ministry of the Environment outlined the World Bank/Donor Countries Programme of National CDM/JI Strategy Studies, and presented the results of the National Strategy Study for Implementation of
the CDM in Colombia. Peter Kalas (World Bank) provided an overview of the World Bank National Strategy Study (NSS), the objective of which is to advance climate change programmes in host countries, with a particular focus on implementation of the Kyoto Protocol mechanisms. The programme aims to build institutions, develop appropriate legal and economic frameworks, and provide host countries with resources and technical guidance.
http://www.iisd.ca/climate/sb12/side/tuesday.pdf‎

*FCCC Article 6 (education, training, public awareness)

Article 6 of the Convention
1st Dialogue on Article 6 of the Convention
Reaffirming the importance of climate change education, training, public awareness, public participation, public access to information and international cooperation on these matters for achieving the ultimate objective of the Convention and for the effective implementation of adaptation and mitigation actions, COP 18 adopted the Doha work programme on Article 6 of the Convention and requested the SBI to organize an annual in-session Dialogue on Article 6 of the Convention to enhance work in this area….
http://unfccc.int/cooperation_and_support/education_and_outreach/items/2529.php

Gail Combs
November 11, 2013 4:31 am

Jquip says: November 10, 2013 at 3:58 pm
Jimbo: “What do you call these then?”
You’re getting tangled up on cui bono and cui bozo. Cui bono, ‘who benefits’ is a well known fallacy….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
HUH? Cui bono is a well known investigative technique. The police use it all the time.
cui bozo of course refers to those who benefit from the ‘Useful Idiots’

November 11, 2013 5:57 am

Let’s see.. CEI is associated with Exxon-Mobil with revenues of $435 Billion, vs NASA an organization funded by the US Federal Government with revenues of $2.7 Trillion. Exxon-Mobil sells products that help people, the US Federal Government taxes people (business don’t really pay taxes, they raise the price of their products to pay the taxes) and subsidizes those who they like.

November 11, 2013 6:00 am

Gail Combs says November 11, 2013 at 3:56 am

This does not include the cost of the Smart Meters and Smart appliances needed to turn off your electric so power companies can be supply continuous power to government and corporations. (You get the rolling blackouts not them.)

Conflating ‘rolling blackouts’ with selective control of appliances (e.g. set points of air conditioners, delaying the start of water-heaters during high peak-load periods)?
The broad-brush you paint with does your accuracy ‘factor’ no favors, Gail. Or maybe this will be just more claimed ‘editing’ failure? More apropos to cite the trade-marked hair-on-fire posting style …
Industry and select customers who agree to ‘shed loads’ at the behest of the electric utility during high demands periods are ALREADY a reality. This is a logical extension into another part of the electric market that, so far, does nothing to control loads on the DEMAND side of the equation (excepting forced, total-cutoff BLACKOUTS).
.

Gail Combs
November 11, 2013 7:03 am

_Jim says:
November 11, 2013 at 6:00 am

Gail Combs says November 11, 2013 at 3:56 am

This does not include the cost of the Smart Meters and Smart appliances needed to turn off your electric so power companies can be supply continuous power to government and corporations. (You get the rolling blackouts not them.)

Conflating ‘rolling blackouts’ with selective control of appliances (e.g. set points of air conditioners, delaying the start of water-heaters during high peak-load periods)?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
No I Am Not.
(Note Smart Meters is first in that sentence.)
I am taking it direct from the Source:

Energy InSight FAQs
….Rolling outages are systematic, temporary interruptions of electrical service.
They are the last step in a progressive series of emergency procedures [They turn off your Smart Appliances first] that ERCOT follows when it detects that there is a shortage of power generation within the Texas electric grid. ERCOT will direct electric transmission and distribution utilities, such as CenterPoint Energy, to begin controlled, rolling outages to bring the supply and demand for electricity back into balance.They generally last 15-45 minutes before being rotated to a different neighborhood to spread the effect of the outage among consumers,[/b] which would be the case whether outages are coordinated at the circuit level or individual meter level. Without this safety valve, power generating units could overload and begin shutting down and risk causing a domino effect of a statewide, lengthy outage. With smart meters, CenterPoint Energy is proposing to add a process prior to shutting down whole circuits to conduct a mass turn off of individual meters with 200 amps or less (i.e. residential and small commercial consumers) for 15 or 30 minutes, rotating consumers impacted during that outage as well as possible future outages.
There are several benefits to consumers of this proposed process. By isolating non-critical service accounts (“critical” accounts include hospitals, police stations, water treatment facilities etc.) and spreading “load shed” to a wider distribution, critical accounts that happen to share the same circuit with non-critical accounts will be less affected in the event of an emergency. Curtailment of other important public safety devices and services such as traffic signals, police and fire stations, and water pumps and sewer lifts may also be avoided.….

November 11, 2013 7:07 am

Jquip says:
November 10, 2013 at 3:58 pm

Jimbo: “What do you call these then?”
You’re getting tangled up on cui bono and cui bozo. Cui bono, ‘who benefits’ is a well known fallacy. But cui bozo, ‘clowns benefit’ is well know as a valid and sound proof of shenanigans.

I think cui bozo would rather mean “Who is Bozo?”, a valid, if unenlightening question.

November 11, 2013 8:25 am

Gail Combs says November 11, 2013 at 3:56 am
This does not include the cost of the Smart Meters and Smart appliances needed to turn off your electric so power companies can be supply continuous power to government and corporations. (You get the rolling blackouts not them.)
_Jim November 11, 2013 at 6:00 am
Conflating ‘rolling blackouts’ with selective control of appliances (e.g. set points of air conditioners, delaying the start of water-heaters during high peak-load periods)?
Gail Combs November 11, 2013 at 7:03 am:
No I Am Not.
(Note Smart Meters is first in that sentence.)

Perhaps I should give you more leeway as your native language may not be English?
I am still not able parse “This does not include the cost of the Smart Meters and Smart appliances needed to turn off your electric so power companies can be supply continuous power to government and corporations.” as you do, de-coupling ‘smart meters’ and ‘turning off your electric [power]’ for the convenience and sake of govt and corporations.
I am beginning to think you do not comprehend half the subjects on which you post (and aside from your own posts now given the above!) leading me to believe Gail’s a ‘cut and paste’ artiste extraordinaire with a hair-on-fire posting style unmatched by any on WUWT.
Hopefully you do not actually fall into the category of Humpty Dumpty wherein: “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean- neither more nor less.”
.

richardscourtney
November 11, 2013 10:41 am

_Jim:
In your post addressed to Gail Combes at November 11, 2013 at 8:25 am you say

I am beginning to think you do not comprehend half the subjects on which you post (and aside from your own posts now given the above!) leading me to believe Gail’s a ‘cut and paste’ artiste extraordinaire with a hair-on-fire posting style unmatched by any on WUWT.

I will try to help you.
It is clear that you are only “beginning to think” and that more thinking before posting would benefit you. The problem is your obvious lack of ability at reading comprehension.
When Ms Combes quotes someone verbatim then either
(a) they intended what they wrote
or
(b) they made a mistake
or
(c) Ms Combes quoted them out of context.
In the cases you challenge you do not claim Ms Combes quoted them out of context and she did not.
If you don’t like the information she provides then that is your problem and not hers. So, either provide referenced refutation of the referenced information she provides or accept that there is information you don’t like. In either case, stop whinging at her about it because it makes you look like the answer to cui bozo.
I hope that helps.
Richard

November 11, 2013 1:22 pm

Spin? More like a ride down Mt.Everest in one of these inflatable balls
Which gives me an idea for getting incapacitated climbers down Mt. Everest ! 453 billion in revenue, here I come!

KNR
November 11, 2013 1:36 pm

Let us say you had evidenced a local hospital was going fall down which would result in many deaths . Let us say that the authorities refuse to do anything until you show them all your proof. Do you A, refuse saying ‘it’s my data and you can’t have it’ or B throw the lot in their face and keep throwing until they do something?
In the case of AGW we are told that it’s the ‘most important event ever ‘ and that there is ‘no time to lose ‘ and that ‘the science is settled . And yet what do we see but ‘ it’s my data and you can’t have it’ and the liberal application of smoke and mirrors. When surely what is called for it the first approach were much effort is put into making all the data available , indeed forcefully shoving into people’s faces. Therefore, you can see why people get a distinct hint of BS about ‘the cause’
Meanwhile it is not a little ironic that even if the alarmists are right it is their own inability to share the data honestly that is partly reasonable for holding back action on this front and so ‘dooming the planet’

Richie D.
November 11, 2013 3:17 pm

Allgov.com is the brainchild of David Wallechinsky, I believe, who produced the best-selling “Book of Lists” and “The People’s Almanac” in the ’70s. At the time, I thought he was pretty right on. (I don’t see his name associated with AllGov now, but it appears there are several of his kids on the staff.) AllGov is the FIRST site EVER to censor a post of mine — with regard to the CEI story, I questioned their apparent objection to transparency in government.

November 15, 2013 11:23 am

The press release begins:
“A climate change denial group once funded by oil giant ExxonMobil (2012 revenues: $453.123 billion) …”
Guess we need an addition to “ad hominem,” or “ad hom” for short. Maybe “Ad Corporatum,” or “ad corp” for short??? How about “ad crap” for those using either while ignoring or withholding data??