Prof. Brulle (Drexel Uni, Phil) claims IRS helped track secret donations
Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Prof. Robert Brulle, an environmental sociologist of Drexel University, Phil., has published a study allegedly accusing “deniers” of being sock puppets in the pay of “dark money” from big oil.
According to the story, Prof. Brulle enlisted IRS help tracking a correlation between big oil bogeymen such as the Koch Brothers withdrawing funding from climate studies, and significant increases in funding from other organizations such as the Donor’s Trust and Donor’s Capital Fund.
Quite apart from the outrageous invasion of privacy, if the IRS did actually lend special assistance to the study, the mundane explanation, that lead authors of studies simply turned to other sources when some donors withdrew their support, was not good enough for Prof. Brulle.
Instead, Brulle allegedly asserts the existence of a “dark money” conspiracy – a deliberate attempt to conceal the true sources of funding, by using a network of shadowy donor groups.
“The climate change countermovement has had a real political and ecological impact on the failure of the world to act on the issue of global warming,” said Brulle. “Like a play on Broadway, the countermovement has stars in the spotlight — often prominent contrarian scientists or conservative politicians — but behind the stars is an organizational structure of directors, script writers and producers, in the form of conservative foundations.
All I can say Anthony, is where is my dark money cheque? I’ve been sending you these scripts for ages, so far not a dime :-).
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Some other viewpoints on this claim.
Dr. Lubos Motl: We received 1 billion dollars
‘Congratulations to all of us. A possible problem – one pointed out to me by the Galileo Movement via Twitter – is that I may find out that we just “may have received” the billion instead of the phrase “did receive” it.’ — ‘The funding of climate skepticism work is at most something of order $10 million a year and much if not most of the most influential work is being done on a budget that is smaller than that by additional orders of magnitude…This figure should be compared to $80 billion that have been paid to promote the climate hysteria pseudoscience, mostly in the recent decade or two…If Suzanne Goldenberg believes that the purpose of this funding is to change people’s minds, well, then I must say that the climate skeptics are more efficient by almost 4 orders of magnitude.’
Marc Morano:
This new study and the media reports surrounding it are pure bunk! The study counts all money raised by all conservative groups as somehow being for global warming issues! But the study itself admits this is not true.
Tom Nelson:
After UK Guardian’s Suzanne Goldenberg makes a large, fraudulent claim about climate change spending, it gets very quietly ‘fixed’ with the addition of weasel words ‘may’ and ‘up to’
Conservative groups have spent $1bn a year on the effort to deny science and oppose action on climate change
Conservative groups may have spent up to $1bn a year on the effort to deny science and oppose action on climate change
…This headline on this article was amended on 21 December 2013 to reflect that not all the $1bn referred to will have funded climate change work.
Twitter / kaleekreider: @DanJWeiss @pourmecoffee Bob …
@DanJWeiss @pourmecoffee Bob Bruelle says headline misleading. $1billion is total avail not total spent on climate. I will forward email.
Update: Robert Brulle pushes back on Suzanne’s fraud here.
The abstract for Bruell’s article is located here. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-013-1018-7
Click the link for Supplementary Materials 10584_2013_1018_MOESM1_ESM.pdf (2116KB)
Go to S1-Coding Instructions, Step 5 at the bottom of page two. Read “The fifth step is to review the most recent copy of the organizations’s IRS 990 form.”
Here is a sample Form 990 for the Fred C & Mary R Koch Foundation Inc. to see what kind of information is on these forms.
“He listed 118 climate change denial organizations in the U.S and attempted to trace their source of fundings with the help of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).”
Here Rattus is right. The author of the story wrote the above – it is NOT what the author of the paper – Dr. Brulle wrote. The paper notes they used PUBLIC IRS documents.
Agree with him or not – fair is fair … and it is grossly unfair to attack the paper and its offer over false claims that the linked STORY author (and the author of this WUWT post) could have easily verified by simply READING THE PAPER.
It frustrates me immensely when people launch off on unsubstantiated tirades as here, clearly, without taking the time to read the original work.
The paper is silly junk. Attack the paper and its content – with factual claims. Attacking the paper and author over entirely false claims made in a ‘media’ review simply makes us all look stupid, and reinforce the stereotype.
I wrote Dr. Brulle a fairly direct critique. He responded quickly – and offered a copy of the Supplemental for review. I’ll read thru it and I’m sure will still strongly disagree with his actions and claims, but I will give him credit for responding in the face of criticism.
quote “the White House itself – 2013 Climate Change funding $22 BILLION”.
So many good things could have been done with this money.
Instead they use it to increase the price of living.
One wonders if A.J. Drexel is turning over his grave given his contributions to banking, industry, and education considering what Drexel has become with the likes of Robert Bruell on their staff.
As a benefactor of AJ Drexel’s founding the University, I graduated with an engineering degree in the early 60’s, At that time Drexel Institute of Technology was primarily an Engineering school for sons (a few daughters) of the blue collar community who could not afford to go to the more expensive universities. There were no frills, no Dormitory for men, a terrible football team, and a marginal basketball team. The key was the Cooperative program that allowed the student to earn the next quarter’s tuition while learning the trade full time for a quarter in industry along with a cadre of highly dedicated Professors who were working in the classroom. No need for a government loan or subsidy. No place for an environmental sociologist in a hard core Engineering curriculum.
I understand that Drexel’s tuition today is 40k$ to 50k$ thanks to the government getting involved and subsidizing activities like climate change (Is that how Bruell got funding to criticize productive industry?) . The Cooperative program can no longer pay the high tuition rate.
Some background on AJ Drexel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drexel_University
“Drexel University (DU) is a private research university with the main campus located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. It was founded in 1891 by Anthony J. Drexel, a noted financier and philanthropist. Drexel offers over 70 full-time undergraduate programs and accelerated degrees.[6] At the graduate level, the university offers over 100 masters, doctoral, and professional programs, many available part-time.”
His business has a patriotic past.
“To restore investor confidence, Drexel Morgan underwrote the pay of the entire U.S. Army when Congress refused to do so in 1877, bailed out the U.S. Government during the Panic of 1895 and rescued the New York Stock Exchange during the Panic of 1907”
Merry Christmas to all.
Unpublished data, secret identity of peer reviewers, confidentiality of IRS files.
Uncheckable, unverifiable information is the currency of the mischievous.
So which side believes in conspiracy theories???
Gotta love how the same bad guys with Exxon and the Koch Brothers always being mentioned except when their money pays for pro-AGW groups and research.
I believe one of Josh’s calendars is in order, ……
Are there any studies about the number of blog commenters who ask “Where’s my cheque?” whenever someone makes claims about Big Oil funding climate scepticism?
A. Scott says:
December 24, 2013 at 1:11 pm
“Agree with him or not – fair is fair … and it is grossly unfair to attack the paper and its offer over false claims that the linked STORY author (and the author of this WUWT post) could have easily verified by simply READING THE PAPER.”
What is grossly unfair is that the sociologist hack gets funded for his political attacks.
“It frustrates me immensely when people launch off on unsubstantiated tirades as here, clearly, without taking the time to read the original work. ”
It amuses me immensely that now the polito-scientific wing of the warmist propaganda machine has to argue against the media wing of the same machine.
” … Here Rattus is right. The author of the story wrote the above – it is NOT what the author of the paper – Dr. Brulle wrote. The paper notes they used PUBLIC IRS documents.”
Source of the documents is not the problem since it the law. Per Se.
There are two problems.
One can only be fixed by Congress and that is use of data used to generate tax payments. A taxpayers data is between himself and the IRS.
The other problem is using the ‘public’ documents to attack and silence your critics. Dr.(?) Brulle is not attempting to further the debate. He has no point or body of knowledge that will add to the debate. He is merely abusing his First Amendment rights to silence a group of people and to allow his ‘research’ to be used as a weapon for said purpose.
His research lacks merit and is useless since it adds no scientific value to the question of man’s role in polluting the atmosphere and the resulting unintended consequences – if any.
This country has already experienced a president that will turn and use ‘his’ government against his own people. That is not purpose of our republican government.
The role of Federal government is to ensure that the government is not used against it’s own people. Nothing more, nothing less. Our Constitution place limits on federal government for a reason.
Sadly our founding fathers lack the foresight to place in the constitution penal penalties for those who seek to destroy and pervert the constitution for their own personnel gain.
Green progressives believe that EVERYONE is as corrupt as they are.
“environmental sociologist”
Really? That’s really his “field of study”? And they actually PAY him money to do that? Astounding.
Rattus Norvegicus
December 24, 2013 at 10:06 am
He didn’t “enlist the IRS”, he used publicly available records (Form 990, and probably others) to analyze the flows of money. Please change your subhead and article.
The statement that Prof. Brulle used publicly available documents does not rule out the possibility that he received special assistance with his study. I treated this suggestion in the HNGN post with caution, because the claim is incredible – but also deeply worrying if there is any shred of truth to it.
We have already seen the spectre of US IRS abusing their power to target Conservative groups. Obama promised to put a stop to it. The possibility this abuse is still occurring is worthy of investigation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_IRS_scandal
I thought the IRS only took requests from the executive branch to make various taxpayers’ lives a living hell, not that they shared numbers with anyone.
More seriously, I bet the IRS assistance was through charitable organizations providing Form 990 detailing the organizations finances. These are meant to be public and are available from various charity review sites on the Web.
Completely misnamed; it’s light money, and still feeble.
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Is Dark Money like Dark Matter, it really does not exist? Then, it is true the denier funding that they claim really does not exist!!!!!
Dark Matter was a kludge thought up by the Big Bangers to explain away the fact that there was too much real matter in the Universe to fit the needs of their model. The original dark matter was simply matter too cool to emit visible light, thus dark or cold matter. The Big Bangers pretend that the cold matter does not exist but is instead undetectable-in-any-way matter that exerts gravity on the real matter. And, as the Big Bang never happened, Dark Matter becomes totally irrelevant.
Think about it. They have cobbled up huge funding for the giant supercollider in Cern to detect matter that does not exist. It’s just another huge scam to beg money from the people to make money for themselves. Even the much touted Red Shift and Hubble constant are bogus as there are more ways to red shift light than just high speed recession of the light source.
Ric … a read of the paper shows your comment to be correct … and 990’s are public data.
Not sticking up for the paper in any way – but again we look silly when we make unsubstantiated claims , which a simple read of the paper would resolve
A. Scott
From the article I referenced:-
… This might sound like mere coincidence but Brulle’s team provided more evidences. He listed 118 climate change denial organizations in the U.S and attempted to trace their source of fundings with the help of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). …
It might be that the “help” was simply Brulle obtaining copies of specific public documents. Or Brulle might have received additional assistance from the IRS, who have very recently demonstrated their zeal for specifically attacking Conservative organisations..
I handled this point cautiously, because it is not clear from the HNGN article exactly what happened. Brulle might have said something which was misinterpreted, or HNGN might be making sh*t up. Or maybe Brulle did receive assistance from the IRS above and beyond what they might have provided to say a Heartland request for assistance.
This is, or should be, a very sensitive time for the IRS. Their reputation for impartiality is in tatters. The onus of proof is currently on the IRS to demonstrate that they are now behaving in a fair and impartial way.
A suggestion by someone who is accusing a number of Conservative organisations of deliberate deception, that they received help from the IRS in preparing their accusation, IMHO quite reasonably attracts suspicion.
President Obama publicly apologised for the IRS abuse of power earlier this year, for their selective targetting of Conservative organisations, and promised to put a stop to it.
Higley7 you sound like a complete idiot, with your not even wrong attack on dark matter.Kludgey?
Dumkopf! You sound just like the warming cranks, wrong and proud of it
Produce reams of transparent nonsense, and leak lotsa evidence of low-life abuse of scientific ethics, thereby discrediting Warmism just enough to deep-six it. Leaving Big Fossil standing as the only viable way to survive, much less prosper. Truly a conspiracy!
Dark Money! I love it. Just like Dark Matter and Dark Energy it’s stuff that by definition no-one can find and excites none but the gullible.
Fluoridation, Mandrake. Fluoridation.
Since Professor Brulle is a sociologist, his time would have been more logically and productively spent in researching the origins of the ‘sceptics are funded by Big Oil’ smear – especially as Russell Cook has already done his homework for him:
http://gelbspanfiles.com/
I mention this as I know that professors are very busy people, and original research must be a dreadful chore for them.
David G says:
December 24, 2013 at 10:13 pm
“Higley7 you sound like a complete idiot, with your not even wrong attack on dark matter.Kludgey?
Dumkopf! You sound just like the warming cranks, wrong and proud of it”
Higley was right that dark matter is a protective hypothesis for a failed theory; only that he got the reason wrong, which was rather that the rotation of the galaxies could not be explained without the protective hypothesis of Dark Matter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Zwicky
I think the IRS should investigate why the dark money is not getting to the people it is intended to! YOu would think that all the dark money is coming from the Hanoi Jane charity!