Today, on behalf of the Competitive Enterprise Institute,
I filed three Notices of Intent to File Suit against NASA
and its Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), for those
bodies' refusal - for nearly three years - to provide documents
requested under the Freedom of Information Act.
The information sought is directly relevant to the exploding
"ClimateGate" scandal revealing document destruction, coordinated
efforts in the U.S. and UK to avoid complying with both
countries' freedom of information laws, and apparent and
widespread intent to defraud at the highest levels of
international climate science bodies. Numerous informed
commenters had alleged such behavior for years, all of which
appears to be affirmed by leaked emails, computer codes and other
data from the Climatic Research Unit of the UK's East Anglia
University.
All of that material and that sought for years by CEI go to the
heart of the scientific claims and campaign underpinning the
Kyoto Protocol, its planned successor treaty, "cap-and-trade"
legislation and the EPA's threatened regulatory campaign to
impose similar measures through the back door.
CEI sought the following documents, among others, NASA's failure
to provide which within thirty days will prompt CEI to file suit
in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia:
- internal discussions about NASA's quiet correction of its false
historical U.S. temperature records after two Canadian
researchers discovered a key statistical error, specifically
discussion about whether and why to correct certain records, how
to do so, the impact or wisdom or potential (or real) fallout
therefrom or reaction to doing so (requested August 2007);
- internal discussions relating to the emails sent to James
Hansen and/or Reto A. Ruedy from Canadian statistician Steve
McIntyre calling their attention to the errors in NASA/GISS
online temperature data (August 2007);
- those relating to the content, importance or propriety of
workday-hour posts or entries by GISS/NASA employee Gavin A.
Schmidt on the weblog or "blog" RealClimate, which is owned by
the advocacy Environmental Media Services and was started as an
effort to defend the debunked "Hockey Stick" that is so central
to the CRU files. RealClimate.org is implicated in the leaked
files, expressly offered as a tool to be used "in any way you
think would be helpful" to a certain advocacy campaign, including
an assertion of Schmidt's active involvement in, e.g., delaying
and/or screening out unhelpful input by "skeptics" attempting to
comment on claims made on the website.
This and the related political activism engaged in are
inappropriate behavior for a taxpayer-funded employee,
particularly on taxpayer time. These documents were requested in
January 2007 and NASA/GISS have refused to date to comply with
their legal obligation to produce responsive documents.
