Virginia AG Ken Cuccinelli II has taken his climate change vendetta to a new low, announcing that he will use Virginia's Fraud Against Taxpayers Act to force officials at UVA to spend months digging through a decade of university records in search of evidence that Dr. Michael Mann "defrauded" the Commonwealth by seeking funds to explore the boundaries of climate science.
Tuesday's article in the Washington Post gave the attention-seeking politician all that he needed from the civil investigative demand issued to Dr. Mann's former employer. Now Cuccinelli will move on to his next headline-grabbing venture without a care for the disruptions he's left in his wake.
As others have pointed out, threatening academics with legal penalties sets a terrible precedent that will stifle the innovation and progress that are the hallmarks of the United States' great research universities. It was bad enough when Rep. Joe Barton first started harassing Dr. Mann over his work, signaling to all climate scientists that they'd better be careful what they researched or the full force of a congressional investigation might be in their future. Now that Cuccinelli has set the precedent of making onerous demands on the universities that employ researchers who work on the cutting edge, there will be another dimension to the pressures that will constrain American academics.
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Matt Shudtz | May 6, 2010
Virginia AG Ken Cuccinelli II has taken his climate change vendetta to a new low, announcing that he will use Virginia’s Fraud Against Taxpayers Act to force officials at UVA to spend months digging through a decade of university records in search of evidence that Dr. Michael Mann “defrauded” the Commonwealth by seeking funds to […]
Rebecca Bratspies | May 6, 2010
Cross-posted from IntLawGrrls. Today’s New York Times update on the Deepwater Horizon disaster opens with BP’s failed efforts to control the remaining two leaks via concrete, or remote control robots. Strangely, the article makes no mention of the missing remote shut-off valve called an acoustic switch. This $500,000 device might well have prevented this whole […]
Celeste Monforton | May 5, 2010
Cross-posted from The Pump Handle. Beginning in December 2006, I’ve written five blog post commenting on the content of the Department of Labor’s (DOL) regulatory agenda for worker health and safety rulemakings. Most of my posts see links below have criticized the Labor Secretary and senior OSHA and MSHA staff for failing to offer a bold vision for progressive worker […]
Rena Steinzor | May 4, 2010
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson was in a tough position on coal ash. If you are African American and low-income, you have a 30 percent greater chance of living near a big pit of this toxic brew than a white American, so Jackson correctly decided that such an important environmental justice issue should be at the […]
Ben Somberg | May 4, 2010
CPR President Rena Steinzor has issued this statement on today’s coal ash news. She says: Because EPA is actively considering these two very different approaches, it has not actually proposed anything from a regulatory perspective. The EPA will almost certainly have to go back and get another round of public comment before making a final […]
Ben Somberg | May 4, 2010
EPA is making an announcement right now. We’ll have more soon. Update: EPA’s announcement is up.
Victor Flatt | May 4, 2010
Monday April 26 was supposed to be the day that the much anticipated Kerry-Graham-Lieberman climate change bill was to be proposed in the Senate. Hopes had gone up that there could be a legislative solution to putting a price on carbon. The carbon markets themselves had responded, pushing up the price of allocations on RGGI […]
Ben Somberg | May 3, 2010
The EPA had projected an April announcement on the next step in regulating coal ash. But April came and went. The EPA now lists “05/2010” as the projected time for publication of a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) in the Federal Register.
Daniel Farber | May 3, 2010
Cross posted from Legal Planet. A couple of key observations about the oil rig blowout, based on my work on disaster issues. First, “human error” is a cop-out when you’re dealing with major technology. It’s not like human fallibility is a surprise. Training, good management, and smart design should be the responses, not whining after […]