11/24/09
By Tony Hake
Legal counsel for the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) filed three Notices of Intent to File Suit against NASA today. Chris Horner, counsel of CEI, said that the suit against NASA and its Goddard Institute of Space Studies is for the agency’s failure to comply with Freedom of Information Act requests for the past three years. Employees of the agency have been mentioned in the now infamous Climategate emails.
CEI has been seeking documents and emails pertaining to NASA’s modification of climate records after errors were discovered in them by Steve McIntyre of Climate Audit. They also are seeking information on NASA scientist Gavin Schmidt and his activities on the site RealClimate that may be in conflict with his governmental employment.
Horner wrote on the American Spectator that, “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.”
Thousands of emails from Britain’s Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia were illegally released on the Internet Friday and it has caused a major uproar. United States Senator James Inhofe is vowing an investigation into the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In Britain, Former Chancellor Lord Lawson is pushing for a probe of university for possible manipulation of climate data.
Should the agency not comply with the FOIA requests, CEI will file suit in 30 days in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Among the information CEI is seeking:
- 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.
