MAY 25, 2011

Court Orders U. of Virginia to Produce Michael Mann Documents

As I mentioned last week, the American Tradition Institute's Environmental Law Center took the University of Virginia to court yesterday in Prince William County, Va., to ask a judge to force the release of documents of Climategate scientist Michael Mann, from his tenure there years ago. He's now at Penn State. We asked for the UVA records more than four months ago. Our court hearing was yesterday.

As you will see in this excerpt from our press release today, UVA has been less than cooperative:

Under FOIA the University was required to produce the documents within five days of its receipt of payment for "accessing, duplicating, supplying or searching" for the documents. Alternatively they could have entered into an agreement with ATI on when they would supply the documents, or they could have gone to court to ask for more time. They did none of the above. Instead they promised to provide some of the documents "shortly" on April 6; then specifically on May 6, 2011; and always stated they would get to the others later on. They did none of this either, so ATI went to court to compel production and compliance with the law.

But once we turned up the pressure...

ATI finally received the first approximately 20 percent of the 9,000 pages of documents that UVA says are responsive to ATI's request and that it possesses, only after ATI filed its petition, and two working days before the judicial hearing. Most of what ATI received in this seemingly hurried production, which was more focused on showing volume than content, were ads for Halloween costumes, public news releases from lay and scientific journals, and a few emails that were printed in computer code so as to be unintelligible in that form. Despite this product of (according to the University) 75 hours of review and more than four months, the University stopped work on producing anything further.

As our director of litigation Chris Horner has said, "our filing suit helped clarify the University's thinking," so they dumped a pile of mostly useless documents on us "to show volume if not actual cooperation," to "look less bad to a court." This was all while they tried to charge ATI $8,500 -- an unsupportable sum -- to produce the documents, of which we paid nearly half, yet UVA still delayed and withheld. We are challenging that also and a judge is due to render a decision on June 15.

As for yesterday, the judge issued two orders: one for the University to produce the documents within 90 days in electronic form, as we requested, instead of the document dump they appeared to be prepared to make; and the other a protective order which allows Horner and our Law Center director, David Schnare, to review the records that UVA wants to claim as exempt and therefore keep from the view of the public. Horner and Schnare will be able to then argue before a judge later this year why Virginia's Freedom of Information Act does not allow the exemptions (such as "academic freedom" and "proprietary research") that UVA is likely to claim.

posted by PAUL CHESSER | 11:51 AM | 0 comment

MAY 18, 2011

We Took U. of Virginia to Court Over Michael Mann's Records

We (American Tradition Institute's Environmental Law Center) figured four-plus months and $4,000 was enough to give the University of Virginia to start producing the records we requested that pertain to their former Climategate scientist Michael Mann -- you know, Mr. Transparency who is now at Penn State -- so on Monday we asked a judge to force the issue:

Since (Jan. 6) UVA officials have demanded an unjustified and unsupportable sum of $8,500 from ATI to produce the documents, despite its admission that it knows precisely where the records exist on a specific University computer server. Still, ATI made a down payment of $2,000 for UVA to begin its search and delivery of Mann's records - and also a second payment, for a total paid of $4,000.00 - but University officials still have not provided any documents, nor offered a schedule of its intentions to respond to ATI's information request....

ATI has requested the same records under Virginia's FOIA law. UVA has informed ATI it might withhold many of the records sought by ATI under a "proprietary research" exclusion in the law. However, that exemption only applies to research that "has not been publicly released, published, copyrighted or patented" and is otherwise of actual value to UVA. Clearly that exception does not apply to Dr. Mann's emails a la ClimateGate, sought in ATI's request, or to his research records given the work in question has been in the public domain for over a decade, was published in academic journals Nature and Geophysical Research Letters, by the IPCC, and elsewhere.

UVA has resisted a previous request by Virginia Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli under the state's Fraud Against Taxpayers Act for the same records, with the help of $500,000 from private, anonymous donors (so the University says). Also, leftist groups including People for the American Way, ACLU-Virginia, Union of Concerned Scientists, and American Association of University Professors have pleaded with UVA to withhold Mann's records for reasons of "academic freedom" -- you know, similar to the illegitimate authority of "bureaucratic freedom" so often cited by other government institutions as an excuse to keep documents under wraps.

We hope to hear about a court date by Friday.

posted by PAUL CHESSER | 11:34 AM | 0 comment

APRIL 15, 2011

Indefensible Defense of Michael Mann

Yesterday a dozen liberal and academic groups rose in defense of Penn State Climategate scientist Michael Mann, making up reasons such as "academic freedom" to deny American Tradition Institute's request for Mann's emails and records from the University of Virginia, his previous employer.

ATI, where I am executive director, is asking for similar records that Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has asked for under the state's Fraud Against Taxpayers Act, but has been denied so far by the university and lower courts. We requested the documents under Virginia's Freedom of Information Act. Both of us are curious about Mann's activities at UVA when he came up with that "Hockey Stick" temperature chart that ignored the Medieval Warm Period, but helped fuel the AlGorean chants of global warming alarmism a few years ago. He got government grants for his work.

The defenders of Mann include the ACLU of Virginia, People for the American Way, American Association of University Professors, Council of Environmental Deans and Directors, Union of Scientists Concerned About Their Grant Funding, and that heavyweight of heavyweights, The Ornithological Council. From their collective authorship:

The undersigned organizations, dedicated both to academic freedom and the exchange of scholarly and scientific ideas and to the critically important ideals of government transparency that are embodied by FOIA, urge the University of Virginia to...balanc(e) the interests in public disclosure against the public interest in academic freedom, which the University of Virginia has recognized in its faculty handbook as "an essential ingredient of an environment of academic excellence."

Unfortunately university faculty handbooks don't trump state laws, as ATI explained in our response to the groups' letter:

ATI's FOIA request is not on behalf of government, but of taxpayers, who have the right to know how and where their dollars are spent - or misspent. "Academic freedom" is not a legitimate exemption, any more than "bureaucratic freedom" is an acceptable exemption for state government employees. The coverage of state universities is very clear in Virginia's Freedom of Information laws.

ATI's Chris Horner also notes in our response how these groups were missing in action on the "academic freedom" front when Greenpeace demanded the records of Mann's former UVA colleague, Patrick Michaels, a climate alarmism skeptic. Same goes for several other skeptical scientists at other institutions where Greenpeace inquired.

In other Penn State news, I see that "The Amazing Revkin," who also goes by Andy, will be featured at the university's 2011 Colloquium on the Environment. PSU describes in part the New York Times blogger with this laugh line: "While the media largely ignored the climate story until the last several years, Revkin spent more than 20 years immersed in this subject...."

The story of Andy as pioneer -- ought to be fun.

posted by PAUL CHESSER | 02:28 PM | 0 comment

APRIL 15, 2011

Volz, Pitt Part Ways

Last week I told you how Junkscience.com's Steve Milloy outed the University of Pittsburgh's Conrad "Dan" Volz and his deeply flawed report that alleged Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling is contaminating drinking water supplies in Pennsylvania. Volz had to make corrections to his report, but Milloy still found several errors in the revision.

On Sunday the Tribune-Review reported that Volz is leaving Pitt:

A University of Pittsburgh researcher who is a vocal critic of Marcellus shale drilling said Saturday he is leaving his post because the university won't allow him to speak publicly about environmental issues, not because of online criticism of his work.

Conrad "Dan" Volz, director of the Center for Healthy Environments and Communities at Pitt's Graduate School of Public Health, said he was not fired or under pressure to resign, but finds he has a calling for advocating for public health.

Volz testified before Congress earlier this week on the fracking issue and his water reports. But he leaves on the table a $250,000 grant from the Heinz Endowments to Pitt's CHEC, in which Volz was tasked to find environmental threats and assess them. WTAE-TV reports (unable to embed video) that Volz leaves much research unfinished, and that "he never did publish his findings from an air quality study he began last year."

Clearly Milloy's expose' was a problem, and as I wrote last week, Volz is well-known for his enthusiastic alarmism that is sometimes spiced with profanity. Not every academic crowd can embrace such a personality.

posted by PAUL CHESSER | 11:50 AM | 0 comment

APRIL 7, 2011

Lies, Heinz and Volz

Last week Steve Milloy of Junkscience.com published an expose' of a water quality report by University of Pittsburgh gas frack panicker Conrad "Dan" Volz, in which the professor had to issue a revised report after other experts found that -- as Volz explained -- "numerous references he used in the report were incorrect and/or misstated." But Milloy identified several errors even in the revised report, in which Volz alleged that the natural gas industry polluted drinking water with carcinogens. Among them, Volz:

• Demonstrates a lack of understanding and/or a disregard of federal and state environmental standards. For example, he relies heavily on Safe Drinking Water Act maximum contaminant levels (MCLs) that apply only at points of use for actual drinking water supply systems. He wrongly compares effluent discharges from a commercial treatment plant that discharges into a nearly-dead creek to these drinking water standards.
• Claims exceedances of drinking water standards despite that there are no drinking water intakes or uses - and none are possible because the creek is so polluted from abandoned coal mine discharges for miles above and below the brine treatment facility.
• Claims limits for contaminants such as strontium that cannot be found in federal or state regulations.
• Asserts that anglers frequent the stream and that it is listed for trout stocking. But there are no fish to be caught and the stream is not stocked due to mine water pollution that has degraded the entire stream. No trout have been stocked in Blacklick Creek for years.

Volz, who I write about in an upcoming report for Commonwealth Foundation, is one of the beneficiaries of a campaign against natural gas by the Heinz Endowments, chaired by Teresa Heinz Kerry. He is director of Pitt's Center for Healthy Environments and Communities (CHEC), and was recognized by the Group Against Smog and Pollution for an "environmental hero" award.

Through a $250,000 grant from Heinz, Volz is tasked with finding environmental "threats" and assessing them and the programs that are supposed to make them less threatening. Not surprisingly, as the Post-Gazette reported, Volz "said the early list includes emissions from several coal-fired power plants, water quality in area rivers and coal ash lagoon sites like Beaver County's Little Blue Run...." He also told the newspaper:

"We want to know what key informants and the public thinks and we'll be asking questions about threats, sources and problem sites. We'll be looking at lots of things. Our list of potential threats is already somewhere between 30 and 40."

Volz makes for an amusing counterpart to Penn State's Michael Mann. Prone to hyperbole, Milloy had captured a bounty of Volz's wild warnings (even using profanity) of public health threats posed by hydraulic fracturing and other activities. That video is currently unavailable while Milloy addresses a copyright claim, but in the meantime you can enjoy this clip of Volz voltage:

posted by PAUL CHESSER | 00:22 PM | 0 comment

MARCH 18, 2011

Michael Mann at the Zoo

I've got a piece up today at American Spectator which reveals the latest two taxpayer-funded projects that Penn State Climategate scientist Michael Mann has added to his curriculum vitae. Of interest is his involvement in an effort to "understand the preconceptions, attitudes, beliefs, and learning modes of zoo (nine of them) visitors regarding climate change," and then "investigate strategies designed to foster changes in public attitudes, understandings, and behavior surrounding climate change."

Can you tell they are losing the battle for public perception?

This project received $1 million from the taxpayer-funded National Science Foundation, although Penn State only received a sliver of that. Mann and Co. are also working with Polar Bears International on this, so you can see where that's going.

posted by PAUL CHESSER | 01:49 PM | 1 comment

MARCH 17, 2011

Another Way to Handle Budget Problems

Following up on Charles's post last week about Penn State's "political stunt" over Gov. Corbett's planned cuts to the university, it might help PSU president Graham Spanier to look south for some coping mechanisms. Charles explained that Dr. Spanier "is threatening to close campuses, warning he'll have to raise in-state tuition, and accusing Gov. Corbett of asking students to bear the brunt of his cuts."

Compare that to the measures North Carolina State University Chancellor Randolph Woodson is taking, with the Tar Heel State facing a $3.7 billion budget hole:

Woodson has endorsed a set of recommendations prepared by university officials that would eliminate as many as 600 courses that haven't been taught in five years, set minimum class sizes and consolidate numerous offices and divisions at the sprawling, 34,000-student institution.

"We can sit back and wait for our budget to be cut, and then we can distribute those cuts across all the units on campus, but that's not very strategic," Woodson told The Associated Press.

The scope of reductions won't be fully known until after the state budget is finished later this year, but the recommendations accepted by Woodson call for eliminating a number of high-ranking administrative positions, including two vice chancellors and one dean.

Other recommendations include a comprehensive review to be completed in 2012 of 28 undergraduate and 32 graduate degree programs lagging behind other programs in at least two of five variables that include enrollment, number of applications and degrees awarded.

The plan was made public late Monday, and reaction from campus is still coming in, but Woodson said most of the responses he's heard so far are a mixture of apprehension and optimism.

Think Penn State might be able to find some worthwhile savings if they just, ahem, look?

posted by PAUL CHESSER | 05:20 PM | 0 comment

MARCH 8, 2011

Time to Reinvestigate Mann and Now PSU

My American Tradition Institute colleague Chris Horner reports today at the Daily Caller that a NOAA inspector has dug up proof of deception in Penn State's Wite Out investigation of Climategate scientist Michael Mann: 

The key point is that the Penn State investigators never interviewed a principal who was able to confirm or deny a key charge against "Hockey Stick" lead author of "Hide the Decline" infamy Michael Mann. This individual has now been interviewed, and what he told federal investigators has indicted Mann and Penn State.

The inspector general's report specifically reveals Penn State's wagon-circlers to have been at best comically negligent/inept in allowing Mann to not answer the damning charge they were tasked with examining: did he delete or ask others to delete records? At worst, they were complicit in the cover-up.

Simply by interviewing Mann's colleague Eugene Wahl, PSU would have exposed Mann's "answer" for what it was (and wasn't). Such an interview was obviously necessary for any inquiry. Penn State chose not to conduct it, for its own reasons. A federal inspector general has now conducted it. And the result is damning of both Mann and the parties that chose not to interview Wahl.

Climate Audit's Steve McIntyre has the relevant points of the transcripted interview between the NOAA IG and Wahl:

Q. Did you ever receive a request by either Michael Mann or any others to delete any emails?
A. I did receive that email. That's the last one on your list here. I did receive that.
Q. So, how did you actually come about receiving that? Did you actually just - he just forward the - Michael Mann - and it was Michael Mann I guess?
A. Yes
Q. - That you received the email from?
A. Correct ...
A. To my knowledge, I just received a forward from him.
Q. And what were the actions that you took?
A. Well, to the best of my recollection, I did delete the emails.

Horner explains the shortcomings of the sponge-bathers at PSU:

Penn State asked Mann and only Mann if he destroyed records or was indirectly involved in destroying records. Mann said only that he did not destroy records. And that did it. Even though Phil Jones asked Mann to instruct Wahl to do so as well.

Allow me to translate this in relevant part:

PSU: This is potentially very grave. We must know: Did you do A or B?

Mann: I did not do A.

PSU: Ah. There we go. It appears there is no evidence he did A or B.

Maybe now Pennsylvania legislators will see reason to investigate Mann, as Commonwealth Foundation requested over a year ago, since PSU has proven incapable of a competent review. Indeed, it's time to "Mann up."

posted by PAUL CHESSER | 05:47 PM | 0 comment

FEBRUARY 25, 2011

No CONSOLation from PSU's PC Move

It seems the number of Penn State graduates who are upset at recent actions of their alma mater grows by the day. Today 11 of them, who are employed by CONSOL Energy, take the University to task in The Daily Collegian for its failure to properly investigate Climategate "hockey stick" scientist Michael Mann, but also to criticize Penn State's attitude towards coal -- a huge part of CONSOL's business:

...causing us great concern was to learn that the university decided to transition away from the last coal-fired steam production system on campus.

What a counterproductive message to send to the students and the public by abandoning coal-fueled energy in favor of what Al Horvath, vice president for finance and business, characterizes as more "sustainable energy" sources.

How ironic that a university in the heart of coal country, that houses an advanced coal utilization lab, that operates a Coal and Coke Heritage Center, in our nation's fourth largest coal producing state, decided to send this message at a time when energy procurement couldn't be more critical....

In reality, thanks to more than $90 billion invested in advanced technologies, regulated emissions from coal-based generation (that is, real pollutants, not invisible carbon dioxide gas) have been significantly reduced. CONSOL Energy, and other energy companies, has worked with the Department of Energy and various universities to develop, demonstrate and deploy the next generation of advanced technologies that will make it possible to reduce regulated emissions even further (to near-zero levels) and capture and store greenhouse gases.

If PSU wants to be consistent, they would abandon all associations with the coal industry, dump the Heritage Center, etc. But my guess is that this isn't a moral stand, but just pandering to the environoiac Left in the academic community. I doubt PSU can afford to be truly principled, if indeed they believe at their core that coal is "unsustainable" or worse, or else they might lose some serious fossil-fueled donors. Looks like 11 of them are on the fence.

posted by PAUL CHESSER | 02:07 PM | 0 comment