A Democratic member of Congress is digging into the funding of a handful of researchers who have questioned the prevailing view on the causes of climate change, The Washington Post reports.
Arizona’s Raul M. Grijalva, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives’ Committee on Natural Resources, wrote letters to seven university presidents asking for information about the funding sources for researchers at their institutions who have publicly questioned whether man-made pollution is to blame for the warming of the earth’s climate.
Mr. Grijalva’s effort follows the revelation that the climate-change skeptic Wei-Hock Soon, an astrophysicist at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, had much of his research funded by energy-industry groups and others who have supported efforts to discredit research linking carbon emissions and climate change.
Mr. Grijalva addressed his letter to the presidents of:
- Arizona State University
- Georgia Institute of Technology
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Pepperdine University
- University of Alabama at Huntsville
- University of Colorado system
- University of Delaware
The researcher at Colorado, Roger Pielke Jr., has spoken out about the inquiry, calling it a “witch hunt,” the Daily Camera reports.