By Printus LeBlanc
Every year, the federal government gives out billions of taxpayer dollars through dozens of federal agencies to study man-made climate change. It has become a cottage industry supporting hundreds of “scientists” around the world. Their research has led to countless federal agency regulations costing the U.S. economy thousands of jobs and trillions in economic output. What would happen if the underlying data in the studies was falsified?
The studies are used in courts of law around the country. New York City is suing Exxon, Shell, and several other oil companies for what it calls, “present and future damage to the city from climate change.” San Francisco and Oakland are also suing five oil companies in California, stating oil companies must “pay for the cost of protecting the Bay Area from rising sea levels and other effects of global warming.”
Arnold Schwarzenegger is even getting into the act, recently announcing he is going to sue oil companies “for knowingly killing people all over the world.” He has yet to announce he is going to stop making movies that use copious amounts of energy to produce or quit flying private.
But a recent decision by EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt may throw everything up for grabs, including the studies used to launch the lawsuits. As the Daily Torch reported last week, Pruitt is ending the practice of “secret science” to justify regulations within the EPA.
This raises an interesting question. If the scientists manipulated data to come to a preconceived result, is this a crime? If the scientists filled out grant applications using manipulated data, is that fraud? The law says yes.
After looking at the hacked emails of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit, it certainly appears data was manipulated to achieve a preconceived outcome. Several scientists around the world manipulated data to end the Medieval Warming Period (MWP) according to the leaked emails. The new data was then used to push massive governmental regulations.
This is not the first time questionable science has been used to justify regulations or lawsuits.
The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), a division of the Centers for Disease Control, issued a report linking health problems to a chemical called diacetyl. The report spawned more than 1,000 lawsuits, but there appears to be a flaw in the science.
The agency tries to link diacetyl to Bronchiolitis obliterans, also known as popcorn lung, through exposure from microwave popcorn and coffee roasting, but the agency ignores cigarette smoke. Perhaps they do this because other studies cannot link smokers to popcorn lung. Cardno ChemRisk published a study in Critical Reviews on Toxicology stating, “We found that diacetyl and 2,3-pentanedione exposures from cigarette smoking far exceed occupational exposures for most food/flavoring workers who smoke.” They continued, “Further, because smoking has not been shown to be a risk factor for bronchiolitis obliterans, our findings are inconsistent with claims that diacetyl and/or 2,3-pentanedione exposure are risk factors for this disease.”
Why would NIOSH ignore one set of facts to concentrate on another set of facts? Could trial lawyers have anything to do with it?
If the federal government is going to continue handing out billions in grants for research, then create regulations based on the research, it must ensure the accuracy of the research and prosecute fraud when found. All data must be made available to agencies and the public, bare minimum. And if a scientist manipulates data to meet a preconceived result, he is not a scientist, he is a fraud and should be prosecuted as such.
Printus LeBlanc is a contributing editor at Americans for Limited Government