Representative Raúl M. Grijalva today called for a full Natural Resources Committee hearing to probe whether Indur Goklany, a Senior Advisor at the U.S. Interior Department, improperly received payments from the Heartland Institute while collecting a paycheck from U.S. taxpayers.

Rep. Grijalva, the ranking member of the House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands, urged his fellow Congressmen to hold a hearing as early as next week to determine whether Goklany “received money he was promised by the Heartland Institute for writing a chapter in a book focused on climate policy in apparent violation of federal rules, among other issues.”

This is just the first of what should and will likely be many hearings into the facts revealed in the ‘Denialgate‘ leaked Heartland Institute documents.

Heartland’s leaked 2012 Proposed Budget document indicates that it plans to pay Goklany $1,000 per month this year to write a chapter on “Economics and Policy” for a report by the Heartland-funded NIPCC.  Greenpeace notes in its letter to DOI Secretary Ken Salazar today that federal employees are warned not to take payments from outside organizations, particularly for “teaching, speaking and writing that relates to [their] official duties.”

Goklany.org mentions that he’s “worked with federal and state governments, think tanks, and the private sector for over 35 years.”

Other climate denier think tanks Goklany is affiliated with include the Cato Institute, which published both of Goklany’s books, and the Reason Foundation which has published multiple “Policy Studies” by Goklany attacking the IPCC and claming climate change impacts are exaggerated.  He was involved in a Competitive Enterprise Institute film countering Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. He’s also affiliated with the Global Warming Policy Foundation and the International Policy Network, according to Sourcewatch.

Goklany was also the Julian Simon Fellow at the anti-environmental Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) in 2000, a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (2002-2003), and the winner of the Julian Simon Prize and Award (2007).

Goklany is a regular guest contributor on denier blog Watts Up With That, posting as recently as a few weeks ago. 

Goklany is listed as a Senior Advisor on the Interior Department’s Office of Policy Analysis current staff list.

Congress should ask why Goklany or other federal employees would consider it ethical to accept funding and other support from anti-science think tanks while receiving a paycheck from U.S. taxpayers?

How long has he been on the Heartland payroll? Was he paid by Heartland or other front groups during his stint representing the U.S. government in front of the UN IPCC?