Congressman Calls For Hearing Into Heartland Institute Payments to Federal Employee Indur Goklany

Brendan DeMelle DeSmog
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Representative Raรบl 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 โ€œreceived 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 otherย issues.โ€

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

Heartlandโ€™s leaked 2012 Proposed Budget document indicates that it plans to pay Goklany $1,000 per month this year to write a chapter on โ€œEconomics and Policyโ€ for a report by the Heartland-funded NIPCC. ย 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 โ€œteaching, speaking and writing that relates to [their] officialย duties.โ€

Goklany.org mentions that heโ€™s โ€œworked with federal and state governments, think tanks, and the private sector for over 35ย years.โ€

Other climate denier think tanks Goklany is affiliated with include the Cato Institute, which published both of Goklanyโ€™s books, and the Reason Foundation which has published multiple โ€œPolicy Studiesโ€ by Goklany attacking the IPCC and claming climate change impacts are exaggerated.ย  He was involved in a Competitive Enterprise Institute film countering Al Goreโ€™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 Awardย (2007).

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

Goklany is listed as a Senior Advisor on the Interior Departmentโ€™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.ย 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?

Brendan DeMelle DeSmog
Brendan is Executive Director of DeSmog. He is also a freelance writer and researcher specializing in media, politics, climate change and energy. His work has appeared in Vanity Fair, The Huffington Post, Grist, The Washington Times and other outlets.

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