Climate Science Denial Group GWPF Rejected by Scandal-Hit EPA Chief Scott Pruitt

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Even Scott Pruitt โ€” the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief known rarely toย turn down a freebie โ€” doesnโ€™t want to have anything to do with the UKโ€™s premier climate science denialย group.

The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) invited Pruitt to give its annual lecture in 2017. Pruitt either rejected or ignored the invite, as it was ultimately former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott that took to the stage.

Pruitt is currently in charge of implementing the USโ€™s environmental regulations. But he has well-publicised ties to the fossil industry, and has made it a priority to roll back President Obamaโ€™s power plant pollutionย limits.

Pruitt is currently embroiled in a wide-reaching ethics scandal in the US.

The GWPFโ€™s ย invitation was sent via the US-based lawyer Latham & Watkins, which runs the GWPFโ€™s US fundraising arm. The subsidiary is represented by Los Angeles lawyer, Paul Tosetti, who has handled several mega-mergers of large pharmaceutical companies, and who registered the GWPF at a PO Box inย Delaware.

A representative of the US bank, Midfirst, later lobbied Pruitt on the GWPFโ€™sย behalf.

Midfirstโ€™s CEO is a โ€œgood friendโ€ of Tosettiโ€™s, the email reveals. And despite the fact that the Midfirst representative acknowledged that he did โ€œnot know the organizationโ€, he agreed to try and โ€œensure Scott at least received and considered theย invitationโ€.

The emails were part of more than 24,000 pages of emails, call logs, and documents from Pruittโ€™s office, obtained by environmental group, the Sierra Club. The GWPF email to Pruitt was first revealed by New York Times journalist Lisa Freidmann onย Twitter:

The GWPF lies at the heart of a web of climate science denial that stretches across both sides of theย Atlantic.

DeSmog UK previously mapped the key relationships, which include foreign secretary Boris Johnson, International Trade Secretary Liam Fox, as well as Tory backbenchers and GWPF allies Matt Ridley and Owen Paterson.

Main image: Gage Skidmore/Flickr CC BYSAย 2.0

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Mat was DeSmog's Special Projects and Investigations Editor, and Operations Director of DeSmog UK Ltd. He was DeSmog UKโ€™s Editor from October 2017 to March 2021, having previously been an editor at Nature Climate Change and analyst at Carbon Brief.

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