Russell, W AG

<a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jan/12/virginia-court-hears-cuccinellis-defense-of-climat/?page=all">http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jan/12/virginia-court-hears-cuccinellis-defense-of-climat/?page=all</a>

1/12/12
<p>RICHMOND — A deputy for state Attorney General Kenneth T. Cuccinelli

II argued before Virginia's highest court Thursday that his office has a

right to investigate whether a climate scientist defrauded the state in

seeking taxpayer-funded grants for his research.</p><p>Wesley G.

Russell Jr., deputy attorney general for civil litigation for Virginia,

argued that the Fraud Against Taxpayers Act, which Mr. Cuccinelli is

using to issue subpoenalike demands for records related to climatologist

Michael Mann, allows him to do so if there is "reason to believe" that a

person may have documents relevant to a fraud investigation.</p><p>"The

entire purpose of the statutory scheme is to see whether the

commonwealth or its agencies have been bilked out of money," Mr. Russell

said.</p><p>Albemarle County Circuit Court Judge Paul Peatross set

aside the demands in August 2010, saying that there was no "objective

basis" to think that Mr. Mann committed fraud in securing five

taxpayer-funded grants, four of which involved federal money<strong>.</strong></p><p>In

response, Mr. Cuccinelli appealed the ruling and refiled a new demand

narrowing the scope of his inquiry to the one state-funded grant. The

judge has put that case on hold until a Supreme Court ruling on the

appeal.</p><p>The University of Virginia, where Mr. Mann worked, and a

number of science groups have consistently argued that the inquiry from

Mr. Cuccinelli, a climate-change skeptic, is an assault on academic

freedom and could have a "chilling effect" on professors' research in

the future. Mr. Cuccinelli has maintained that the case is not

politically motivated and that academic freedom cannot shield someone

from a fraud investigation.</p><p>Mr. Mann, associated with the infamous

"hockey stick" graph that documented a rapid rise in the Earth's

temperature during the 20th century, gained prominence during the

"Climategate" scandal of late 2009. When emails from the University of

East Anglia were leaked, skeptics alleged that professors were

manipulating research data, though Mr. Mann has been widely cleared of

any academic wrongdoing.</p><p>Jessica Ellsworth, an attorney

representing the University of Virginia, argued that under the act, the

definition of "person" under the Fraud Against Taxpayers Act does not

extend to a state university in this particular case.</p><p>"The

attorney general utterly failed as the statute requires to state the

nature of the conduct constituting the alleged violation," argued Chuck

Rosenberg, another attorney for the university. "The circuit court

[recognized] there may well be a debate about climate change, but that's

not what the statute requires."</p><p>Mr. Russell, however, argued that

the court failed to make a distinction between the investigative phase

of the process and the litigation phase, and the act granted the

attorney general authority to investigate the documents to see whether

fraud had occurred.</p><p>A ruling is expected in March.</p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In a

similar but unaffiliated case, Delegate Robert G. Marshall, Prince

William Republican, and the conservative <font color="#FF0000">American Tradition Institute

</font>are in the process of obtaining records related to Mr. Mann from the

university through an open-records request. The group is producing

copies of a small number of thousands of emails to show to a judge as

examples of ones they think are not exempt from the Freedom of

Information Act.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The group plans to depose the university and Mr.

Mann in mid-February, said David Schnare, director of the ATI

Environmental Law Center.</span></p><p>"If they have to give everything to the

attorney general, then why continue on with this case?" he asked.

"They'll just give us the stuff, too ... at the end of the day, they

either give us these things willingly, or it's going to go all the way

up the ladder."</p><p>Mr. Mann said in an email that people such as Mr.

Cuccinelli and conservative groups are simply engaging in an "ongoing

smear campaign" in an attempt to discredit climate science.</p><p>"As

the evidence gets stronger, the industry special interests who find the

science inconvenient and those who do their bidding have chosen to

simply pour more resources into a massive disinformation campaign

intended to fool the public and policymakers," he wrote.</p><p class="small"> The Washington Times,</p><div class="full left mb nopad hed"><h5>About the Author</h5></div><h3><a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/staff/david-sherfinski/">David Sherfinski</a>
</h3><div class="small"><p>David Sherfinski covers politics for The Washington Times. He can be reached at <a title="dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com" href="mailto:dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com">dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com</a>.</p></div>===
<font size="+1" /><pre><font size="+1">Professor turns to law to protect climate work. A former

University of Virginia professor who has drawn the ire of climate

change skeptics is entering the legal fray over a conservative

group�s pursuit of his emails and documents related to his work.

Attorneys for Michael Mann, now a professor at Pennsylvania State

University, have filed a motion to intervene in a case brought by

the American Tradition Institute�s (ATI) Environmental Law Center

and Delegate Robert G. Marshall, Prince William Republican.

Posted.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/sep/6/professor-turns-to-law-to-protect-climate-work/</font></pre>
===
<a href="http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/24/ruling-due-in-virginia-climate-change-case/">http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/24/ruling-due-in-virginia-climate-change-case/</a>

<h1 class="entry-title">Ruling Is Due in Virginia Climate Change Case</h1>

<address class="byline author vcard">By <a href="http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/author/john-m-broder/" class="url fn" title="See all posts by JOHN M. BRODER">JOHN M. BRODER</a></address>

<div class="entry-content"><p>A ruling is expected within a week on a demand by Virginia’s attorney general that the <a class="tickerized" title="More articles about University of Virginia" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/university_of_virginia/index.html?inline=nyt-org">University of Virginia</a> release the research records of a well-known climate change researcher.

The attorney general, <a href="http://www.oag.state.va.us/">Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II</a>, has demanded that the university produce information relating to grant applications by <a href="http://www.meteo.psu.edu/%7Emann/Mann/">Michael E. Mann</a>,

a prominent climate scientist who produced the widely publicized

“hockey stick” graph showing a sharp increase in global average

temperatures in the industrial age.

Dr. Mann worked at the University of Virginia from 1999 to 2005 and has since taught at <a class="tickerized" title="More articles about Pennsylvania State University" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/p/pennsylvania_state_university/index.html?inline=nyt-org">Penn State University</a>.

His work was called into question in the investigations into the

so-called climategate scandal arising from the unauthorized release of

hundreds of e-mails from a British climate center last November. Several

investigations, including an extensive review of his research by Penn

State, have cleared him of academic misconduct.

But Mr. Cuccinelli, a Republican and a climate change skeptic who has also sued the <a class="tickerized" title="More articles about the Environmental Protection Agency." href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/e/environmental_protection_agency/index.html?inline=nyt-org">Environmental Protection Agency</a>

to try to prevent it from imposing regulations on carbon dioxide and

other climate-altering gases, has demanded that the University of

Virginia release documents relating to Dr. Mann’s grant applications

there. <span id="more-67791" />

Mr. Cuccinelli suspects that Dr. Mann may have violated the state’s

Fraud Against Taxpayers Act by manipulating data in applications for

more than $450,000 in research grants.

Dr. Mann and the university contend that the attorney general is

engaged in a witch hunt and is violating both academic freedom and the

First Amendment. In a court hearing last week in Charlottesville, Va.,

the home of the state’s flagship university, Chuck Rosenberg, a lawyer

for the university, said that Mr. Cuccinelli had failed to specify

exactly what Dr. Mann had done wrong.

The deputy attorney general, Wesley Russell, said the state needed

e-mails and other documents from the university to determine whether Dr.

Mann falsified data in seeking state grants. He said the inquiry was

not intended to squelch Dr. Mann’s work, but rather to uncover any

misuse of public money.

Dr. Mann had denied any wrongdoing and did not attend last week’s hearing.

The retired Albemarle County Circuit Court judge, Paul M. Peatross Jr., said he would rule by the end of the month.</p>

</div>
<h1 class="entry-title">Ruling Is Due in Virginia Climate Change Case</h1>