Lehr, Jay htlnd

=<p style="font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 1.35714em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 25px; vertical-align: baseline; overflow-wrap: break-word;">In one case, Syngenta paid $100,000 to the nonprofit American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) for support that included an op-ed piece criticizing the work of journalist Charles Duhigg of The New York Times, who wrote a story on atrazine as part of the paper's Toxic Waters series in 2009. Without disclosing this financial support from Syngenta, president and founder Elizabeth Whelan derided The Times article on atrazine as "All the news that's fit to scare."<p style="font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 1.35714em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 25px; vertical-align: baseline; overflow-wrap: break-word;">ACSH is a nonprofit that advocates against what it considers government's over-regulation of issues related to science and health.<p style="font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 1.35714em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 25px; vertical-align: baseline; overflow-wrap: break-word;">"Dear Syngenta friends," began a 2009 email from Gilbert Ross, a physician at ACSH, thanking Syngenta for its payments and financial support over the years. "Such general operating support is the lifeblood of a small nonprofit like ours, and is both deeply appreciated and much needed."<p style="font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 1.35714em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 25px; vertical-align: baseline; overflow-wrap: break-word;">In response to emailed questions for this article, Ross defended the decision not to publicly disclose the payments, and dismissed Hayes as an "outlier."<p style="font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 1.35714em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 25px; vertical-align: baseline; overflow-wrap: break-word;">"To 'disclose' funding on every topic we cover – and there are many – would give the mistaken impression that the donations came first to encourage or persuade us to cover a topic, and cover it in a manner beneficial to the donor," Ross wrote.<p style="font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 1.35714em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 25px; vertical-align: baseline; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Atrazine, he continued, "has been well-known and widely proven to be highly beneficial for agriculture and crop yields and economics of farming. Those who promote hysteria and baseless (commonly litigation-driven) attacks on it are not coming from a sound-science POV [point of view], and we have no apologies nor explanations needed for accepting support from companies who develop and market crop protection chemicals which are manifestly beneficial and pose either no health risk or merely hypothetical 'risk.'"Steven Milloy, publisher of <a href="http://junkscience.com/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">JunkScience.com</a> and president of Citizens for the Integrity of Science, is also in Syngenta's Supportive Third Party Stakeholders Database. In a December 3, 2004, email to Syngenta, Milloy requested a grant of $15,000 for the nonprofit Free Enterprise Education Institute for an atrazine stewardship cost-benefit analysis project.<p style="font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 1.35714em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 25px; vertical-align: baseline; overflow-wrap: break-word;">In a letter dated August 6, 2008, Milloy requested a $25,000 grant for the nonprofit Free Enterprise Project of the National Center for Public Policy Research. In an email on that date, he wrote, "send the check to me as usual and I'll take care of it."<p style="font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 1.35714em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 25px; vertical-align: baseline; overflow-wrap: break-word;">While op-eds aim to shape public opinion, economic and cost-benefit analyses were also important, because EPA rulings on pesticide use are based on health, environmental, and economic effects.In an email to Syngenta's head of communications, Thompson praised an essay that ran in the <i style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102); font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Belleville News Democrat, an Illinois newspaper based about twenty miles from Edwardsville, the community that initiated the lawsuit. The 2006 essay was signed by Jay Lehr of the Heartland Institute. The essay claimed the Holiday Shores lawsuit could, if successful, shrink the nation's food supply."These are great clips for us because they get out some of our messages from someone (Lehr) who comes off sounding like an unbiased expert," Thompson wrote. "Another strength is that the messages do not sound like they came from Syngenta."The Heartland Institute fought a subpoena all the way to the Illinois Supreme Court in 2012 that would have forced it to disclose any financial relationship with Syngenta and the source of its articles supporting atrazine. The Heartland Institute argued disclosure would violate its First Amendment rights. The case settled before a ruling was issued, so the relationship remains undisclosed.<p style="font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 1.35714em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 25px; vertical-align: baseline; overflow-wrap: break-word;">In response to an emailed question, the Heartland Institute did not deny receiving funding from Syngenta. Any money it receives, the institute maintained, is considered a donation to a nonprofit, and Heartland is not obligated to disclose donor information. Its president, Joseph Bast, has said he would go to jail for contempt of court "rather than share a single note he had ever made during a meeting with a donor."<h3 style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 13px 0px 7px; line-height: 1.375em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</h3><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/08/11/heartland-deniers-deflated-climate-reality" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/08/11/heartland-deniers-deflated-climate-reality</a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="">Climate science deniers are becoming desperate as their numbers diminish in the face of incontrovertible evidence that human-caused global warming is putting our future at risk. Although most people with basic education, common sense, and a lack of financial interest in the fossil fuel industry accept what scientists worldwide have proven through decades of research, some media outlets continue to publish inconsistent, incoherent opinions of people who reject climate science.Over the past few weeks, Canada's Postmedia chain has run columns denying or downplaying the seriousness of climate change by Fraser Institute senior fellow <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/ross-mckitrick" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">RossMcKitrick</a>, defeated politician Joe Oliver, and fossil fuel executive and Fraser Institute board member Gwyn Morgan, who is also former chair of scandal-plagued SNC-Lavalin.McKitrick, an economist, has also signed the <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/cornwall-alliance-stewardship-creation" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Cornwall Alliance Evangelical Declaration on Global Warming</a>, which says, in part, “We believe Earth and its ecosystems — created by God's intelligent design and infinite power and sustained by His faithful providences — are robust, resilient, self-regulating, and self-correcting, admirably suited for human flourishing, and displaying His glory. Earth's climate system is no exception.” Other prominent deniers, including <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2014/oct/02/global-warming-battle-for-evangelical-hearts-and-minds" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Roy Spencer and David Legates</a>, have also signed.South of the border, the <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/in-shift-key-climate-denialist-group-heartland-institute-pivots-to-policy/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Heartland Institute</a>, a leading U.S. denial organization with ties to Canadian organizations such as the misnamed <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/International_Climate_Science_Coalition" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">International Climate Science Coalition</a>, still holds its <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/07/29/hard-times-climate-denial-heartland-institute" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">annual denial fest</a>. But even that organization is feeling hard times in the face of evidence—similar to the proof that made it walk back its previous support for the tobacco industry to the point that its members now admit smoking is bad but <a href="https://www.heartland.org/publications-resources/publications/latest-heartland-policy-booklet-addresses-vaping-myths" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none;">defend vaping </a>and other “smokeless” tobacco-industry products.Heartland's <a href="http://inthesetimes.com/article/21980/i-went-to-a-climate-change-denial-conference-heartland-institute-trump" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none;">13th International Conference on Climate Change</a> — held at the Washington, D.C., Trump International Hotel — was down from three days to one. It once attracted more than 50 sponsors, but this year drew just 16 — and <a href="https://documented.net/2019/07/24/heartland-said-that-fidelity-charitable-sponsored-its-climate-denial-event-at-trump-hotel-it-didnt-says-fidelity/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">one was fake</a>! Fossil fuel companies have also cut funding, realizing that denial is not an effective way to gain social licence. Attendance was limited to a couple hundred mostly older white men.As usual, the conference speakers' reasons for denying climate science were all over the map.Some simply rejected all evidence. According to British eccentric Christopher Monckton, who has no scientific credentials, droughts, wildfires and hurricanes are decreasing; sea levels are falling, not rising; and rising carbon dioxide emissions are improving life on Earth!Others argued that CO2 levels aren't rising, while some claimed the planet is cooling. In other words, the arguments were mostly easily debunked, contradictory nonsense in service of the most profitable and polluting industry in human history.You'd think Heartland would be riding high under a government that shares its antiscience views. But even holding the conference in a Trump hotel blocks from the White House didn't gain it the profile organizers would have liked. <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/tom-harris" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Tom Harris</a>, a discredited Canadian fossil fuel promoter who works with Heartland and the International Climate Science Coalition, penned a <a href="https://americaoutloud.com/trump-administration-to-miss-most-important-climate-change-conference-of-the-year/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">sad article</a> with fellow denier, Heartland “science director,” and convicted criminal <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/jay-h-lehr" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Jay Lehr</a>, crying: “No one from the Trump administration will be in attendance,” which, they whined, is “a huge loss since ICCC-13 will reveal that neither science nor economics back up the climate scare.”Lehr, a groundwater hydrologist by training, also worked for the Advancement of Sound Science Coalition, an organization founded by Phillip Morris and by PR firm APCO Worldwide to cast doubt on the scientific evidence regarding harms caused by tobacco. Harris also worked for APCO Worldwide.It's getting harder for anyone to deny the reality staring us in the face. Those who continue to spread doubt and confusion about climate science are starting to look even more ridiculous with their many conflicting, insubstantial arguments.Even some prominent deniers have come around. Political consultant <a href="https://grist.org/article/the-gops-most-famous-messaging-strategist-calls-for-climate-action/?fbclid=IwAR2WgNBWerbU7OyvOJtExVQsEsYvovIL_m0ThTbKz4_ScqxfvD9vNu8YLsU" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Frank Luntz</a> — who once advised the U.S. government to cast doubt on scientific certainty around climate change and to use the term “climate change” rather than “global warming” because it sounds less scary — now says, “I was wrong in 2001.” In recent testimony before the U.S. Senate, Luntz said: “Rising sea levels, melting ice caps, tornadoes, and hurricanes more ferocious than ever. It is happening.”Yes, it is happening. And it's time for deniers to accept evidence and reason or get the hell out of the way.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div>=</div><div>no desmog profil</div><div>
</div><div>If you’re John Stossel and you want to host a segment to rail against the US Environmental Protection Agency, who ought you call?It turns out, a man who was convicted and sentenced to six months in prison for defrauding the EPA!Stossel’s guest last night, Jay Lehr, was sentenced to six months–serving three–in a minimum security federal <a href="http://www.mgwa.org/newsletter/mgwa1991-3.pdf" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; box-shadow: none; letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">prison</a> back in 1991, and his organization at the time was <a href="http://www.mgwa.org/newsletter/mgwa1991-2.pdf" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; box-shadow: none; letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">fined $200,000</a>. So Jay Lehr knows about EPA corruption better than anyone: he was the guy caught “falsifying employee time sheets on a government contract” for EPA, according to the <a href="https://www.desmog.com/2014/09/04/heartland-science-director-jay-lehr-calls-epa-fraudulent-defrauded-epa-himself/#Dispatch" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; box-shadow: none; letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">Columbus Dispatch</a>,[pix]Ironically, Lehr told Stossel that EPA is “fraudulent” in estimates of amounts of pollution that pose hazards to people’s health, such as particulate matter in coal pollution, estimated to prematurely kill 13,000 Americans every year, according to the <a href="http://www.lung.org/press-room/press-releases/power-plants-epa.html" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" transparent="transparent" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none" box-shadow="box-shadow" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">American Lung Association</a>.<a href="https://www.desmog.com/jay-lehr" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; box-shadow: none;">Jay Lehr</a> is now the “science director” at a climate chance science denying organization called The Heartland Institute, which has <a href="http://www.polluterwatch.com/292934-1-15-2012-2012-fundraising-plan" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; box-shadow: none;">received</a> money from coal mining company Murray Energy.John Stossel did not mention Lehr’s fraud conviction. Perhaps he didn’t know his guest defrauded US taxpayers, but Stossel and Lehr share a flair for denial of global warming for polluting corporations like Koch Industries, which has financial ties to both men. Heartland is part of the Koch brothers-funded <a href="http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/campaigns/global-warming-and-energy/polluterwatch/koch-industries/state-policy-network-spn/?utma=1.834972712.1309880319.1345044157.1345047894.336&utmb=1.6.10.1345047894&utmc=1&utmx=-&utmz=1.1345047894.336.247.utmcsr=google|utmccn=%28organic%29|utmcmd=organic|utmctr=%28not%20provided%29&utmv=-&_utmk=19481784" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; box-shadow: none;">State Policy Network</a>–the massive apparatus of state-based and national front groups that push political agendas that are favorable to billionaire executives like Charles Koch. Heartland itself has <a href="http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/campaigns/global-warming-and-energy/polluterwatch/koch-industries/heartland-institute-hi/" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; box-shadow: none;">received</a> money from Koch foundations.Stossel hosts “Stossel in the Classroom,” a product of the Koch-funded Center for Independent Thought. When Stossel ran a TV <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1sFKjAkLws" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; box-shadow: none;">segment</a> in 2009 that was intended to <a href="http://stosselintheclassroom.org/pdf/stossel_TeachersGuide_09.pdf" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; box-shadow: none;">mislead students</a> about the scientific reality of climate change, <a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/recipient/center-for-independent-thought/" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; box-shadow: none;">Koch’s Claude Lambe Foundation gave CIT $35,000</a>. The Center for Independent Thought has continued to receive money from <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Koch_Family_Foundations" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; box-shadow: none;">Koch foundations</a> every year since, according to IRS tax filings.According to a Heartland Institute email advertising Lehr’s attendance on Stossel’s show, Mr. Lehr’s relevance in attacking the EPA comes from a Heartland report he wrote urging the agency to be “<a href="http://heartland.org/policy-documents/replacing-environmental-protection-agency" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; box-shadow: none;">systematically dismantled</a>.” This coming from a group <a href="http://www.polluterwatch.com/292934-1-15-2012-2012-fundraising-plan" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; box-shadow: none;">soliciting money</a> from coal company Murray Energy, former ExxonMobil lobbyist <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Arthur_G.Randol_III" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; box-shadow: none;">Randy Randol</a> and the Charles Koch Foundation.This all fits into the framework that is becoming nauseatingly familiar to American voters: billionaires pull the strings, and our voices don’t matter. Stossel is just one of many <a href="http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/campaigns/global-warming-and-energy/polluterwatch/koch-industries/CASE-STUDY-The-Kochtopus-Media-Network/" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; box-shadow: none;">Koch-funded or Koch friendly media personalities</a> that wrap Charles Koch’s values in patriotic rhetoric and un-factual packaging. Meanwhile, people like Jay Lehr at groups like Heartland continue to carry Koch’s water into the policy arena, influencing politicians to do things like undermine enforcement of laws to reduce air and water pollution or mitigate dangerous climate change.<a id="Dispatch" name="Dispatch" style="font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; box-shadow: none;">Source</a>: David Lore, “Minimum Security, Maximum Cost: State Spends $53,000 Per Prison Bed to House Mostly Nonviolent Criminals,” Columbus Dispatch (Ohio) September 6, 1992.USA V. LEHR, ET AL, Case Number: 2:91-CR-00068, Charges Filed 04/26/1991, U.S. District Court Southern District of Ohio.Hat tip to <a href="http://deepclimate.org/2013/03/04/open-thread-march-2013-muzzling-of-canadian-scientists-iea-energy-technology-perspectives-2012-heartlands-jay-lehr-1980s-fraud-conviction/" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; box-shadow: none;">Deep Climate</a>, <a href="http://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2013/02/a-matter-of-conviction.html" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; box-shadow: none;">Russel Seitz</a> and <a href="http://www.tomathon.com/mphp/2011/03/unrequested-fission-surplus-kent-brockman-meet-jay-lehr/" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; box-shadow: none;">Thomas Miles</a> for leading to primary sources on Jay Lehr’s conviction. Video courtesy <a href="http://crooksandliars.com/2014/09/man-who-defrauded-epa-calls-epa-fraudulent" target="blank" rel="noopener external noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; box-shadow: none;">Crooks and Liars</a>.</div><div>=</div></div>=NOLA 818 huffpo...Craig Richardson, executive director of E&E Legal, a conservative legal group that repeatedly sued the Obama administration's regulatory agencies, said he now sees his group as "trying to be a supportive arm of this new administration." But he lamented what he and others called "virtue signaling" by corporations "jumping on climate change."<div class="content" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Richardson complained about ExxonMobil leaving the conservative advocacy group, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), over a clash on climate policy. (Last year, Heartland wanted ALEC to approve a resolution calling on the EPA to withdraw the endangerment finding. Exxon was among several corporations and utilities that convinced ALEC to shelve a vote on the resolution.)Heartland co-founder Joseph Bast provoked laughter by recounting carmaker GM's response to the <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/02082018/trump-fuel-efficiency-standards-rollback-climate-change-epa" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent;">Trump administration proposal unveiled last week to freeze fuel economy standards</a>. Quoting the <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/zero-crashes-emissions-congestion-mary-barra/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent;">vision statement</a> of GM CEO Mary Barra—that the company is working toward a future of "zero crashes, zero emissions, and zero congestion"—Bast said: "That is impossible, and it's absolutely ludicrous. Zero of each of those things mean zero cars. It means zero respect for people's personal choices of transportation. It would mean a devastating impact on the economy.""Big companies," Bast said, "are willing to throw their customers under the bus when it comes to appearing to be green or when it comes to appeasing an administration," a reference to carmakers' deal with the Obama administration that led to the fuel economy standards. The auto companies now want the rules weakened, though not as aggressively as Trump has proposed.Heartland has received funding in the past from <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2108401-exxon-foundation-donations.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent;">Exxon</a> and other fossil fuel interests. The group is not required to disclose its funders. Conservative hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer, who helped bankroll Trump's campaign, is known to be a donor, according to Mercer Family Foundation <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4360099-Mercer-Family-Foundation-990-2016.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent;">tax returns</a>.  Peter Ferrara, Heartland's senior fellow for legal affairs, told the conference  that his group opted not to intervene in the climate lawsuit that San Francisco and Oakland filed against Exxon and other oil companies because of the risk that it would be forced to disclose its donors. Instead, Heartland laid out its arguments against mainstream climate science on its website and in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal. The oil companies' victory in that case would be a "valuable precedent," he said. Others in attendance criticized the oil giants for not opposing, in their legal arguments, the science that global warming is human-caused.<h3 dir="ltr" playfair="Playfair" display="Display" serif="serif" font-weight="font-weight" normal="normal" line-height="line-height" font-size="font-size" rem="rem" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px;">'Hearts and Minds of Americans'</h3>The highest Trump administration official to appear at the conclave was Brooke Rollins, the former CEO and president of the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation. Rollins serves in the White House as assistant to the president in the Office of American Innovation. Heartland President Tim Huelskamp, a former Kansas Congress member who chaired the Tea Party caucus, asked her if Trump would take on the endangerment finding and other "golden calves of the left." Rollins offered no answer, but urged the group to keep pushing."We know the research of CO2 being a pollutant is just not valid," Rollins said. "And yet it's time to really continue research, and continue making that argument, and continue changing the hearts and minds of Americans."Jay Lehr, the Heartland Institute's science director, noted the "major role" that <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/22122017/big-oil-heartland-climate-science-misinformation-campaign-koch-api-trump-infographic" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent;">Heartland played in urging Trump to withdraw from the Paris climate accord</a>.Lehr asked Rollins if Trump would stay the course. "People keep thinking he could still back down," he said."All of my experience has proven out that when this president says he believes in something, then there is no one more bold or courageous or fearless," Rollins said. "Does that mean I can say today he will never change his mind? No. But it does go to the question of how important organizations like Heartland and Texas Public Policy Foundation are."</div></div></div></div><div class="tagged-with" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-transform: uppercase; margin-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><label style="box-sizing: inherit; display: block; line-height: 1.2;">PUBLISHED UNDER:</label><div class="field field-name-field-topics field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-item even" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; padding-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/topics/climate-denial" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent;">CLIMATE DENIAL</a></div> <div class="field-item odd" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; padding-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/topics/politics" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent;">POLITICS</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-item even" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; padding-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/tags/donald-trump" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent;">DONALD TRUMP</a></div></div></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</div>Climate Debate ‘Should Be Encouraged’

Not all state AGs are on board with the Schneiderman-led investigation of climate skeptics.

“The scientific and political debate [concerning climate

change] is healthy, and it should be encouraged,” said a March 30 joint

statement by Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt and Luther Strange,

attorney general of Alabama. “It should not be silenced by threats of

criminal prosecution by those who believe that their position is the

only correct one and that all dissenting voices should therefore be

intimidated and coerced into silence.”

Other analysts see this type of potential collusion as part of a growing trend to attack sound science and the First Amendment.

“The same green-leftist organizations that turned the

Environmental Protection Agency into their wholly owned subsidiary have

now infiltrated state attorneys general [offices] with the goal of

emulating the Salem witch trials of the seventeenth century,” said Jay

Lehr, science director at The Heartland Institute, publisher of Environment & Climate News. “Free speech long ago disappeared from college campuses. Now, it is leaving science.”

Bonner R. Cohen, Ph.D. (bcohen@nationalcenter.org) is a senior fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research.
==
pope

http://www.alternet.org/environment/heartland-institute-attacks-pope-francis-climate-change

<h2>Credentials </h2>

<ul>

<li>Ph.D., Ground Water Hydrology. University of Arizona (1962).</li>

<li>Degree in Geological Engineering from Princeton University.</li>

</ul>

Source: <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/jay-h-lehr#s1">[1]</a>

<h2>Background</h2>

Jay H. Lehr is a Senior Fellow and "Science Director" of the <a target="_blank" href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Heartland_Institute">Heartland Institute</a>. He is also a "motivational speaker" and prolific writer. He was editor of "Rational Readings of Environmental Concerns," which labels environmentalists as "extremists" and "alarmists" among other things. He has testified before Congress numerous times on environmental issues.

Dr. Lehr's experience is in groundwater hydrology. He received the nation's first Ph.D. in Groundwater Hydrology from the University of Arizona and later became the executive director of the National Association of Groundwater Scientists and Engineers. <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/jay-h-lehr#s2">[2]</a>

<h2>Stance on Climate Change</h2>

"The media willfully ignores thousands of scientists who believe in global warming but do not believe its effects will be 'catastrophic.' The only global warming catastrophes are going to be bad public policies based on fear and panic rather than caution and science." <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/jay-h-lehr#s3">[3]</a>

<h2>Key Quotes</h2>

Lehr was presented as an expert on Fox News's "Hannity" show to discuss the recent nuclear disaster in Japan. He concluded that "I can tell you with the utmost confidence there will not be a health impact of anything that is going on at the Fukushima power plant." <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/jay-h-lehr#s4">[4]</a>

<h2>Key Deeds</h2>

Ongoing

Lehr speaks regularly on environmental issues and climate change (often on behalf of the Heartland Institute) where he generally supports an anti-environmentalist, skeptical position.

For example, see a sample in one of Lehr's presentations where he suggests that "global warming is the best thing to socialize the world":

March, 2008

Lehr spoke at the Heartland Institute's 2008 International Conference on Climate Change.

His presentation, below, is titled "Humans Are Not the Cause of Climate Change":

<h2>Affiliations </h2>

<ul>

<li><a target="blank" href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Heartland_Institute">The Heartland Institute</a> — <a target="blank" href="http://heartland.org/jay-lehr">Science Director</a>, Senior Fellow, and Managing Editor of Environmental and Climate News. <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/jay-h-lehr#s5">[5]</a></li>

</ul>

<ul>

<li><a target="_blank" href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=ACSH">American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) </a>—"Advisor" <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/jay-h-lehr#s6">[6]</a></li>

</ul>

<ul>

<li>Environmental Education — "<a target="_blank" href="http://www.spoke.com/info/c6IM3vT/EnvironmentalEducation">Senior Scientist</a>" and President <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/jay-h-lehr#s7">[7]</a></li>

</ul>

6011 Houseman Road

<a href="http://www.spoke.com/info/lindex-company/oh-ostrander-1" title="http://www.spoke.com/info/lindex-company/oh-ostrander-1">Ostrander</a>, <a href="http://www.spoke.com/info/lindex-company/oh" title="http://www.spoke.com/info/lindex-company/oh">OH</a> 52687

<ul>

<li><a target="blank" href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=International_Climate_Science_Coalition">International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC)</a> — Member, "<a target="blank" href="http://www.climatescienceinternational.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=280">Science Advisory Board</a>." <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/jay-h-lehr#s8">[8]</a></li>

</ul>

<h2>Publications</h2>

<a target="_blank" href="http://web.archive.org/web/20061004231644/http://www.heartland.org/SpeakersBureauArticle.cfm?sbrId=5">According to the Heartland Institute</a>, Lehr is the author of 400 magazine and journal articles and 12 books.

Lehr's <a target="_blank" href="http://web.archive.org/web/20080808133636/http://www.wileywater.com/Editor.htm">profile at "The Encyclopedia of Water,"</a> where he was chief editor, reveals that these 400 articles were on "ground water hydrology." According to a search of Google Scholar, Lehr has not published any articles in peer reviewed journals on the subject of climate change.

Sample Publications:

<ul>

<li>Jay H. Lehr, ed., Rational Readings on Environmental Concerns (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1992).</li>

</ul>

<ul>

<li>Jay H. Lehr, Standard Handbook of Environmental Science, Health, and Technology (McGraw-Hill Publishing Co. 2000).</li>

</ul>

<h2>Resources</h2>

<ol>

<li>

<a name="s1" id="s1">"</a><a target="_blank" href="http://web.archive.org/web/20080808133636/http://www.wileywater.com/Editor.htm">Dr. Jay H. Lehr</a>," The Encyclopedia of Water. Archived August 8, 2008.

</li>

<li>

<a name="s2" id="s2">"</a><a target="_blank" href="http://web.archive.org/web/20061004231644/http://www.heartland.org/SpeakersBureauArticle.cfm?sbrId=5">Policy Experts & Staff</a>," The Heartland Institute. Archived October 4, 2008.

</li>

<li>

<a name="s3" id="s3">"</a><a target="_blank" href="http://web.archive.org/web/20061125004402/http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=19092">Alarmism Undermines Sound Policy"</a> (Letter to the Editor in the Chicago Sun Times). The Heartland Institute, April 4, 2006. Archived November 25, 2006.

</li>

<li>

<a name="s4" id="s4">"</a><a target="_blank" href="http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/hannity/transcript/are-fears-catastrophic-nuclear-meltdown-japan-warranted">Are Fears of a Catastrophic Nuclear Meltdown in Japan Warranted?</a>" (Transcript), Fox News, March 14, 2011.

</li>

<li>

<a name="s5" id="s5">"</a><a target="_blank" href="http://heartland.org/jay-lehr">Heartland Experts: Jay Lehr</a>," The Heartland Institue. Accessed January, 2012.

</li>

<li>

<a name="s6" id="s6">"The Health Effects of Low-Level Radiation" (</a><a target="_blank" href="http://www.acsh.org/docLib/20050923_LLR.pdf">PDF</a>), American Council on Science and Health. See page 14.

</li>

<li>

<a name="s7" id="s7">"Modern Groundwater Exploration: Discovering New Water Resources in Consolidated Rocks Using Innovative Hydrogeologic Concepts, Exploration, Drilling, Aquifer Testing, and Management Methods," Wiley Online Library, January 28, 2005 (see "</a><a target="_blank" href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/book/10.1002/0471660833/homepage/AuthorBiography.html">Author Biography</a>").

</li>

<li>

<a name="s8" id="s8">"</a><a target="_blank" href="http://www.climatescienceinternational.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=280">Who We Are</a>," International Climate Science Coalition. Accessed January, 2012.

</li>

<li>

"<a target="_blank" href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Jay_Lehr">Jay Lehr</a>," SourceWatch entry.

</li>

<li>

<a target="_blank" href="http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=619">ExxonSecrets Factsheet: Jay H. Lehr.</a>

</li>

</ol>

</div>

<div class="field-item even"><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/821">Heartland Institute</a></div>

<div class="field-item odd"><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/913">global warming</a></div>

<div class="field-item even"><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/939">climate change</a></div>

<div class="field-item odd"><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/2540">desmogblog</a></div>

<div class="field-item even"><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/2560">global warming blog</a></div>

<div class="field-item odd"><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/2654">denial industry</a></div>

<div class="field-item odd"><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/3068">climate change denier</a></div>

<div class="field-item even"><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/3432">global warming skeptic</a></div>

<div class="field-item odd"><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/4046">global warming research</a></div>

<div class="field-item even"><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/4047">climate misinformation</a></div>

<div class="field-item odd"><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/5721">smogger</a></div>

<div class="field-item even"><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/6886">climate change skeptic</a></div>

<div class="field-item even"><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/7137">American Council on Science and Health</a></div>

<div class="field-item odd"><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/7705">climate denialism</a></div>

<div class="field-item even"><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/7706">denial database</a></div>

</div>

howard 100 rept

...<font style=" font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;">Steven Milloy, publisher of junkscience.com and president of Citizens for the Integrity of Science, is also in Syngenta’s Supportive Third Party Stakeholders Database.<br style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" />

<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; display: inline !important;">In a Dec. 3, 2004, email to Syngenta, Milloy requests a grant of $15,000 for the nonprofit <span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Free Enterprise Education Institute<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; display: inline !important;"> for an atrazine stewardship cost-benefit analysis project.<br style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" />

<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; display: inline !important;">In a letter dated Aug. 6, 2008, Milloy requests a $25,000 grant for the nonprofit Free Enterprise Project of the National Center for Public Policy Research. In an email on that date, he writes, “<font style=" font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;">send the check to me as usual <span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; display: inline !important;">and I’ll take care of it.”<br style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" />

<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; display: inline !important;">The 2006 essay was signed by<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Jay Lehr<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> of the Heartland Institute.<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102); display: inline !important;"> The essay claimed the Holiday Shores lawsuit could, if successful, shrink the nation’s food supply.<br style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" />

<font style=" font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;">The Heartland Institute fought a subpoena all the way to the Illinois Supreme Court in 2012 that would have forced it to disclose any financial relationship with Syngenta<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; display: inline !important;"> and the source of its articles supporting atrazine. The Heartland Institute argued disclosure would violate its<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> First Amendment rights. <span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; display: inline !important;">The case settled before a ruling was issued, so the relationship remains undisclosed.<br style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" />

<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; display: inline !important;">In response to an emailed question, the Heartland Institute did not deny receiving funding from Syngenta. Any money it receives, the institute maintained, is considered a<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> donation to a nonprofit,<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; display: inline !important;"> and Heartland was not obligated to disclose donor information. Its president, Joseph Bast, has said he would go to jail for contempt of court “rather than share a single note he had ever made during a meeting with a donor.”<br style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" />

===

Lehr, Jay htlnd

Attachments