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HORNER, C

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txt also ggl doc 1/18 gmail

html neutraluizing

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e&E implode, spit sides

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desmog 8/20

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Affiliations

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https://exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=281

Director of litigation at the American Tradition Institute's Environmental Law Center

-Counsel, Cooler Heads Coalition -Adjunct Fellow, Frontiers of Freedom -CEI Senior Fellow -Senior Fellow, Center for Energy and Environment

Horner oversees petitions and litigation for the Cooler Heads Coalition, specifically regarding "environment and energy issues, international environmental treaties, and climate policy". He has been particularly vocal in arguing that the National Assessment on Climate Change was illegally produced. He has previously been a guest columnist for Tech Central Station.

As a senior fellow at CEI, Horner oversees petitions and litigation on topics including the Freedom of Information Act, government science and agency statutory compliance, environment and energy issues, international environmental treaties, and climate policy. According to his CEI profile, he “works on a legal and policy level with numerous think tanks and policy organizations throughout the world.”

Graduate of the Law School at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.

QUOTES

If history has taught us anything it’s to listen to that one crazy German. http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-february-13-2007/christopher-horner

Source: Daily Show - Chris Horner

Pluto's warm-up [despite moving away from the sun] is a reminder that no matter where you are climate happens. It always has, it always will -- with or without SUVs. And it should remind us to continue taking with an ever-increasing grain of salt these claims that your car acts as a weather machine… There will be inevitably and likely imminent claims that mankind is also causing Plutonian global warming. http://www.cnsnews.com/node/5679

Source: cnsnews

KEY DEEDS

8 February, 2007

Author of "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming (and Environmentalism)" released February 2007 by Regnery Publishing Inc. The book's inside flap explains that Horner "lays out incontrovertible evidence for the fact that catastrophic man-made global warming is just more Chicken-Little hysteria, not actual science. He explains why, although Al Gore and his cronies among the media elites and UN globalists endlessly bleat that "global warming" is an unprecedented global crisis, they really think of it as a dream come true. It's the ideal scare campaign for those who hate capitalism and love big government. For, as Horner explains, if global warming really were as bad as the Leftist doomsayers insist it is, then no policy imaginable could "solve" it. According to the logic of the greens' own numbers, no matter how much we sacrifice there would still be more to do. That makes global warming the bottomless well of excuses for the relentless growth of big government."

Source: Amazon.com Horner Book Page 2007

2 May, 2007

Appeared on Glenn Beck's May 2, 2007 special "Exposed: The Climate of Fear"

Source: CNN, Glenn Beck special "Exposed: The Climate of Fear," May 2, 2007

DEEDS

16 December, 2004

Horner wrote "Who's The Greatest? Climate change is the 'greatest threat'... except for all the others." for Tech Central Station 12/16/05

Source: Tech Central Station article - Horner

Participated in the "Climate Chains" video along with Myron Ebell Marlo Lewis, Patrick Micheals, and Todd Wynn. The video claims that “One of the greatest threats to freedom and prosperity in America is climate change legislation.”

Source: Climate Chains bios

Author, Red Hot Lies: How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats, Fraud and Deception to Keep you Misinformed (2008)

Source: Red Hot Lies: How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats, Fraud, and Deception to Keep You Misinformed

In May 2011, Horner asked the University of Virginia for access to thousands of e-mails and documents by Michael Mann who had left the university several years earlier. The request, backed by the Freedom of Information Act, was on behalf of the American Tradition Institute. The Washington Post reported the issue on June 3 in the opinion spread, criticizing Horner as one of “some global warming skeptics in Virginia are showing that even the best tools (the Freedom of Information Act) can be misused.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/harassing-climate-change-researchers/2011/05/27/AG1xJMEH_story.html

Source: Washington Post Chris Horner Op-Ed

Horner has accused NASA's chief climate scientist, James Hansen, of "doctor[ing] temperature data on two occasions in 2001 and once in 2007 in attempts to show an impending climate catastrophe." Horner stated that Hansen had "clearly abused his platform provided to him by the taxpayer, principally by the way he's been exposed of manipulating and revising data with the strange coincidence of him always found on the side of exaggerating the warming."

Source: DeSmogBlog profile Chris Horner

KEY EVENTS

Experts Discuss Why United States Should Withdraw Its Signature From Kyoto; Whatever Happened To Global Warming Anyway?

http://www.usnewswire.com/topnews/first/0514-108.html

Event was held at the National Press Club and co-sponsored by Frontiers of Freedom, the Science and Environmental Policy Project and The Cooler Heads Coalition

The relationship of Christopher C. Horner to the event: Speaker

EVENTS

Heartland Climate Conference 6

http://climateconference.heartland.org/about-2/speakers/

6th International Conference on Climate Change sponsored by the Heartland Institute

The relationship of Christopher C. Horner to the event: speaker

ORGANIZATIONS

**Competitive Enterprise Institute**

Source: CEI website, 3/04

**Heartland Institute**

Source: Heartland 2010 Climate Conference Speaker List

**Frontiers of Freedom Institute and Foundation**

Source: Frontiers of Freedom website 5-06

**National Center for Policy Analysis**

Source: NCPA website 4/04

**Tech Central Science Foundation or Tech Central Station**

Source: Tech Central Station Bio - Horner

**European Enterprise Institute**

Source: European Enterprise Institute Website (2006)

**Cooler Heads Coalition**

Source: Capitalism Magazine

**Cascade Policy Institute**

Source: Climate Chains homepage

SOURCES

CEI website, 3/04http://www.cei.org

NCPA website 4/04http://www.ncpa.org/

Tech Central Station Bio - Hornerhttp://www.techcentralstation.com/biohornerchristopher.html

Tech Central Station article - Hornerhttp://www.techcentralstation.com/121604E.html

Frontiers of Freedom website 5-06http://www.ff.org

European Enterprise Institute Website (2006)http://www.european-enterprise.org/items/executive/

Capitalism Magazinehttp://www.capmag.com/author.asp?name=229

Amazon.com Horner Book Page 2007http://www.amazon.com/Politically-Incorrect-Global-Warming-Environmentalism/dp/1596985011

CNN, Glenn Beck special "Exposed: The Climate of Fear," May 2, 2007http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/beck.climateoffear/

Heartland 2010 Climate Conference Speaker List

More than 70 speakers will make keynote presentations or participate in panel discussions at the Fourth International Conference on Climate Change, May 16-18, 2010 in Chicago.http://www.heartland.org/events/2010Chicago/speakers.html

Climate Chains bioshttp://http://www.climatechains.com/bios.html

Climate Chains homepagehttp://www.climatechains.com/

Red Hot Lies: How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats, Fraud, and Deception to Keep You Misinformedhttp://www.amazon.com/Red-Hot-Lies-Alarmists-Misinformed/dp/1596985380

Daily Show - Chris HornercnsnewsWashington Post Chris Horner Op-EdDeSmogBlog profile Chris Hornerhttp://www.desmogblog.com/chris-horner

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Schnare, center, a founder of the Free Market Environmental Law Clinic. He also worked at the Environmental Protection Agency last year under Scott Pruitt,the former administrator.  CreditSusan Walsh/Associated Press]

FAIRFAX, Va. — The Free Market Environmental Law Clinic has long sought to inject doubt into the public conversation about global warming. Now, the future of the group itself is in doubt.

Its founders are battling in court over control of the group, as well as some $900,000 in its bank account. One of them, David Schnare, has been accused by his former allies of botching the group’s tax-exempt status and of attempting to extort a quarter-million dollars from its coffers.

It all comes at a time when Free Market — which made a name for itself using the legal system to obtain climate scientists’ emails — should be ascendant. The Trump administration shares its views on environmental regulation and its dismissal of climate science. And Mr. Schnare, 70, was part of the Trump “beachhead team” at the Environmental Protection Agency during the transition between presidential administrations, though he did not last long there.

Mr. Schnare, in an interview, initially expressed reluctance to discuss the situation at Free Market. “Attorneys are not supposed to talk about and try cases in the press,” he said. Then he added, “I completely deny all these nasty accusations.”

Read the complaint in the Free Market case

This document (pdf) details the allegations against David Schnare in the case concerning the implosion of the Free Market Environmental Law Clinic. Mr. Schnare has denied the accusations.

50 pages, 3.29 MB

The legal battle sprawls across three civil lawsuits filed against Mr. Schnare by Matthew Hardin, 28, the chairman of Free Market’s board. Neither side recognized the other’s claim of control, so the fight began with Free Market essentially suing itself.

If that sounds confusing, it certainly was to Chief Judge Bruce D. White of Fairfax County Circuit Court. “We have a plaintiff and defendant who are the same party,” he said at a brief hearing here last month. “That’s not something I see every day.”

Judge White said he would consolidate the cases under a single judge who, he seemed relieved to say, would not be himself. The parties were due back in court this week, but entered into settlement talks as this article neared publication.

‘Fighting the conservative fight’

The litigation, which was first reported by The Daily Beast, pits two former partners against each other: Mr. Schnare and Christopher Horner, another lawyer who has worked to discredit climate scientists. The two worked together when Mr. Horner was a senior legal fellow at a related organization, the Energy & Environment Legal Institute. Now Mr. Horner, 53, is aligned with Mr. Hardin in the battle over Free Market.

The efforts by Mr. Schnare and Mr. Horner to obtain climate scientists’ emails followed a trail blazed in 2009 in an episode known as Climategate, when hackers exposed a trove of private messages between scientists. Global warming denialists took the blunt discussions out of context to allege that researchers had tampered with data, but subsequent investigations found no evidence of fraud.

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http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060048659

1/17

Members of President-elect Donald Trump's transition team critical of U.S. EPA have also been successful litigants against the agency, winning thousands of dollars in legal expenses.

An E&E News review of court records and EPA data show that Christopher Horner and David Schnare — both members of Trump'sEPA landing team— have helped win substantial funds off the agency from at least a half-dozen lawsuits. In turn, the two worked on cases either by themselves, together or with other lawyers that won nearly $45,000 in attorneys' fees and other litigation costs from EPA between fiscal 2013 and 2016.

How? By suing EPA under the Freedom of Information Act for failing to provide documents in response to their requests.

It's all legal, and a common tactic by environmental and watchdog groups frustrated by EPA's sometimes slow response to their FOIA requests. The public records law has a provision that lets a court award "reasonable" attorneys' fees and litigation costs to a complainant that has "substantially prevailed" over the federal government in a FOIA case.

In their own FOIA lawsuits, Horner and Schnare were often serving as plaintiff attorneys for a variety of conservative-leaning groups that have been critical of EPA, such as the Free Market Environmental Law Clinic and American Tradition Institute, which later became the Energy & Environment Legal Institute, or E&E Legal. They also hold positions with many of those groups, according to their websites.

Chaim Mandelbaum, counsel to E&E Legal, said his group doesn't sue to make money.

"In short, we neither seek to file lawsuits nor do we profit from them," Mandelbaum said in an email toE&E News (which has no connection to E&E Legal)."We act only to enforce a right intentionally given to the public by Congress in the FOIA statute, to request and receive public records."

He noted that the federal government could stop these lawsuits by turning over requested records.

"EPA and other federal agencies have always had the ability to prevent lawsuits; they merely have to provide timely and proper responses to FOIA requests," Mandelbaum said.

Horner referred questions for this story to E&E Legal. In addition, representatives for Trump's transition team did not respond to questions.

Having both long questioned climate science, Horner and Schnare are some of the Obama EPA's most vocal critics. They have often resorted to FOIA to pry documents loose from the agency.

Horner has hounded EPA for records created by its top officials, such as their emails and text messages. He uncovered former EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson's alternative email alias, "Richard Windsor," which led to a backlash from Republican lawmakers against the agency (*Greenwire*, Dec. 12, 2016).

Schnare, too, has used FOIA in his pursuit of EPA records. In a statement last month, Schnare said that some people would be happy with his selection to Trump's transition team while others would feel the opposite.

"The President-Elect's Transition team named me and others to the EPA Transition Landing Team today. This will upset some of you and will please others," Schnare said.

"My approach, and that of the entire transition team, is to be highly professional as we seek the information the transition team needs to create its action plans. Our job will be to ask appropriate questions and to listen."

Horner had the biggest win on public records lawsuits among the two for attorneys' fees, according to EPA data obtained under FOIA by E&E News. In April 2015, Horner was listed as the plaintiff attorney for a settlement with EPA for $25,000 to pay for litigation costs.

The two sometimes worked together, both listed as plaintiff attorneys on some of the settlements. Yet Schnare, in November 2015, was the lone plaintiff attorney for a $7,000 settlement with EPA.

Sometimes, the settlements that Horner and Schnare helped win went beyond money changing hands.

One agreement in May 2014 stated that E&E Legal and the Free Market Environmental Law Clinic — Horner and Schnare's clients — would meet with Larry Gottesman, EPA's national FOIA officer, and Geoff Cooper, an acting associate general counsel at the agency, to discuss FOIA processing and the fee waiver process at EPA.

In addition, under the settlement, the agency would provide additional FOIA refresher training to EPA Region 10's Office of Air, Waste and Toxics. Horner and Schnare also secured $2,350 in attorneys' fees and costs.

Mandelbaum said EPA often doesn't fulfill E&E Legal's FOIA requests under the law's deadline of 20 business days. The agency receives thousands of such requests each year that it then has to process — 10,403 to be exact, according to EPA's fiscal 2016 report.

"In every case where we filed, EPA had run past the congressionally imposed deadline by a significant amount of time, often by more than an additional month," said Mandelbaum, who has worked on many of the group's FOIA lawsuits.

"Our lawsuits have done tremendous good, causing the release of many tens of thousands of pages of public documents, with significant benefit to the public. Our actions have done a great deal to effectuate President Obama's largely disregarded promise that his administration would be transparent."

Enviros, watchdogs sue for EPA records

EPA has lost sizable money paying attorneys' fees in FOIA litigation.

In a June 2015 settlement, EPA agreed to pay $313,000to the Landmark Legal Foundation to resolve all attorneys' fees, costs and expenses. The conservative-leaning legal group had sued the agency under FOIA for records of communications between EPA staff and outside parties discussing pending regulations.

:{

}:

[/s/ Michael J. O'Neill

Michael J. O'Neill, D.C. Bar # 478669 Acting United States Attorney

LANDMARK LEGAL FOUNDATION for the District of Columbia

D.C. Bar # 471489

The Ronald Reagan Legal Center

19415 Deerfield Ave., Ste. 312

Leesburg, VA 20176 Civil Chief

Telephone: 703-554-6105 D.C. BAR # 924092

mike@landmarklegal.org

/s/

By: __

Counsel for Plaintiff HEATHER D. GRAHAM-OLIVER

Assistant United States Attorney

Daniel F. VanHorn

Judiciary Center Building – Civil Division

555 4th St., N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20530

(202) 252-2520

heather.graham-oliver@usdoj.gov

Counsel for Defendant

Vincent H. Cohen, Jr.]

In a separate opinion, a federal judge blasted EPA over its handling of the request, saying the agency's conduct "reflects poorly upon EPA and surely serves to diminish the public's trust in the agency" (*E&E News PM*, March 2, 2015).

In an interview, Mike O'Neill, assistant general counsel for the foundation, said the group's request was ignored. The settlement was so large in order to cover the hours that the foundation's lawyers worked on the case.

"Those were for our attorneys' hours working on the litigation," O'Neill said. "That was a bargain for EPA because there were a substantial amount of hours worked on that case."

O'Neill added, "These agencies can avoid attorney fees if they provide the records."

Others agreed with O'Neill's assessment.

"The simple answer is that EPA repeatedly violates the law by stonewalling our requests," said Sam Kazman, general counsel for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which has filed several FOIA lawsuits against the agency. "If EPA were complying with FOIA, we'd have no basis for our suits and EPA would have no reason to agree to pay attorney fees for them."

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility often files a FOIA lawsuit every few weeks, which is then resolved soon after, according to Jeff Ruch, the group's executive director. He said his group, which looks to protect federal employees, uses the public records law as "a safe whistleblower channel."

"Sometimes, employees share documents with us, but instead of using the leaked documents, we FOIA for them instead and sometimes have to sue for them," Ruch said.

Ruch also noted, "You don't run up attorney fees unless there is a briefing about an agency's claim of an exemption that's found to be without merit. If it's a righteous claim for the exemption, you don't prevail and you don't collect fees on that."

PEER has won several settlements with EPA over FOIA litigation, including an April 2013 agreement for $4,000 in legal expenses.

The Environmental Integrity Project has also resorted to suing EPA for public records. Eric Schaeffer, the group's executive director and former head of EPA's Office of Civil Enforcement, said EIP doesn't look to recover fees that often.

"We seldom seek recovery of fees, and when we do, don't file unless we've been waiting months and months for a response and just haven't gotten a plausible explanation for the delay," Schaeffer said.

Still, the environmental group has won attorneys' fees from EPA, including one April 2014 settlement to pay for legal expenses.

Schaeffer said his group's requests include an offer to narrow their scope.

"I used to work at EPA and have been on the receiving end of those, so [we] try to be reasonable," Schaeffer said.

==

4/13/15

hornerdoc.doc

This is part of a larger project on global warming that argues in the pursuit of a permanent majority, the right has disabled all the corrective mechanisms that allow the body politic to stay in balance. See Moderation. A second document show the more recent shift from building the infrastructure to offensive strategies: Darkside

This document is an abstract of both, concentrating on legal matters. The hyperlinks below connect to a dynamic map of Moderation when possible. If no direct link there, it goes to the full graphic map.

HORNER

“...Pulled out a plum, and said what a good boy am I”

In the Powell Memo, the right is instructed to build a mirror image infrastructure of the left; the ACLU was key in Civil Rights Movement, and presumably in women's rights and other efforts that threatened corporate profits, so was born the Federalist Society(1982, Pacific Legal 1973, spread viaNational Legal Center for the Public Interest (NLCPI).

2.3 Judiciary

The right wing has long excoriated "activist" judges, but promotes its own through a number of interrelated organizations, the most prominent being the Federalist Society, presumably the conservative mirror of the ACLU. The Robert Bork nomination by Ronald Reagan was a watershed in terms of partisanship, since the senate's advise and consent powers are supposedly only in reference to the qualifications of the candidate, which are easily met. However, Bork enabled Nixon's Watergate “Saturday Night Massacre” and was committed to expansion of executive power and reversing what he considered civil rights excesses, favoring poll taxes, for example (Buchanan). He is a prominent member of the Federalist Society, which has subsequently dedicated itself to promoting and training federal judges (More ominously, Bork, and fellow members Ted Olson, and Ken Starr were heavily involved in the Scaife-funded Arkansas Project to bring down Clinton). The Federalist Society lawyers often promote journalistic, scientific, voter and activist suppression and defend corporate malfeasance as well as criminal actions by political operatives like James O’Keefe,

The Left has used the law to force corporations and government to obey environmental laws, but conservatives use it to attack climate science and activists (e.g.,SLAPP suits). TheSupreme Courthas also been important tool for social progress (e.g., civil rights and worker rights). However, the *Citizens United*case was odd in that the justices mandated a second hearing that led to a much broader decision (the very epitome of activism). The Citizens United decision has led to a huge influx of untraceable corporate cash to support candidates opposed to climate legislation, including Tea Party candidates who portray themselves as independent reformers. Moreover, some judges are elected, which means corporate money can play a decisive role, as with Massey Energy in West Virginia (CEO Don Blankenship plays the populist underdog fighting oppressive government meddling, but he vacationed on the French Riviera with the state supreme court justice he funded; he was a big early booster of Tea Party (literally wrapped in the flag in video, see Section 5.5.1 below.). Massey had hundreds of safety violations, two serious mine disasters (a recent settlement of over $200 million given to the families of the 29 miners killed in the latter), and Blankenship was finally forced out as CEO, although presumably he retains his seat on the board of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (2015 faces criminal charges?).

Analysis:The legal system is often the last resort, and should be the most potent moderating force (judges, for example, are often appointed for life, and are difficult to remove precisely to make them less susceptible to corruption or pressure). However, rather than increasing justice and equity that would provide social and economic stability (the income gap between rich and poor now rivals that just before the 1929 stock market crash), the Supreme Court is now doing the opposite (anti-union rulings, restricting class actions, Citizens United). In respect specifically to our case study of climate change, “The Brooks Brothers Riot,” a fake grassroots protest by GOP staffers and operatives held up a vote recount so the Supreme Court could quash it, taking the presidency from Al Gore, who won not only the popular vote but a Nobel Prize for his work on Global Warming, and giving it to the most anti-environmental presidentand VP in history.

Although the Federalist Society is the most importat group of lawyers (though RAGA is gaining since much of the fight is shifting to state level, in part because of the “polarysis” in Congress, and it's much more cost-effective to buy state officials), Horner is the most important individual, a deft opportunistic ideological entrepreneur.

Chris Horner: (agenda 21, Am Spect, Aspen, BP, Cheney, Climategate, Cooch, ATI, Ebell, exxon, ICCC, Inhofe, Pompeo, Regnery)

A graduate of the Law School at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, Horner claims winning an award for activism, but does not seem to exist. No resume available, so we have to piece together his career trajectory. We know that he was a lobbyist for Enron in the late 90's.

“Enron Corporation — Past director of Federal Government Relations (1997).” This was before CA ripoff, Davis hit and accounting scandal/implosion, but is reflective of corruption, "hardball politics" win at any cost, let's deregulate everything so we can plunder it.

1997 Cooler Heads Coalition (CEI, Ebell, Norquist, cfact, CRC, Ridenour) — Oversees petitions and litigation for the Cooler Heads Coalition in "environment and energy issues, international environmental treaties, and climate policy." [8] Also listed as a "Contributor." [9] Cooler heads was revived in 2004 by ACSH Whelan, still exists, Horner featured with Ebell and Marlo Lewis, founders (also Chesser) differs from Global Climate Coalition (1989-2002) in that the latter was API and corporations (declared victory and disbanded 2002].

{“In October 2000, Competitive Enterprise Institute (along with Ebell and Inhofe) sued the Clinton administration over a National Assessment on Climate Changeproduced by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Bush 41 got talked into going to the first/ Rio Earth Summit, and was convinced climate was at least enough of a problem to authorize NAS to look into it (1990 law requires the US government to issue a report every four years? Greens sued to make B43 do it, but second assessment did not appear until Obama administration in 2009; the Third was notable for its over three hundred authors from over a dozen federal agencies, and its detalled explanation for what will happen to US by region [and industry?]). A news release announcing the 2000 the lawsuit claimed that various procedural rules had been violated during the process of developing the report, labeling it "junk science" and a "$14 million compilation of global warming scare stories." } Plaintiffs used Tozzi's bogus Data Quality Act; the suit was dismissed with prejudice

[[“A dismissal with prejudice is a judgment rendered in a lawsuit on its merits that prevents the plaintiff from bringing the same lawsuit against the same defendant in the future. It is a harsh remedy that has the effect of canceling the action so that it can never again be commenced. A dismissal with prejudice is Res Judicata as to every issue litigated in the action.”

]]

In early 2000's Horner worked for Tech Cental Station, begun in 2000 by DCI Public Relations group, heavily involved with the tobacco industry (though competed with APCO, more or less created specfically for this purpose). This might explain its really impressive stable of hacks and other climate deniers who styled themselves as some kind of expert (if nothing else on how addressing climate would ruin the economy; TCC commissioned Charles River to do a study demonstrating that it would cost the average family anywhere from 300 to 1500 dollars per month). Also has fairly extensive roster of neo-cons, especially when it morphed into a televison show (even on some PBS stations). Presuably they could atttract talent because of generous funding from Exxon, Coca-Cola, McDonalds (did a hit on SuperSize Me) and Pharma (keeping those evil Canadian perscription drugs at bay). Young Horner is simply listed as a writer (Inhofe is listed more puzzlingly as "favorite").

Recall that the uber-strategy, borrowed from tobacco, is to doubt the science. Every delay is a win because it allows the profitable death to continue. But Horner goes to the dark side, since he goes on the offensive. Since he can not win on the facts, he has to attack the scientists. In addition, because climatology is very technical, it tends to come down to who do you trust in the "duelling soundbite" situation [see Hayhoe on Moyers 9/13/14 on how denier political conservative leaders stepped into the vacuum of leadership by evangelical clergy]. Morover, as we have seen, do nothing/wait and see position is attractive for theological, psychological and ideological reasons.

An additional bonus of attacking the scientists is the mirroring strategy: if real climate scientists lie for money (as perhaps press and even people were realizing "hacks" had been doing for some time, due to hard and smart work by, for example, Greenpeace's Exxon Secrets website/map), then a pox on both their houses (or at best, wake me when there's a consensus/winner).

At least the later accusation against Hansen taking money was based on prizes he won for his courageous advocacy. Since he was point man in the head agency dealing with climate in the most rabidly anti-science/green B 43 administration he had every reason to believe he would be fired on some pretext (or hounded/neutralized by, for example having to get his public remarked vetted, or having a former Bush-Cheney campaign worker be his Soviet-style handler until the latter had to be sacked for lying on his resume). This accusation works nicely with the "rock-star" strategy, which uses the generally hard-won popularity/influence/integrity of a person as a reason to debase them (that is, they lie for fame as well as the money that goes with it). This is an inversion in the line of Rove mentor Atwater stole fromArt of War: attack where your opponent is strongest. It's evil because trust is an integral part of the commons, since cynicism leads to ignorance and inaction that brings down democracy/republics.

2001

Horner has accused NASA's chief climate scientist, James Hansen, of "doctor[ing] temperature data on two occasions in 2001 and once in 2007 in attempts to show an impending climate catastrophe." Horner stated that Hansen had "clearly abused his platform provided to him by the taxpayer, principally by the way he's been exposed of manipulating and revising data with the strange coincidence of him always found on the side of exaggerating the warming" (DeSmogBlog profile Chris Horner). Hansen is an essential target because he represents NASA, one of our most prestigious government agencies of any kind (beat the Commies to the Moon, Right Stuff machismo etc). Moreover, he called out CEI for its infamous “CO2, we call it Life” ads, and later went after coal and energy CEO's as criminals. However, Hansen's biggest/original sin was his 1988 Congressional testimony which pulled no punches. Bush 43 administration tried to muzzle him, and he fully expected to be fired, but had to speak out or he knew he would not be able to look his grandkids in the eye.

So important is Hansen that Horner will repeat attacks later.

see Tozzi John Graham, OIRA/DQA

The Data Quality Act used by Sam Kazman and Horner to beat up Christine Todd Whitman on climate 2002 (her EPA report supported the National Assessment) (Flack Myron Ebell said CEI would call for her firing in Cooney smoking gun email)[both milloy and ebell work for cei, though ebell director and milloy was adjunct]

2004 Tech Central Station (“journo-lobbying”) CEI (if not before) . It is not entirely clear when Horner began at CEI, but his current title is Senior Fellow, and he has 43 screens of content listed on their site, going back to Moonie Washington Times2000 articles e.g., “Apocalypse Soon: Climate Assessment is Based on Fear.” He cranks out numerous articles, the odd book, and he is a frequent and telegenic media spokesman (he even bested Jon Stewart), but presumably his most damaging function is legal.

Mass v EPA 2007 landmark case. Note the irony of a state suing the EPA to do its job, whereas we now in 2015 have a buch of coal states suing to prevent this. 

In 2007 Horner took another run at character assassination of James Hansen:

Horner has accusedNASA's chief climate scientist, James Hansen, of "doctor[ing] temperature data on two occasions in 2001 and once in 2007 in attempts to show an impending climate catastrophe." Horner told Fox News that Hansen has "clearly abused his platform provided to him by the taxpayer, principally by the way he's been exposed of manipulating and revising data with the strange coincidence of him always found on the side of exaggerating the warming." [8] rep.

Horner appeared on Glenn Beck's May 2, 2007 special "Exposed: The Climate of Fear" with usual suspect hacks like John Christy and John Coleman TV weatherman. In the same year Regnery published his Politically Incorrectbook which he flogged on Jon Stewart Daily Show, in which the flustered host failed to lay a glove on him (even resorting to asking Horner if he had killed a hobo; in fact at one point when Horner had defly parried, he was reduced to mockingly tell his audience fans “Settle down” like a harried high school teacher ). [Stewart also punked on Climategate, but he was not alone in that, even in the legitimate press; later got on right side of issue, though John Oliver may be best of all?]

[“The inside flap of Horner's book "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming and Environmentalism" states that "for decades, environmentalism has been the Left's best excuse for increasing government control over our actions in ways both large and small.It's for Mother Earth! It's for the children! It's for the whales! But until now, the doomsday-scenario environmental scares they've trumped up haven't been large enough to justify the lifestyle restrictions they want to impose. With global warming, however, greenhouse gasbags can argue that auto emissions in Ohio threaten people in Paris,and that only 'global governance' (Jacques Chirac's words) [French, thus prolly commie?] can tackle such problems." [6]“]

Here, if not before, Horner crosses over into tin foil hat territory, but he does exemplify a meme that has become prominent in at least two domains. The Tea Party revives a number of somewhat discreditied and dormant strains of the right, such as militias and anti-Commie. Agenda 21 was a completely benign and purely voluntary UN idea that if a city is going to undertake some substantial change, it should at least consider how amenities such as green spaces and bike paths could be worked in. Out of this has come innumerable black helicopter (to take our incandesent bulbs) and “blue hull navy” and FEMA concentration camp dark fantasies. This seems laughable until you realize that every GOP nominee for president in the 2008 primaries subscribed not just to climate denial but to some degree to Agenda 21 (with the posible exception of Huntsman, but his dad was bankrolling him, plus even in a campaign in which Bachmann and Cain were frontrunners for fifteen minutes, he never was?).

It gets a bit lost in the reparte, but Stewart ventures that all the emissions we pump into atmosphere must have some effect, and that wonders why scientists would enter into an elaborate worldwide effort (over years, presumably) to lie about climate. Are they really commies who want us to crap in holes? Horner replies that socialists and communists are aligned with the Greens; he claims he went to a wealth alleviation conference w/ German Greens who stated their aim (from a PR pov?) to make it worse to clear a forest than sell a child to an Asian brothel. Here Horner plugs into tired myth that greens care about nature but not people. Complete nonsense, since greens see the two as inextricable: it's the corporatists who see America as exceptionalist: we do not have to follow the norms of international behavior, the market or even the laws of physics.

The other domain in which the Green world takeover scenario/scare/scam shows up is in the Conservative Entertainment Complex: e.g., Jesse Ventura's faux 60 Minutes style Conspiracy Theory [with no sense of irony in the title?]. Penn and Teller reduce it to a scam to make money (not sure there's a gov't or world gov't angle]. A 3rd domain is green dragon, Fundamentalist Christian (they want to brainwash our kids with pagan gods in the guise of recycling). Another variant is common in Gore attacks (took over after hypocrite wore out).

2008 First ICCC Heartland conference, Horner is a speaker (also 2010). Red Hot Lies (Regnery again) is basically an attack on the science, using the standard myths.

2008Polar Bear lawsuit: August “The American Petroleum Institute and four other business groups [NAM, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Mining Association and the American Iron and Steel Institute] filed suit Thursday against Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director H. Dale Hall, joining Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's administration in trying to reverse the listing of the polar bear as a threatened species.” This followed hard upon wildlife biologist Charles Monnett being targetted by theBureau of Ocean Energy Management (successor to the defunct Minerals Management Service, which was disbanded when its regulaors were found literaly in bed with industry, but not before they brought us the Gulf BP oil spill, 11 dead). Notable for being the only major climate legal action that does not involve Horner/CEI, though NAM/CoC are longtime funders).

2009American Traditions Partnership sued Longmont, CO over their Fair Campaign Practices Act. Otto: “WTP/ATP also fights laws that restrict corporate money in elections or require disclosure of contributions. In 2009, the group sued Longmont, CO over their Fair Campaign Practices Act. The city settled and agreed to drop disclosure requirements. In 2010, after the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, WTP/ATP successfully challenged the constitutionality of the Montana Corrupt Practices Act of 1912, which prohibited independent political expenditures by corporations.”

A number of cities and towns, some in Colorado, have been passing local ordinances to, for example, limit where and when farmers can spray sewer sludge, since it contains pathogens and heavy metals (killed at least two healthy teenaged boys). Or to limit fracking from contaminating wells and the air, or to keep corporations from buying the water or local elections. These have been fought ferociously by the right, even though these town are small sometimes, because the precedent of defeat is scary because it can be replicated. Corporations often assert Constitional rights of persons. Horner does not seem to be directly involved, the lawyer was Gessler, who moved up to Colorado Secretary of State (who planned to go back and moonlight for Hackstaff, ATP's lawyer in Colorado, presumably on fracking cases, but was shamed out of it). Gessler has tried to suppress vote (Colorado at state level recently shifted to Democrats after a long period as a red state) and failed to raise contribution limits from $200 to 5,000. He may run against Hickenlooper, who has not been nice enough to fracking.

These local skirmishes could end up being important nationally, but ATP has already had a devastating effect: when Justice Roberts' laughable prediction that the Citzens United decision would not even create the appearance of impropriety was promptly discreditied by a 8 billion dollar tsunami of secret cash, many expected if for no other reason that the court save face (recall they could have ruled narrowly on the techical question of whether the “hit” job video on Hillary Clinton could be shown 60 days before the election,[ or was it just the ads for it?] that they would look for the first excuse to review it. Sadly no. Montana had a hundred years of anti-bribery election law (one of the Copper Kings reportedly used to just heave stacks of cash over the transoms into legislators offices), but when they tried to keep using it after Citizens United ruling, they were sued by ATP. The state supreme court of course upheld its own law, but SCOTUS dismissed it in a sentence.

Amerian Traditions Parnership seems to be a Western clone/wannabe Citizens United funded by Montana petroleum millionaire Doug Lair. Initially it just laundered money for hit piece direct mail in 2008 and 2010 elections, mostly in Colorado and Montana (sometimes making a fake newspaper for this purpose). It broke elections laws (mostly just by failing to report, maybe just sloppy or out of some sort of ideological notion that they should not have to report). At some point their records from a stolen car turned up in a meth house and were turned over to authorites (let us pause a moment to reflect that meth-heads are appalled by low morals of ATP]. Political operative Christian Lefer goes to ground, but Donny Ferguson goes south to be campaign manager for Steve Stockman, loon of Texas (tried to pass a law to prevent US from participating in war games with China).

2009 Climategatewas a tremendous Christmas present to the Denialsphere, not coincidently just when they needed it most, on the eve of Copenhagen, COP15, just when the US was becoming seriously separated if not the laughingtstock of the world for its climate denial (Inhofe's two of three of Truth Squad deserted him, and he only lasted three hours; Monckton et al. tried to hold the fort, at one point calling hecklers Hitler Youth). The evidence and consensus was so overwhelming, most observers thought international action was all but inevitable. Obama showed up, even crashing a meeting he was not invited to in an attempt to engage China? who had just surpassed the US as the number one emitter, and without whom no deal matters.

Climategate (unlike Glacier-gate, or Pauchi-gate, anyone remember those? Buehler?] seemed to confirm the lunacy that Horner and others had been spouting for some time: the scientists were lying. (Horner accused Mann of deleting emails? whereas he actually stopped others from doing it?). Lying for political and/or monetary reasons (or theological, if you buy it's the new religion/faith argument that Horner puts forward in Red Hot Lies). Even the press bought it, for a while, and though all the scientists were repeatedly cleared by independent investigation on both sides of the Atlantic, the corrections came weeks or months later, weren't deemed newsworthy, and at any rate the damage was done. In 2009, though he was no no way involved in Climategate, Hansen is dealing with FOIA requests (Horner's specialty). Hansen was arrested in 2009 and 2010 protesting mountaintop mining, and has been rightly critical of coal. Retired April 2013 to devote more time to activism.

Romm: Gavin Schmidt has done a wonderful job at RealClimate patiently explaining the context of the stolen emails. He’s made it perfectly clear that the claims of scientific malpractice are without foundation. He must be doing a really good job, because the Competitive Enterprise Institute intends to sue him.” Clearly his RealClimate blog is not part of his official duties, but that's the basis of their suit. See below

February 27, 2009

Horner accused NASA's chief climate scientist, James Hansen, of "doctor[ing] temperature data on two occasions in 2001 and once in 2007 in attempts to show an impending climate catastrophe."

Power Grab: How Obama’s Green Policies Will Steal Your Freedom and Bankrupt America(Regnery, 2010) Another book, right on schedule, where he presumably goes deeper into tin foil hat Agenda 21

As we shall see shortly when he goes after Michael Mann, apparently Horner et al. have flexible standards for academic misconduct and lack of scientific integrity:

2010 The "Wegman Report", led by Edward Wegman [8] of George Mason University (GMU) got criticized in 2010's Experts claim 2006 climate report plagiarized [9]. Experts called it "obvious" even "shocking" plagiarism. GMU's [10] incompetent handling, mistreatment of complainants and flawed rulings were mostly documented in March [10], but recent FOIAs [11]expose more [12] untruths....However, a few groups in GMU are closely, even uniquely enmeshed with people behind the machinery of anti-science, such as Charles Koch [17], Ken Cuccinelli [18], David Schnare [19], Fred Singer [20], and Pat Michaels [21], plus the Heartland Institute [22] and key Washington think tanks. GMU even has a long history of tobacco connections, oddly relevant [23]. (cf mashey)

David Schnare is the "Director of the Center for Environmental Stewardship" at the Thomas Jefferson Institute (S)thinktank which funds and publishes his “research” (funded by Art Pope, the Southern Koch brother by another mother). Former? EPA office of enforcement counsel (sort of oxymoronic, like military intelligence?)

With Horner, Schnare created a clinic at GMU law school; again, this is a mirror strategy. For decades law schools traned lawyers to do pro bono work for the underdogs in civil rights, work etc. This clinic trains students to support white collar crime, corporate polluters, and using FIOA?SLAPP suits to undermine efforts to protect the environment and public health.

Established August 2011 and by 12/24/11 changed its name to the Free Market Environmental Law Clinic (FMELC),

This lack of outrage in Wegman case may have to do with the fact that their Environmental Law Clinic would soon be based at GMU: teaches how to FOIA and use other underhanded tactics to roll back green protections:

Renamed Free Market Environmental Law Clinic, booted by GMU? Perhaps not a coincidence at ATP/Institite gets rebranded E&E after implosion/outing:

bs:

“The FME Law Clinic provides litigation and research services to qualified [read: $] clients. We concentrate on cases involving landmark free-market pro-environmental litigation; use of open records and data quality laws to force greater governmental accountability and transparency; and, cases that allow the Clinic to help create the next generation of free market oriented attorneys. The Clinic has paired with the American Tradition Institute in order to prosecute three cases, described below. In addition, the Clinic has an active Freedom of Information Act practice. Current FOIAs are also listed below. At the bottom of this page is a brief description of new litigation the Clinic is contemplating pursuing.”

ALEC (joined/supported by Kochs) has a concerted campaign in a number of states, with some successes, of rolling back renewable energy goals:

bs American Tradition Institute v. State of Colorado, et al. (filed April 4, 2011)

American Tradition Institute’s Environmental Law Center filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the constitutionality of Colorado’s Renewable Energy Standard, based upon evidence that the state’s law violates the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The Commerce Clause reserves the regulation of interstate commerce to the federal government.

2011 Competitive Enterprise Institute to sue RealClimate blogger over moderation policy.

Coal state Virgina AG Cuccinelli starts to attack prominent clinate scientist Micael Mann April 2010.

“January 6, 2011

The American Tradition Institute, a free-market think tank that routinely attacks climate scientists and refuses to accept the scientific consensus on climate change, submits a Freedom of Information Act Request to the University of Virginia for the same personal correspondence that Attorney General Cuccinelli is seeking through his subpoenas. The Washington Post notes that the American Tradition Institute has affiliations with the Competitive Enterprise Institute and Exxon Mobil, both of which have sown doubt about climate science in the past.”]

“In May 2011, Horner asked the University of Virginia for access to thousands of e-mails and documents by Michael Mann who had left the university several years earlier. The request, backed by the Freedom of Information Act, was on behalf of the American Tradition Institute.” Here Horner is taking the handoff from Cuccinelli, who had tried for years and failed to pervert a fraud statute. Even more absurd, since Mann did not even work in Virginia anymore, but Climategate notoriety helped, and the Hockey Stick was still a central bone of contention. So Horner switched to his favorite FOIA harassment. Happily, when some wannabe bloggers were trying to make their bones, they belieived or at least took up Horner's attacks, and Mann has successfully sued them for libel (who knew that comparing a guy to a child molester was not cricket?), which could take down the old if not venerable National Review. Cuccinelli and Horner lose every round, and a variety of academic bodies and newspaper condemn the witchunt. [FIRE? acronym]

2012ATP (changed name 2010) Western Traditions Partnership Montana case 2011 (no Horner?) SCOTUS June 2012

2012: Horner “ has sought access to communications from Michael Mann, the author of the hockey stick graph, the NASA climate scientists James Hansen and Gavin Schmidt, and this year, Katharine Hayhoe, an atmospheric scientist at Texas Tech University.” Schmidt as a target makes sense because he is clear and eloquent in his defense of Mann's Hockey Stick and Climategate, and he has credibilty with the press and public. Moreover, he is willing to mix it up, debating their star Lindzen and Crichton, whereas the Gore is afraid to debate scam has been a winner for a decade or so. Hayoe came to public notice after Gingrich dumped the chapter he asked her to write after Limbaugh objected, referring to her as a “climate babe” (as some sort of consolation?). However, she has become increasingly important in converting (sorry) evangelicals to Chistian stewardship, but more perhaps more importantly punching a hole in the Greens/scientists are godless/pagans who only care about polar bears argument.

11/2012 Horner sues EPA and Lisa Jackson on particulate matter ressearch (pm 2.5),

Here Horner seems to finally have jumped the shark, acccusing UNC of Nazi-style human experimentation:

This seems really bizzare on its face, but is probably more an externsion of earlier efforts than a radical departure. The charge is that the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, under the auspices of the EPA, did not tell the participants that they were being gassed with diesel exhaust and more worrying particulate matter, which, to hear them tell it, can kill almost immediately. To support this contention, they brought in ACSH's John Dunn, MD JD, which is not surprising since they have been hired liars for corporations for decades, but what is surprising is that Dunn had been making precisely the opposite argument for decades against air pollution regulations (ozone, CO2, etc.). One person who volunteered to participate claims severe coughing/lung damage, and is asking two million dollars for treatment presumably, but also pain and suffering/trauma (where is tort reform when you need it?). Another plaintiff is listed as a member of ATP? Even more heartbreaking, the lawyers themselves have been terribly traumatized:

Hack Milloy claims to have an uncle in a concentration camp where medical experiements were done, and thus is traumatized by the EPA: “16. Mr. Milloy has dedicated a majority of his current work effort to expose and stop the EPA's improper, unethical and illegal human experimentation. Mr. Milloy is deeply aggrieved by the kind of human experimentation being conducted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and will not be relieved until it stops.”...

“19. Dr. Schnare’s parents selected his name, David, to honor the last male relative to

die before his birth. That man’s name was David Steiner, a Jew who died in Buchenwald

concentration camp on May 3, 1945, 21 days after the camp was liberated. “

horner on case? Trauma?

Schnare? States he was married near the campus where the experiments were done, and can not even walk by EPA building (and enjoy the aesthetics of the building?) in DC without anguish.

They make many demands to ease their trauma, but here their true aim becomes clear: “"Fourth, Plaintiffs seek injunctive relief requiring EPA to withdraw and destroy or excise any publications in any form that are based, even in part, on results of illegal human experimentation.” [emphasis mine]

…

or to regulate based on the study:

G. Seventh Claim for Relief

“To repair ethical lapses and as a matter of equitable relief, Plaintiffs ask the Court

tostay implementation of any rules authorized under the Clean Air Act to control fine particulate

matter until such time as the Agency can review the regulatory basis it used in their

promulgation, amend its support documents and otherwise reevaluate the risks from fine

particulate matter to ensure EPA does not rely in any fashion upon illegal human

experimentation. “ (emphasis added)

2014 Mayfly Mountaintop removal: claims EPA pulling a permit is a wacky plan to save Mayfly; anti-MTR campaigners are a source of hope, for a number of reasons: they are winning, despite being poor; it is essential to beat coal because it is not only the main/worst source of CO2 but also mercury. Serious health threats, see Gunnoe. "In October 2009, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced plans to veto the Clean Water Act (CWA) permit for the largest mountaintop removal mine in West Virginia, the Spruce No.1 Mine in Logan County."[BTW GOP Congressmen chairs of committee Gunnoe testified had her arrested and threatened to charge her for child pornography for showing a picture (with her parents' permission) of a little girl being bathed in orange water contaminiated by MTR; Josh Fracking documentary filmmaker was also arrested for not having a permit to tape a public congressional hearing]

"Now, four years later, the research has caught up with what the people knew all along: it is not just about bugs. The scientific evidence is piling up associating living near mountaintop removal sites with birth defects, low birth weight births, cancer, poor physical health, poor mental health, cardiovascular difficulties, and pulmonary difficulties. This may not be news to the people who live there." (McFerrin)

3/2014Obama science advisor John Holdren takes down Pielke Jr after attacked; also Sen. Jeff Sessions claimed Holdren mislead the public based on Pielke's cherry-picked testimony; asked to prove Pielke out of mainstream and Holdren did.

This may be no coincidence:

5/14 “Today, the Competitive Enterprise Institute sued the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) for flouting the Freedom of Information Act. CEI's Chris Horner asked OSTP to produce work-related emails that OSTP's Director, John Holdren, stored in an email account at his former employer, the environmental-pressure group Woods Hole Research Center.”

Currently, FME Clinic is shopping for someone to pay them the force the Forest Service to log (No Tree Left Behind):

(BS)

“Prospective Cases:

ATI v. US. Forest Service – ATI is seeking support for, and asked FME Law to prepare, a FOIA, Endangered Species Act and Data Quality Act petition-litigation action to force full implementation of National Forest Management Plans that require logging in order to prevent forest fires that causing destruction of endangered species habitat and which would also create new timber and mill jobs and reinvigorate a moribund national timber industry.

A_ Association v. EPA – The FME Law Clinic is preparing a petition-litigation action to force EPA to revise rules costing over $60 billion and which fail to properly target the actual source of harmful PM2.5 air pollutants, regulating industries that do not contribute to the hazard and failing to regulate some that do.” surely a defense of coal, but who is allowed to pollute but not stopped by EPA (or not williong to pay ATP/E&E protection money? Public transit?

Analysis:Horner is a well-networked, photogenic, articulate, (even a sense of humor/wit) though his official PR photo has an odd sense of high school yearbook awkwardness. Clearly he is a clever ideological entrepreneur who has postioned himself to capitalize on the Pension Plan (CEI is the 800 pound gorilla think tank in terms of climate denial). Hard to tell if he's a True Believer or not. Deft use of mirroring tactics, expecially in neutralizing the legal strategies that became the mainstay of the environmental movement in the 80/90's when it became harder to mobilize people in the streets. But law is of course an important moderating force (can be ground-breaking like Brown v Board, or the last stand (literally when somone brought a taxidermied Spotted Owl in a hearing to protect the last old growth forest). Thus him neutraluizing the law and undermining science earns the moniker “Completely Evil Institute” (Lambert). 10 pages