In a piece for the Daily Caller, Jason Isaac, founder and CEO of the American Energy Institute, called for accountability at the National Academies of Science.
Isaac’s claim comes after the National Academies of Science withdrew a controversial climate science chapter in its guide formulated for federal judges. Many reports indicated that this chapter was authored by individuals who are heavily involved in “climate lawfare” cases against American energy companies. However, as Isaac noted, it doesn’t stop there.
Unfortunately, the NAS remains intent on continuing to use flawed processes, and just last month published a climate attribution report where the litigation section was heavily influenced by the same attorney whose fingerprints were all over the judicial training manual.
That attorney is Michael Burger: a legal research scholar at the Columbia Law School, Of Counsel at Sher Edling LLP and counsel of record for the plaintiffs in Honolulu’s active climate lawsuit.
Burger presented during a public meeting of NAS’s attribution science committee on the “Use of Attribution Science in Legal Contexts,” during which he disclosed that he is “actively involved” in Sher Edling’s cases against American energy companies. Sher Edling operates largely on contingency fees, meaning the firm and Burger stand to receive multi-million-dollar payouts from favorable rulings in the very cases that NAS attribution findings could influence.
That should have been enough to strike Burger’s comments from the record considering that NAS’s conflict-of-interest policy states that the organization develops and communicates its advice “free from undue influence from sponsors, donors, or other interested parties.”
Instead, Burger is listed in the report’s acknowledgements among individuals that “assisted” the authors and staff “in their task to create this report.”
Blatant disregard for an objective process is becoming a pattern at NAS. Burger was also an official reviewer and reported ghostwriter of the climate science chapter in the FJC and NAS scientific reference manual.
Read the full story in the Daily Caller.
