Energy

Rep. Steve King: Climate Scientists Benefiting From Federal Dollars

REUTERS/Stephane Mahe

Daily Caller News Foundation logo
Chris White Tech Reporter
Font Size:

Rep. [crscore]Steve King[/crscore] called out scientists Monday, telling CNN many of the climatologists who support the Paris agreement have financial backing from the federal government.

“I think the scientists that have been pushing this have collected a lot of money from donors in government and created a science that’s awfully hard to sustain,” King says on CNN’s “New Day.”

The Hawkeye State Republican says he is “very skeptical” of the agreement signed by the U.S. earlier this week. The agreement, in part, seeks to limit the global rise of temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

He also torched the Obama administration for side-stepping Congress in the implementation of the deal. “If you can’t convince the United States Congress, probably it’s not a good idea,” the Iowa Republican says.

King is not alone in his criticism of federal funding’s undue influence on climate research.

Republican presidential candidate Sen. [crscore]Ted Cruz[/crscore] called in several climate change skeptics and scientists to speak last week at his Senate subcommittee hearing on climate change, including John Christy, a climate scientist and professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Christy told the subcommittee panel he believes the attempt to study climate change objectively is thwarted by the federal funding process.

Christy, a well-known climate change skeptic, suggests Congress can fix the problem by directly funding independent “red team” programs. These programs, Christy says, would not be part of the “climate model and industry that tests the basis for the claims that human-induced climate change is dangerous.”

“Funding for many issues like climate change probably wouldn’t materialize in the private sector,” Christy notes in an email to The Daily Caller News Foundation, adding that since “we are where we are, I think for climate science the only way to do this is for congress to directly appropriate money for studies such as mentioned in [my testimony].”

Other global warming skeptics are not convinced of the merits of the “red team” idea proposed by Christy. In April, climatologist Patrick J. Michaels published a study at the Cato Institute showing federal funding of climate science research inevitably results in induced biases.

In an interview with TheDCNF, Michaels dismisses Christy’s “Red Team” idea, saying it would never work because climate change activism is already deeply ensconced in the halls of academia. Climate scientists who upset the applecart are summarily dismissed.

In effect, he concludes, “The blue team (climate change scientists) is always going to win, because the reigning paradigm is one of climate gloom and doom.”

Follow Chris on Facebook and Twitter.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel