The ‘Green 20’ Attorneys General Try End-Run Around Congress

Investor's Business Daily discusses government officials' investigations into CEI's climate change research as an attempt to silence debate on the issue.

Many on the left seem to have few qualms about deploying the state's immense coercive powers to trample upon constitutional rights in the name of progress. But turn the tables, and it is astonishing how quickly they seek to wrap themselves in constitutional garb.

The latest example arises out of investigations launched by state attorneys general — originally dubbed the "Green 20" — into climate change-related conduct by businesses like ExxonMobil and nonprofit entities like the Competitive Enterprise Institute. The House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, chaired by Lamar Smith, R-Texas, is seeking communications between the AGs and various special interest groups to determine whether the investigations are collusive shams — unconstitutional actions intended to harass and intimidate rather than uncover wrongdoing.

The publicly available evidence indicates that the Green 20 investigations were concocted by and initiated at the behest of special interest groups, designed to suppress climate change dissent and scientific research. To summarize: In 2012, several climate change-focused special interest groups gathered to devise a "strategy to fight the oil industry in the courts."

Read the full article at Investor's Business Daily