During Texas Republican Lamar Smith's 2014 campaign, the oil and gas industry gave over $100,000 (more than any other industry) to the congressman's campaign committee and leadership PAC. So, now that a group of scientists sent a letter to President Obama that asks him to investigate corporations who may be profiting from climate denial, it should come as no surprise that Rep. Smith is harassing the scientists.
Using his congressional oversight powers, Smith is attempting to force the convener of the letter, George Mason University Professor Jagdish Shukla, to preserve the records of all materials (including documents, emails, and data) generated since 2009 by his nonprofit, which briefly hosted an electronic copy of the letter. So what is Smith up to? Once he can find legal justification for doing so, Smith will likely demand access to the records to make sure Shukla's public funding hasn't been misspent on political activity.
This story has already been bouncing around the deniersphere for a few weeks, as deniers scramble to distort the letter's message from one encouraging the investigation of corporations who fund denial efforts to one calling for skeptics to be jailed or otherwise silenced. Deniers have also dug into Shukla's own financial information, wrongly accusing him of receiving a lavish salary and "double-dipping" from public funds by paying himself on top of his regular salary from George Mason. Shukla told InsideClimate News that this letter was done on personal time, and "allegations of inappropriate behavior are untrue."