Weekly Word Guest: Professor Stephen Heins, energy columnist and owner, Word Merchant and Craig Richardson, Energy & Environment Legal
The Crude Life’s host and Weekly Word moderator Jason Spiess and Professor Stephen Heins had a special guest join them in a discussion on the Weekly Word about a recent court ruling about University of Arizona emails related to the formulation of Michael Mann’s famous “Hockey Stick,” which was the foundational argument for the climate change industry and EPA regulation.
Craig Richardson, president of E & E Legal Institute, explained to Spiess and Heins that the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) law suit hoped to unearth more evidence that “there were a lot of games played with the [Hockey Stick] data.” In 2009, the so-called “Climategate” emails revealed that many communications between scientists were withheld from all scientific review. Richardson expects the U of Arizona emails will show “an unvarnished view of how the process works…and how climate scientists on the other side of the climate debate were shut out.”
Spiess discussed his sense of the religion of Environmentalism and its negative effect on shale oil development in the U.S. Heins talked about the mixing of politics and fracking in Ohio and Pennsylvania. He went on to discuss the fact that North Dakota along with Texas have been leaders in the shale revolution. Also, he mentioned the close cooperation between ND’s public and private sectors were the secret sauce to the Bakken success.
In addition, Richardson discussed previous successful FOIA actions against the previous EPA and the University of Virginia. Heins talked about the emails surrounding the “Indirect Health Benefits Study” done by Harvard and Syracuse University unearthed through another FOIA success, which showed secret communication with EPA -before, during and after the Study was released.
Spiess talked about his recent interviews with several ND officials and the construction of the Davis Refinery. He noted that ND, while working with current EPA, has maintained its right for final state approval for all energy and environmental projects in the state.
