Critics probe scientist who asked Obama to use anti-Mafia laws to silence climate-change skeptics

Jagadish Shukla may be regretting he ever signed a controversial letter to President Obama.

The climate scientist at George Mason University made headlines when he was the lead signatory on a letter to Obama, Attorney General Loretta Lynch and the head of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy "strongly" supporting using federal racketeering laws to investigate those in the private or public sector who work with the fossil fuel industry to "undermine climate science."

The letter, also signed by 19 others, created an uproar, with accusations that the authors were hoping to criminalize those who question how much humans contribute to climate change.

The letter prompted critics to look into the finances of the Institute of Global Environment and Society, one of the organizations Shukla heads at George Mason. They accused the decorated Shukla of fiscal funny business, including potential double-dipping.

Then the Republican chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology kicked the controversy to a higher level on Oct. 1 by sending a letter to Shukla informing him of a committee investigation into the management of federal money granted to IGES.

Now, Watchdog.org has learned the committee's chairman, Lamar Smith, R-Texas, has sent letters to the heads of NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Science Foundation requesting "all documents and communications" made to Shukla and IGES from those respective agencies as part of the committee's investigation.

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