WASHINGTON — In a new chapter in Congress’s battle over climate change and how to address it, senators on the Environment and Public Works Committee are dueling over scientific conflicts of interest and academic freedom.
Since Feb. 25, the Democratic minority and Republican majority on the committee have each sent a barrage of 100 letters to prominent American energy companies and political institutions. Democrats asked organizations with financial or political interests in fossil fuels to reveal any academic studies about climate change that they have funded. Republicans, in response, insisted that the recipients of Democratic letters shouldn’t feel pressured to appease them.
The skirmishing began last month when a fresh batch of public records added new illumination to the financial relationships between Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics researcher Willie Soon and fossil fuel companies. Soon, who has received more than $1.2 million in grants from such companies and their political allies, was previously accused of violating a Chinese science journal’s conflict of interest policy by not disclosing his corporate funding.
The revelations prompted Harvard-Smithsonian to announce a review of Soon’s funding disclosures, while sparking a Democratic probe from Senators Edward Markey of Massachusetts, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, and Barbara Boxer of California.
“Corporate special interests shouldn’t be able to secretly peddle the best junk science money can buy,” Markey said in a statement.
While Markey’s investigation focuses on the sources of the funding, a separate round of questions from Representative Raul Grijalva, top Democrat on the House Natural Resources committee, targets researchers themselves.
Those efforts prompted Senate Republicans on the environment committee to blast out their own set of letters.
Senator Jim Inhofe, chairman of the committee and the chamber’s leading climate change skeptic, said the Republican letters are meant to prevent intimidation from Democrats. He praised scientists like Soon who have criticized the scientific consensus about climate change’s causes and context.
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“Now more and more of the scientists are coming forward and have the courage to stand up and do that,” said Inhofe.
“We wanted to make it clear that they had people that really did want to see private investment in research and we think it’s a good thing,” said Republican Senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota, another committee member. “We ought to be focusing on whether it’s good or bad based on whether it is repeatable, whether or not it’s good science, rather than who is doing the funding.”
The recipients include fossil fuel interests such as Exxon Mobil Corporation, BP, the American Petroleum Institute, and Southern Company, along with political organizations like The Heritage Foundation and The Heartland Institute.
Soon, who has declined multiple interview requests, insisted in a written statement distributed by the Heartland Institute on Monday that he has never been motivated by money to write a paper.
He called accusations that he had obscured his funding “a shameless attempt to silence my scientific research and writings,” meant to intimidate others who have questioned widely held beliefs about climate change.
Markey believes companies shouldn’t be restricted from funding scientific research, but is concerned about preconditioned results.
“When science is done right, it is an honest and transparent pursuit of discovery that advances knowledge, not a clandestine effort to achieve the outcome a company desires,” said Markey in a statement this week. “That’s why the best policy is to be completely clear about who is funding this research, and if there are any limits or preconditions put on the scientists who conduct the work.”
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Sylvan Lane can be reached at sylvan.lane@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @SylvanLane.