Greenwire reports:
An investigation into a wildlife biologist at the Interior Department has evolved into a multiagency probe of his research for a 2006 paper that galvanized the global warming movement, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.
Interior’s inspector general office began its investigation of Charles Monnett two years ago. Officials first said the probe was related to his role in a sole-source contract for a current polar bear study, but investigators have repeatedly focused their questions on Monnett’s famous 2006 paper that linked the death of polar bears to melting ice caps.
In October, two IG agents interviewed Jeffrey Gleason, an avian biologist and Interior employee who co-authored that paper. In a tense conversation — revealed in the transcript PEER released today — agents Eric May and John Meskel questioned the validity of the database Gleason and Monnett used to conclude an uptick in polar bear deaths in open water.
Now investigators are turning their sights on the current operator of that database: the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In an email sent in January, and provided by PEER, May asks to interview the employee in NOAA’s National Marine Mammal Lab who oversees the surveys recorded in the database…
Why does this investigation take so long ?
Are government employees incompetent ?
Jim
Consider Congress. One mention by a Congressman of a Federal employee and a possible budget in the same sentence and a Cabinet Secretary is initializing the employee’s pink slip. That is the fastest way for a Federal employee to be fired.
…budget CUT …..
What’s the issue? That he used the previous results to get himself assigned a new contract?
“Are government employees incompetent ?”
Yes, they are.
That would include me, who is undoubtedly incompetent,
but grateful to people like Senator Inhofe and the protection against retribution for speaking out against fraudulent science and people who (take Government money) to promote it
Maurizio: The issue is the handling of the contract to another party. That party, along with Monnetts wife, peer reviewed his paper. Shortly afterward, a very large (I million IIRC) was awarded to his peer reviewer for another polar bear study.