Climategate II? Scientific community accused of muzzling dissent on global warming

Some are calling it the new "Climategate."
A paper by Lennart Bengtsson, a respected research fellow and climatologist at Britain's University of Reading, was rejected last February by a leading academic journal after a reviewer found it "harmful" to the climate change agenda. The incident is prompting new charges that the scientific community is muzzling dissent when it comes to global warming.
"[Bengtsson] has been a very prolific publisher and was considered one of the top scientists in the mainstream climate community," said Marc Morano, of the website ClimateDepot.com, which is devoted to questioning global warming.
Bengtsson had grown increasingly skeptical of the scientific consensus, often cited by President Obama, that urgent action is needed to curb carbon emissions before climate change exacts an irreversible toll on the planet with extreme drought, storms and rising seas levels.
The president repeatedly has rejected naysayers in the climate debate -- most recently, when he spoke May 9 in Mountainview, Calif. "We've still got some climate deniers who shout loud, but they're wasting everybody's time on a settled debate,” he said.
The administration recently released a comprehensive climate report that critics worry will be used to justify additional environmental regulations.
Bengtsson's paper, submitted to the journal Environmental Research Letters, found that greenhouse gas emissions might be less harmful and cause less warming than computer models project. For that, Morano said, Bengtssonpaid a steep price.
"They've threatened him. They've bullied him. They've pulled his papers. They're now going through everything they can to smear his reputation. And the ‘they’ I'm referring to is the global warming establishment," Morano said.
The Times of London reported that Bengtsson resigned from the advisory board of a think tank after being subjected to “McCarthy-style pressure” from other academics. Pressure even reportedly came from one U.S. government scientist.
Bengsston told the Times of London this week: "It is an indication of how science is gradually being influenced by political views. The reality hasn't been keeping up with computer models."
He added, "If people are proposing to do major changes to the world's economic system we must have much more solid information."
His view helps to illustrate the cavernous divide in this debate. Climate scientists who question the consensus often say they're demonized -- unable to publish, unable to find research funding. The scientific establishment presses on -- frustrated with anyone who, in their view,would impede saving the planet.
The debate raises a question about whether consensus in science is even relevant. As the novelist and global warming skeptic Michael Crichton argued,"The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with consensus."
The Bengtsson allegations recall a similar controversy in 2009, dubbed “Climategate,” when hundreds of emails were leaked, several of which raised questions about whether scientists were overstating the climate change case.

Rural New Mexico county fights feds over water rights

WEED, N.M. –  The latest dispute over federal control of land and water in the West has erupted along the banks of the Agua Chiquita, a small spring-fed stream in the mountains of southern New Mexico where the federal government has installed metal fences and locked gates to keep cattle out.
The move has enraged one rural county, where the sheriff has been ordered by the county commission to cut the locks. The U.S. attorney for the district of New Mexico hoped a meeting Friday would ease tensions enough to avoid an escalation like the armed standoff last month over grazing rights in Nevada.
The discussion resulted only in more frustration and disappointment.
Otero County Commissioner Ronny Rardin said after the meeting that the dispute was far from over.
"Ultimately, it is incumbent upon the commission, the sheriff and the citizens of Otero County to stand up for our constitutional rights," he said.
In a statement, U.S. Attorney's Office in New Mexico said no resolution was reached during the meeting and that the office will continue to monitor the situation "to ensure that public safety is preserved" in Otero County.
"To that end, the U.S. Attorney's Office will make every effort to facilitate a dialogue between county officials and the Forest Service," the office said.
Decades in the making, the dispute in Otero County centers on whether the Forest Service has the authority to keep ranchers from accessing Agua Chiquita, which means Little Water in Spanish. In wet years, the spring can run for miles through thick conifer forest. This summer, much of the stream bed is dry.
The Forest Service says the enclosures are meant to protect what's left of the wetland habitat. Forest Supervisor Travis Moseley said the metal fences and gates simply replaced strands of barbed wire that had been wrecked over the years by herds of elk.
The Otero County Commission passed a resolution earlier this week declaring that the Forest Service doesn't have a right to control the water. Ranchers say they believe the move is an effort by the federal government to push them from the land.
"If we let them take over our water rights, that's the first step. Then we would have nothing left here," said Gary Stone, head of the Otero County Cattleman's Association.
U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., said what's happening in Otero County is another example of overreach by the federal government.
"These disputes could be easily avoided if federal bureaucrats would stick to their constitutional oath and respect property rights," he said.
With no resolution in sight, Sheriff Benny House said Friday he plans to continue investigating whether forest employees are breaking state law by fencing off the water. The commission is also seeking a congressional hearing on the matter.
Rancher Ed Eldridge is next in line to see a fence erected around the water on his allotment.
"I don't think any foreign power could take us over, but we might lose our country from within our borders if we lose our constitutional rights," Eldridge said.
Still, Eldridge, Stone and other residents said they aren't looking for an armed standoff with the federal government. They just want their water and property rights recognized and respected, they said.
Attorney Blair Dunn, who is representing the county, said he's worried that transparency and a media spotlight could be the only things that prevent the dispute from reaching a dangerous boiling point.
"Generally, cooler heads prevail when we're able to sit everybody down and figure out something that works," Dunn said.
Moseley of the Forest Service said he's not surprised by the conflict, given the pressure the agency is under to manage the land for different uses.
"I can't speak to a broader spectrum of federal regulations and how they affect private businesses and lives, but I don't believe there is a conspiracy per se," he said when asked about ranchers' claims of being pushed from the land.
County Commissioner Tommie Herrell disagreed. Describing the agency's actions as tyranny, he said the Forest Service is unwilling to temporarily open the gates while the parties search for long-term solutions.

More than 1 million Americans may be receiving wrong ObamaCare subsidies

Hundreds of thousands of Americans signed up for coverage under ObamaCare may be receiving incorrect subsidy payments -- some bigger than they actually deserve -- from the federal government, The Washington Post reported.
The government has identified the errors, which are the result of discrepancies in income listings on insurance applications and those on file with the Internal Revenue Service, but has been unable to fix the problem, according to the report.
Since income information is used to determine subsidy eligibility under the law, the federal government may be paying insurance subsidies that are too generous or not enough for more than 1 million Americans with income discrepancies. 
Only a fraction of consumers notified about the discrepancies have responded to federal health officials' requests to submit pay stubs or other proof of their income. Officials told The Washington Post they do not yet know the percentages of overpayments or underpayments.
According to internal documents obtained by the newspaper, income discrepancies exist on 1.1 million to 1.5 million out of nearly 4 million applications containing inconsistencies. About 650,000 pieces of evidence for income verification have reportedly been submitted by consumers.
Because technology does not exist to match income "proof" with applications, officials plan to start the work of sorting out inaccurate incomes and subsidies by hand starting this summer, Obama administration officials told The Post. 
Americans receiving excess subsidies are currently required to return any unwarranted payments next year, according to the report.
Julie Bataille, communications director for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said that despite the inaccurate subsidies, the federal health insurance marketplace has processed tens of millions of pieces of data successfully.
"While most data matched up right away during the application process, we take seriously the cases that require more work and have a system in place to expeditiously resolve these data inconsistencies," Bataille told The Post.
She added that federal health officials are "working every day to make sure individuals and families get the tax credits they deserve and that no one is receiving a tax credit they shouldn’t."
During last year's budget negotiations, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius vowed to vet income information that people submitted as part of their health insurance applications after Republican lawmakers voiced concerns about the potential for fraud. 
Consumer advocates told The Post they are concerned about the consequences of inaccurate income information for ObamaCare enrollees. 
"I have this sick feeling that there are these people out there who have made unintentional errors, and in a few years will be subject to massive tax bills," Jessica Waltman, senior vice president for government affairs at the National Association of Health Underwriters, told the newspaper.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.