When FOIA Is Weaponized Against Researchers

Human-caused climate change is fueling extreme floods, wildfires, rising seas, and record-breaking heat all around the world. At the same time, some of the most senior U.S. government officials and other powerful actors are actively defunding climate programs, dismantling research institutions, erasing decades of environmental data, and launching direct attacks on climate professionals.

This week’s episode is about what it’s like to be a climate scientist, researcher, or environmental professional trying to do meaningful work in a country with a government that increasingly doesn’t want it. Many have faced harassment, threats, or dismissal — or live in fear that their funding will be frozen or cut. How does it feel to do climate work not just in an era of climate denial, but of deliberate climate erasure? 

Episode Guests:

Rachel Rothschild,  Assistant Professor, University of Michigan Law School

Brent Efron, Senior Manager for Permitting Innovation, Environmental Policy Innovation Center

J. Timmons Roberts, Professor of Environmental Studies and Sociology, Brown University

**For show notes and related links, visit ⁠climateone.org/podcasts.⁠

Highlights: 

00:00 – Intro

03:00 – Brent Efron on how he got into climate work

05:30 – Efron relates a casual date he had in DC

08:00 – Efron is contacted by Project Veritas, who plans to release a video they recorded of his comments about his work at the EPA during the date

11:00 – Hate and public backlash following his remarks, as well as the EPA

13:00 – Efron is contacted by EPA investigators and the FBI

17:30 – His new job in climate policy and how it feels to be doing that work again

21:30 – Rachel Rothschild explains climate superfund laws

25:00 – An organization uses FOIA to request Rothschild’s emails with environmental groups, then filed a lawsuit

32:00 – Personal and professional toll it has taken on her

37:00 – Needing to have threat monitoring

41:00 – How she thinks about her work as a teacher

42:30 – J. Timmons Roberts explains his work on links between offshore wind opposition groups and entities tied to fossil fuel interests

48:00 – Marzulla Law sends a letter to Brown University demanding Roberts’ work be redacted

52:30 – Universities in vulnerable position right now

58:45 – Why uncovering climate obstruction work is so important

59:45 – Climate One More Thing

***

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