"Smithsonian Gives Nod to More 'Dark Money' Funding for Willie Soon"

"The grant to fund climate contrarian's work comes days after the Smithsonian Institution began requiring its researchers to disclose funding sources."

"The Smithsonian Institution's new transparency policy hasn't kept prominent climate contrarian Wei-Hock "Willie" Soon from reeling in $65,000 in "dark money" to fund a secret research project.

The grant came just days after the Smithsonian, the U.S. government's giant research and museum organization, enacted a policy on Feb. 14 requiring researchers to disclose the sources of their funding. Soon obtained the grant from Donors Trust, an organization that facilitates contributions largely toward conservative causes from donors who wish to remain anonymous. The Smithsonian declined to make Soon's grant proposal public.

Soon's previous failure to divulge funding sources prompted the institution to impose new transparency rules. Researchers now must report the source of any grants of at least $10,000 when publishing under their Smithsonian affiliation. It was revealed last year that Soon published 11 studies in nine scientific journals without disclosing that fossil fuel interests financed the work. Many of Soon's papers questioned the extent, severity, cause or existence of man-made climate change brought on primarily by the burning of fossil fuels."

David Hasemyer reports for InsideClimate News April 5, 2016.