Last month, Rep. Mike Coffman told long-time KOA talk show host Mike Rosen that a lot of scientists can’t get climate-change research grants unless they “submit” to the “orthodoxy of climate change by the radical environmentalists.”

Some media outlets quoted Coffman’s radio comments, but not a single journalist has reported asking Coffman to explain himself, even though global warming, even if you’re a skeptic, ranks at the top of the list of environmental issues of our time.

So, since Coffman won’t talk to me, I’m left to speculate about what he was talking about.

I found a handy breakdown of U.S. government funding for climate research.

The top granter is NASA. Does Rad Enviro orthodoxy prevail over there?

Next is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, followed by the National Science Foundation. Both aren’t known for harboring the radical environmental set.

But what percentage of the total funding for climate-change research comes from the feds anyway?

I asked Prof. John Reilly, who Co-directs the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change Center for Environmental Policy Research at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, and he estimated that over 90 percent comes from governments worldwide, with the U.S. government providing the most money.

He added: “The definition of ‘radical environmentalist’ will of course depend on one’s views and interpretation of the science.  Both environmental groups and private companies with a range of perspectives fund some research.”

So this opens up a serious line of questioning for Coffman. What is his definition of a radical environmentalist?

In a Twitter discussion of this topic, “AFPColorado” told me NASA may be be submitting to radical-enviro-global-warming orthodoxy because “it helps fatten budgets and supplants [its] abandoned original mission (manned space flight).” AFP Colorado offered me an article claiming that “climatism” is, as AFPColorado put it, an “orthodoxy-enforcing religion,” used to create alarmism and justify grants.

In his interview with Rosen, Coffman said he’d read “viable sources” backing up his view that radical environmental orthodoxy controls grant funding for climate change. Maybe Coffman was thinking about the article from AFPColorado? It’s titled “Science in the Public Square: Global Alarmism and Historical Perspectives” by Richard Lindzen.

I asked Prof. Reilly if he knew what sources Coffman might possibly be thinking of. He told me via email:

Reilly: I am not aware of “viable sources” that have  evaluated whether research grant applications that challenge the “orthodoxy of climate change” are more or less likely to be funded.  A great strength of the US research system is that there are many different sources of research funding. These programs award grants on the basis of peer review by scientists, and so the grant managers are relatively constrained by the results of the peer review.  In the US there is also an important tradition of industry and philanthropist funding of research.  The Program I run at MIT is funded in part by a large industrial consortia (the industrial sponsors are identified on our WEB site) and so that provides us with additional freedom to investigate the climate issue, unconstrained by any Federal funding bias, if that is the Congressman’s concern. Ultimately, whatever the source or potential bias of research funding, to ultimately have scientific credibility any research findings must find their way into the peer-reviewed literature.  Hence that is another check in the system.

It is the case that granting programs are very competitive.  Climate change is an area that has energized scientists, in part because of the intensity of the public debate, and so there are many scientists competing over a limited amount of funding. Such competition, just like in the market place, is a good thing but it means that many proposals rated excellent and very good don’t make the cut.  It is probably only human nature to look for larger reasons if one’s proposal fails.  For competitive grants from the NSF, for example, my guess is that the success rate is only 10% or less, and even for my Program at MIT I must confess probably no higher success rate than that. Human beings must one way or another make decisions throughout the research system and so there are no doubt imperfections.  However,  the US system of multiple competitive grant programs, private funding, peer review of grants, and peer review of research findings introduces many checks, balances, and funding opportunities, and so the system is not easily manipulated.

I provide you with Reilly’s entire response because you have to admire his effort to be fair and thoughtful about Coffman’s assertion, but I’ll re-quote his last seven words because I think they sum up his view “so the system is not easily manipulated.”

Coffman is saying that, in the case of global-warming grants, science is being manipulated, and not just in subtle way, but by extremists. He’s attacking science.

But the good thing is, science welcomes attacks, especially from real-life Congressman like Coffman, because they force scientists to justify their work.

Except Coffman isn’t explaining himself, and journalists aren’t forcing him to.

Who’s to blame for this? Radical environmentalists?

How fun it would be to sit on a newspaper’s editorial board and interview all the candidates who traipse by the office begging for an endorsement.

Over the years, The Denver Post has dabbled with putting those interviews online, where they’d be a valuable public resource, but this isn’t done in any systematic fashion, unfortunately.

But, moving its nose slowly in the right direction, The Post’s editorial-page staff produces an online video-interview, called the Roundup, which proved its worth this week with an illuminating interview with Rep. Mike Coffman.

Yesterday’s program broke news when Coffman affirmed his opposition to the longstanding U.S. law granting citizenship to people born on American soil, even if their parents are not citizens. This is commonly referred to the policy of birthright citizenship.

Coffman: I mean, the current law is, and the United States is separate from other countries, is that if you are born in the United States, you are, in fact, a citizen of the United States. You know, I think we should probably be, adopt the policies of other countries, that you are a citizen of your parents. But the fact is, that we have children who were born under current U.S. law. And therein lies the challenge that I have, particularly in meeting families up in what is a very new district. And that –

Denver Post Editorial Writer Tim Hoover: You’d see that changed, right? Is that what you’re saying?

Coffman: Sure. I mean, I think we ought to look at that. But , the fact is, what we have to understand, the fact is, we don’t revoke citizenship once it’s given. [BigMedia emphasis]

Watch this portion of the Post’s Coffman interview here. And the entire interview here.

During his interview with Hoover, Coffman, who’s considered one of the most endangered Congressman in the country, also for the first time offered a vague explanation of how his immigration position is different from the bipartisan bill passed by the Senate. Coffman said:

Coffman @7:30:   Where I differ from what the Senate did is, to go beyond that [temporary] legal status, you really do have  a trigger. And you really do have to demonstrate that we’ve secured our border. And you really do have to demonstrate that we have mechanisms in place and the will to enforce all of our laws. And that’s a real concern of mine…”

Coffman also said he wants tougher English-language standards and other qualifications for citizenship:

Coffman @10:05: I think we really ought to raise the standards for citizenship across the board. I think citizenship really is sacred. I think between myself and my late father, we have 42 years of military experience and four wars. And I  think we understand the value of American citizenship. And so, I think that when we say that somebody ought to know English to become a United States citizen, I think we really ought to mean that they ought to know English and we should raise bar on that. When we say that somebody ought to understand the civic culture of our country, we really mean they ought to understand that to include a firm knowledge of the Constitution of the United States. I think we need to raise the bar on citizenship , period.

And Coffman also offered a new option for Dreamers to attain citizenship, saying he’s drafting a bill to allow young people, who entered the U.S. illegally, @8:40, “to achieve citizenship through military service and through higher education.” Previously, Coffman only supported allowing so-called Dreamers to achieve citizenship through military service.

Obviously, many questions flow from The Post’s interview with Coffman:

• Will he be introducing a bill to stop birthright citizenship?
• What specifically are his proposed triggers for citizenship? What does sufficient immigration enforcement look like? How else does his immigration position differ from what’s in the Senate bill?
• Does Coffman support a path to citizenship for adults? (After speaking with Coffman, The Post’s Hoover doesn’t think so, because he wrote that Coffman “favors legal residency, but not citizenship, for adult illegal immigrants.”)
• What does Coffman think of the accusation that he’s changing his positions on immigration and other issues simply to get re-elected in a more moderate new district?

That’s the point of the editorial page, partially, to raise questions and advance civic debate. The Roundup did so this week, by putting good questions to Coffman. The Post should offer more long-form interviews on its editorial-page website. In addition to the weekly Roundup show, why not post all issue and endorsement interviews?

Responding for the first time to a League of Conservation Voters’ ad portraying him as an “ostrich,” with his head in the sand, for denying that humans are contributing to global warming, Rep. Mike Coffman told Denver radio-host Mike Rosen Wed. that “a lot” of the research grants on global warming won’t go to scientists unless they submit to the “orthodoxy of climate change by the radical environmentalists.”

Coffman: And one thing that I certainly read from viable sources is that a lot of the research that’s being done—when you put your application in to get a grant, if you don’t submit to the, you know, orthodoxy of climate change by the radical environmentalists, you’re not going to get a grant.

Listen to Rep. Mike Coffman responding on KOA radio Denver on 08-21-13 to LCV ostrich ad

Rosen didn’t ask Coffman for the specific “viable sources” Coffman read on climate-change research grants, or whether Coffman thinks the National Science Foundation, for example, a major provider of climate-change research, is in the pocket of radical environmentalists.

To his credit though, Rosen asked Coffman at the beginning of the interview, “How come you’re not doing anything publicly to defend yourself?” But Coffman ignored the question, choosing instead to attack the League of Conservation Voters, which paid for the ad.

Coffman went on to contradict his previous statement, quoted in the ad, that it’s “subject to debate” whether humans are causing global warming at all.

Perhaps tweaking his position in response to polls showing him to be endangered in his new district, Colffman told Rosen:

Coffman:  My view is that it’s naturally occurring, number one. But certainly man-made activity influences it at the margins, and I think it’s debatable how much that is. But certainly, you know, we know that carbon emissions are bad, and we ought to do everything responsible to bring them down  in a balanced approach between environmental concerns and economic concerns.

Rosen failed to ask why Coffman had changed position slightly on global warming, now saying there’s human influence “at the margins,” or whether he’d misspoken on the radio show. Rosen didn’t ask, after Coffman said “carbon emissions are bad,” why Coffman voted for a measure just last year that would have prevented the EPA from regulating carbon emissions.

In response to Coffman’s comments on the radio, League of Conservation Voters’ spokesman Jeff Gohringer emailed me: “Clearly Congressman Coffman is choosing to double down on his extreme views, and is now apparently going so far as to call into question the credibility of scientists.”

Coffman concluded the interview by saying, “I hope that [the LCV ad] certainly mobilizes conservatives across the state of Colorado and across the country to get involved in the campaign.”

It was supremely ironic that Coffman invited outside money into Colorado to support him, after he’d just criticized the influence of out-of-state money, but Rosen didn’t burp out any sound of surprise.

Neither did Rosen ask whether Coffman is worried that his extreme position on global warming won’t mobilize out-of-state conservatives but instead will affect soccer-mom environmentalists whose kids play at the Aurora Sports Park.

Rosen said on-air that he and Coffman are “friends,” and Rosen admitted that he’s “biased” toward Coffman. It showed in this interview; that’s for sure. I’d like to think Rosen could do better.

View the League of Conservation Voters ad here. LCV released a second ad today.

Follow Jason Salzman on Twitter @bigmediablog.

Listen to Rep. Mike Coffman responding on KOA radio Denver on 08-21-13 to LCV ostrich ad

If you want to see the faces of the people who support the uncompromising anti-abortion positions of politicians like Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck, Rep. Mike Coffman, and Sen. Rick Santorum (who won the 2011 Republican presidential caucus in Colorado), stroll around the Western Conservative Summit, held this weekend in downtown Denver.

“Folks, you can sign a pro-life petition here!” Susan Sutherland, petition coordinator for a Personhood USA-backed campaign to put a fetal-homicide bill on the 2014 CO election ballot, told Summit attendees as they swarmed through the exhibit room Saturday morning.

”Quick signature to recognize an unborn baby as a person under Colorado law,” she said.

“Most of the people here are very agreeable,” Sutherland told me. “It beats being on the streets, and we do a lot of events.”

Most Summit attendees are eager to help, she said, but “a lot of people who come by [our table] say they’ve already signed the petition at church or at another event.” Sutherland added that it’s an issue these people care a lot about and do something about it.

By noon Saturday, Sutherland and her fellow activists got hundreds of signatures on their petition and handed out dozens of petitions for people to take home.

Called the Brady Amendment, after an unborn child killed by a drunk driver, Sutherland’s initiative aims to change the definition of “person” under Colorado law to include “unborn human beings.” This would enable law enforcement officials to bring charges, for example, against a drunk driver who recklessly hits a pregnant woman and ends her pregnancy.

A Colorado law passed this year does exactly this, but the Personhood-backed initiative would go further, likely giving broader legal status to fetuses at the earliest stages of human development.

The phrase “unborn baby” isn’t defined in the language of the initiative. The vague wording has led Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains to conclude that the effort is a “back door” effort to codify human life as beginning at conception , thus banning all abortion, even in the cases of rape and incest.

Sutherland, whose personhood movement has arguably had a greater impact on Colorado politics than any other single issue, told me her signature-gathering campaign is “very much on schedule,” compared to past personhood signature-gathering efforts, to turn in the required signatures to the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office by the end of September. They’re asking activists to return petition forms by Sept. 7.

“It is so grassroots,” Sutherland said. “We have thousands of petitions out throughout the state. The petitions flood in during the last two weeks. We’ll be doing a lot of scrambling.”

Does Rep. Mike Coffman see hypocrisy in drawing an annual $55,547 pension from the state of Colorado after suggesting in the past that Colorado should consider suspending pensions for people (editor’s note: like him) who start a new job [in Congress making $174,000] after retiring from state employment?

In her article today detailing some of this, The Denver Post’s Allison Sherry provided this response from Coffman, which deserves a follow-up:

Coffman said Monday through an e-mail that public pensions “at the state and local level, all across our country, are in desperate need of reform.”

He added that “the best pension reform for members of Congress is simply to abolish it.”

One wonders if Coffman sent the wrong email to Sherry. Perhaps he was answering a question from another reporter on a completely different topic?

Given that The Post headline on Sherry’s story reads, “Pension critic Rep. Mike Coffman already gets PERA money,” she should ask him directly, “What’s up with saying one thing and, when your own bank account is involved, doing another?” If he refuses to answer, we’d like to know.

The National Journal’s Shane Goldmacher got more out of Coffman during an interview last month, reporting that Coffman “stumbles in defending his decision to draw both a paycheck and a state pension.”

Coffman: “I fought for reform when I was in state, and I’m fighting to reform the system now,” he says. “At states, they ought to end the defined-benefit portion programs.… I’m certainly a beneficiary of it, but at the state level that’s unsustainable, too, and that’s going to have to change….”

“The part that I oppose is having a defined-benefit retirement plan for members of Congress—and have argued against a defined-benefit program when I was at the state level,” he tells National Journal.

But isn’t he taking part in a defined-benefit program?

“I am,” he replies. “I am.”

Still, though, the question lingers. Does Coffman see any hypocrisy in his own actions? And the kicker: If so, what does he think he should do about it?

The National Journal’s Alex Roarty wrote Wednesday it was “surprising” that most House Republicans voted to reverse Obama’s order halting deportations of many undocumented young people who were brought to the U.S. by their parents.

He pointed specifically to “House members like Reps. Mike Coffman of Colorado” whose district represents a “large Hispanic” constituency.

Roarty should have specified just how large Coffman’s Hispanic constituency is in his new district.

The Denver Post’s Kurtis Lee reported in 2011 that when Coffman’s district was re-drawn, the Hispanic population increased “from around 9 percent to about 20 percent.”

This gives you a more precise sense of the stakes involved as Coffman continues to take positions, long-held by the Congressman, that are considered hostile to Hispanics.

You’d expect the Hispanic voting population in Coffman’s district to be less, but still.

After pointing to Rep. Mike Coffman after the last election as a national model of a winning candidate, in a swing district, who “maintained his 100% pro-life position,” including his opposition to abortion for rape, Jennifer Mason, communications director of the anti-abortion group Personhood USA, is disappointed by Coffman’s statement yesterday that he now “strongly” supports the “exceptions for rape, incest, and protecting the life of the mother” that were included in a House bill banning abortion after a woman is 20-weeks pregnant.

Coffman joined nearly all House Republicans in supporting the abortion ban, and he issued a statement yesterday reiterating his “yes” vote, as well as his support for the rape-and-incest exceptions included in the proposed law.

Coffman’s support for the legislation shouldn’t have surprised reporters, given his track record on the abortion issue, but his decision to back exceptions to the abortion ban should’ve caught the attention of journalists–even if they might have suspected this was coming as Coffman, widely viewed as one of the most endangered Congressman in the country, fights for his political life against Democrat Andrew Romanoff.

Yet, I’ve seen almost zero news coverage of Coffman’s abortion statement. What’s Coffman’s explanation? What’s the reaction of people like Personhood USA’s Mason, who stood with Coffman in the past.

So I contacted Mason to fill in the media gap.

“It is not uncommon for politicians to lose moral ground once they are elected, Mason wrote via email. “Mike Coffman’s vote for the death penalty for babies conceived in rape is very disappointing. Let’s call it like it is: so-called ‘exceptions’ for babies conceived in rape are not exceptions at all. They are compromises that allow for innocent children to be killed. Every compromise causes us to lose ground, catering to our opposition’s demand to de-value human life. We expect better from our elected officials.”

I also asked Leslie Hanks, former President of Colorado Right to Life, for her reaction to Coffman’s new remarks.

Hanks sent me a photo reply, below, of two women holding signs with pictures of apparent fetuses and these messages: “I did not choose to have a rapist for a father. Must I die because of it?” And: “I am not of clump of cells. I am a human being.”

The Denver media embarrassed itself during the last election by essentially failing to question Coffman about his opposition to abortion, even in the case of rape and incest.

The details of Coffman’s thinking, why he’d come to take such a hard-line stance, fell through the journalistic cracks, as Coffman repeatedly told audiences that he’s “not focused on social issues.”

Now journalists are letting Coffman slide by again, as he suddenly supports abortion for rape, without finding out what’s up. When will they start questioning the Congressman on abortion issues?

Now that former Congressman Tom Tancredo is officially running for governor, you wonder how many Republicans will go out of their way to denounce Tanc’s anti-anti-anti (that’s triple anti-) immigration views.

It’s a question reporters should put to Republicans (Are you with Tancredo on immigration?) not only because numerous Republicans are trying to cozy up to Hispanics (See Gardner, Coffman, Penry) but also because many leading Colorado Republicans endorsed Tancredo over the years.

As The Denver Post’s Kurtis Lee tweeted this morning, Rep. Mike Coffman endorsed Tancredo in 2010.

To get an understanding of the bond between those two guys (which goes beyond the fact that Tancredo was anybody-but-Dan-Maes in 2010), watch Coffman praise Tancredo’s true conservative values in this video. (Here Tancredo nominates Coffman.)

As you know if you follow Tancredo from microphone to microphone, Tancredo’s true conservative values start with immigration, which still comes up in one of every ten of his breaths.

On Friday, Tancredo told KNUS’ Steve Kelley, for example, that immigration reform is not only wrong but “impossible” to achieve. His solution, in a word, is e-verify, he told Kelley. Just make it impossible for employers to hire ’em.

Are Colorado Republicans ready to tell reporters how and why they part ways with Tancredo?

The jaw of anyone who’s followed the career of Rep. Mike Coffman dropped upon reading the National Journal’s characterization of Coffman yesterday as a “moderate who sometimes refers to himself as an independent.”

It’s true that Coffman refers to himself as a moderate. Most endangered politicians trying to appeal to independent voters do so.

But for a reporter to state as a fact that Coffman is a “moderate?” Where’s that come from?

Objectively, the word “moderate” does not come to mind if you look at the majority of Coffman’s record. He’s clearly way to the right on social as well as fiscal issues.

On the social side, Coffman does not hide the fact that he’s against all abortion, even in the case of rape and incest.  (Just last year, Personhood USA labeled Coffman a “statesman” for standing firm against abortion for any reason.) He voted in Congress to change the definition of rape, adding “forcible” as an clarifying adjective.

On fiscal issues, Coffman, who endorsed Gov. Rick Perry for President, has said the flat tax has “tremendous value.”

Coffman has called Social Security a “Ponzi scheme,” and has never retracted the statement.

On immigration, Coffman has expressed an open mind about immigration reform lately. But his record stands in opposition to his recent tone. Coffman introduced a bill mandating English-only ballots, even for areas with large numbers of Spanish-speaking voters who aren’t proficient in English. Coffman has long stood with (and endorsed) Rep. Tom Tancredo, who symbolizes American extremism toward undocumented immigrants and immigration reform.

Coffman has called the expansion of Medicare under Obamacare “very radical.”

Famously, Coffman said doesn’t know if Obama “was born in the United States of America,” but Coffman did know that Obama “in his heart, he’s not an American.” Coffman apologized, but Coffman thinks too big a deal was made of the Obama comment, and it was taken out of context.

If you look at the totality of Coffman’s record, you can say he’s taken an independent view on military spending. But that’s it.

There’s no justification for journalists to label him as a “moderate.”

The National Journal reported last week that the National Republican Congressional Committee has released an ad attacking Democrat Andrew Romanoff for favoring “the strictest immigration laws in the nation” which Romanoff “passed as Speaker of the Colorado House.” Romanoff is challenging Rep. Mike Coffman, who’s seen as in danger of losing 6th Congressional District seat in Colorado.

The 2006 anti-immigration law cleared the Colorado Legislature with bi-partisan support, including the backing of Romanoff and Gov. Bill Owens.

But if Republicans attack Romanoff on immigration, reporters should obviously spotlight Coffman’s own record on the issue. the Journal’s Ben Terris did a pretty minimalist job of this, pointing out the following about Coffman:

When he first ran in 2008, one of his planks was to “deny amnesty and a path to citizenship to those who violate our laws. But this year, he had a change of heart and all of a sudden supports a path to citizenship.”

Terris should have written more about Coffman and immigration.

To begin with, Terris misleads us when he writes that Coffman supports a citizenship path. Coffman does not favor a path to citizenship for our country’s 11 million undocumented immigrants, except for a subset of immigrant children who were brought here illegally by their parents. (Other reporters made the same mistake and corrected it.)

The truth is Coffman voted against the Dream Act, and based on his current position, he’d vote against it again. Coffman advocates a path to citizenship for young undocumented immigrants who enlist in the U.S. military, but not for those who graduate from high school or college. The Dream Act offers a military and education path to citizenship.

Coffman, you recall, introduced a bill mandating English-only ballots, even for areas with large numbers of Spanish-speaking voters who aren’t proficient in English.

Coffman has long stood with (and endorsed) Rep. Tom Tancredo, who symbolizes American extremism toward undocumented immigrants and immigration reform.

Coffman actually accused Obama in 2011 of rushing “illegal immigrants” onto the voting rolls to help Obama win the 2012 election, and Coffman has yet to provide evidence for this.

Coffman’s opposition to Obamacare, to common-sense tax policy (He opposed Ref. C.), and his hostility toward government assistance to the poor, like the expansion of Medicaid, are out of step with most Hispanic voters and are linked to the politics of the immigration debate.

To this day, the “On the Issues” section of Coffman’s website has this to say, and this only, about “immigration:” “Comprehensive immigration reform must first begin with the comprehensive enforcement of our immigration laws. We must secure the borders of the United States now.”

The list goes on, and reporters covering Coffman’s strange maneuverings on immigration should become familiar with it.