Irony alert. Leading anti-science attack dog’s funding comes to light in a coal company bankruptcy proceeding.

Chris Horner, (who I met some years ago while soundly thrashing him in a “debate”), is an attorney, who, early in his career, worked for Enron. Presumably, they were not evil enough for him, so he moved on to someplace he could do more harm to larger numbers of people and species.

For insight on what Horner does for a living, see above.

Lee Fang at firstlook.org:

Christopher Horner, an attorney who claims that the earth is cooling, is known within the scientific community for hounding climate change researchers with relentless investigations and public ridicule, often deriding scientists as “communists” and frauds.

Horner is a regular guest on Fox News and CNN, and has been affiliated with a number of think tanks and legal organizations over the last decade. He has called for investigations of climate scientists affiliated with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and NASA, and inundated climate researchers at major universities across the country with records requests that critics say are designed to distract them from their work.

New court documents reveal one source of Horner’s funding: big coal.

Last Thursday’s bankruptcy filing of Alpha Natural Resources, one of the largest coal companies in America, includes line items for all of the corporation’s contractors and grant recipients. Among them are Horner individually at his home address, as well as the Free Market Environmental Law Clinic, where he is a senior staff attorney.

Reached by phone today about his relationship with Alpha Natural Resources, Horner said he would get back with us. David W. Schnare, director of the Free Market Environmental Law Clinic, subsequently emailed a response neither confirming nor denying that Horner or his organizations have received funding from the coal giant. Schnare said that “nearly all” his organization’s donors “request that we not disclose their names” and noted that under IRS regulations it is not required to do so. Schnare also stated that “the sources of our funding have no role in which cases” his organization prosecutes.