Myron Ebell

Myron Ebell is an American climate change denier who serves as the Director of Global Warming and International Environmental Policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), an American libertarian advocacy group based in Washington, D.C. He is also chairman of the Cooler Heads Coalition, a politically conservative group formed in 1997 focused on "dispelling the myths of global warming by exposing flawed economic, scientific, and risk analysis". In September 2016, Ebell was appointed by then Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to lead his transition team for the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

In these organizations, Ebell has been central in promoting climate change denial, distributing his views to the media and politicians. Ebell, who is not a scientist, has been described as a climate change skeptic, a climate contrarian and a climate change denier. Ebell claims that he advocates "for sensible energy policies that benefit everyone. Instead of policies that simply reacts icto alarmism."

Education and early career

Ebell grew up on a cattle ranch at Baker City, Oregon, which was first homesteaded by the Ebells in the 1860s, and is still held by his relatives. In 1971 he went to Colorado College, where he majored in philosophy and then obtained a master's degree in political theory from the London School of Economics. Ebell undertook further postgraduate research at the University of California at San Diego and at Cambridge University before returning to the United States where he worked in a succession of public-policy jobs in Washington.

Around 1988 he bought a house in Prince George's County, Maryland. He worked as assistant to the chairman of the National Taxpayers Union, and by 1990 he was a lobbyist representing the National Inholders Association, campaigning against federal policies which restricted property owners in U.S. national parks and national forests. He worked for this organisation, which was renamed the American Land Rights Association (ALRA), on such policy topics as tobacco regulation and endangered species. In 1995 he sent a nine-page memo to staff at the United States House Committee on Natural Resources opposing Newt Gingrich's proposals to reform the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Ebell wrote that Gingrich's "soft feelings for cuddly little critters is still going to be a big problem", and "We are going to need to get some of the freshmen and women to work on him." Ebell became a senior legislative assistant to Republican Representative John Shadegg and advocated the elimination of federal conservation regulations, leaving protection of the environment in the hands of state and local officials.

In December 1995, he was hired as policy director of Senator Malcolm Wallop's recently founded Frontiers of Freedom Institute. Wallop described Ebell as having "a broad background in public policy with a concentration on land use, environmental and tax policy. He is widely considered the key staff member responsible for and author of the "Shandegg" bill reform of the ESA." Frontiers of Freedom promoted property rights and criticized environmental regulations such as the Endangered Species Act.

Political views

Tobacco industry

In the 1990s, while serving as Policy Director at the Frontiers of Freedom Institute, Ebell worked as part of a team to make regulating the tobacco industry "politically unpalatable".
In 2011, as part of its "Control Abuse of Power" (CAP) project, the CEI launched lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the 1998 tobacco Master Settlement Agreement (MSA).

Global warming

At a meeting on April 3, 1998, Ebell was one of 12 public relations experts and think-tank representatives who produced what they called their "Global Climate Science Communications" plan, with the aim of persuading "a majority of the American public" that "significant uncertainties exist in climate science", intending to convince the public and policymakers that the science was faulty and could be ignored. ExxonMobil, the coal utility Southern Company and the American Petroleum Institute were represented at the meeting, and there were proposals for industry funding.
Global Climate Science Communications Plan 1998
p. 2 Ebell has been referred to as a "public-policy wonk—not, he hastens to clarify, a lobbyist for the energy industry, as many of his fellow skeptics are, or a scientist whose research is underwritten by the energy industry, or a politician who takes contributions from the energy industry."

After this meeting, ExxonMobil, even though aware as early as 1981 that fossil fuels affected climate change, began funding Frontiers of Freedom, where Ebell was a staff member. In 1999 Ebell transferred to the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), and from 1998 to 2005 ExxonMobil provided CEI with over $2 million of funding. On October 27, 2006, Democratic senator Jay Rockefeller and Republican senator Olympia Snowe sent a joint bipartisan letter to Rex Tillerson, the new CEO of ExxonMobil, about its funding of various groups, stating "We fervently hope that reports that ExxonMobil intends to end its funding of the climate change denial campaign of the Competitive Enterprise Institute are true." In 2007, Ebell said funding had no relevance as "We're not beholden to our donors, because we don't say, 'If you give us this money, we'll do this project'," and said "I can't even quite tell you who supports us on global warming". At that time, CEI had funding from the American Petroleum Institute, the Dow Chemical Company