Alpha Natural Discloses Payments to Climate Change Skeptic Chris Hor...

Bankrupt coal company Alpha Natural Resources Inc. paid lawyer Chris Horner $18,600 before it filed for chapter 11 this summer.

Virginia-based Alpha made three $6,200 payments to Mr. Horner, an author and global warning skeptic who has been accused of harassing climate scientists, between May and July of this year, according to documents filed earlier this month in the company’s bankruptcy case.

The relationship between Alpha and Mr. Horner, whose books include “Red Hot Lies: How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats, Fraud and Deception to Keep You Misinformed” and “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming and Environmentalism,” previously was reported by the Intercept in an article on how the coal industry was funding think tanks that deny climate change.

But until the recent bankruptcy filing, it wasn’t clear how much Alpha was paying Mr. Horner, who has appeared as a guest on TV shows like “The Daily Show” and “PBS NewsHour.”

Mr. Horner didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment. Alpha declined to comment.

The coal industry, buffeted by plummeting prices and competition from cheap natural gas, has long felt besieged by stricter federal regulations. Mr. Horner, a senior fellow at libertarian think tank Competitive Enterprise Institute, is one of the industry’s most visible defenders, the “longtime go-to guy on global warming extremism,” according to Rush Limbaugh.

Mr. Horner is also a senior legal fellow at Energy & Environment Legal Institute, formerly the American Tradition Institute, which is known for using state Freedom of Information Act laws to unearth emails among climate scientists, environmentalists and regulators. In 2011, E&E sued the University of Virginia to access the emails of meteorologist Michael Mann.

Although he is not a scientist, Mr. Horner has testified before Congress on environmental matters, in 2002 recommending that the Senate reject the Kyoto Protocol to cut greenhouse emissions. The U.S. never ratified Kyoto.

He is also senior attorney at the nonprofit Free Market Environmental Law Clinic, formerly the George Mason Environmental Law Clinic, which paid him $115,865 in 2013 and $60,449 in 2012,according to the clinic’s tax records. FME Law, which doesn’t list its funders, “seeks to provide a counter-weight to the litigious environmental movement that fosters an economically destructive regulatory regime in the United States.”

Mr. Horner was listed as a speaker at this year’s Coal & Investment Leadership Forum, an invitation-only three-day event featuring Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush and hosted by a handful of coal companies, including Alpha.

This web of nonprofits constitute a small but vocal contrarian chorus to the 97% of climate scientists who agree that climate-warming trends over the past century are very likely due to human activities. According to their detractors, the nonprofits also provide cover for coal companies to harass environmental scientists and inhibit research into climate without getting their hands dirty.

“We’ve known for years that Chris Horner and his front group have secretly been supported by companies that don’t want their names associated with attacking climate scientists,” said Michael Halpern, program manager for the Center of Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

But until Alpha’s bankruptcy, he said, “the funding organization and individuals have been so opaque it’s been difficult to understand who is really behind it.”

Alpha filed for chapter 11 protection in August. The company, one of the largest coal producers in the U.S., was brought down by plummeting coal prices and high debt from its $7.1 billion acquisition of Massey Energy Co. in 2011. Don Blankenship, Massey’s former chief executive, is now on trial in West Virginia, accused of conspiring to violate safety laws before a 2010 explosion that killed 29 miners, which he denies.

In bankruptcy-court filings, Alpha Chief Executive Kevin S. Crutchfield also blamed “the imposition of restrictive federal and state regulations on coal producers and operators of coal-fired power plants” for hastening the historic decline of the U.S. coal industry. The company has promised a new business plan this month and may call on labor to make sacrifices.

Write to Patrick Fitzgerald at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at @PatFitzgerald23