PERSON: Marc Morano

ClimateDepot.com

Executive director, chief correspondent

In 2009 Marc Morano became the executive director and chief correspondent of ClimateDepot.com, a project of the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), a conservative think-tank based out of Washington, D.C. that has received funding from ExxonMobil, Chevron, as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars from foundations associated with Richard Mellon Scaife. According to 2011 IRS Forms (PDF), Morano was the highest paid staff member with a salary of $150,000 per year. Morano’s blog Climate Depot regularly publishes articles questioning man-made global warming.<br> <br> Although he has no scientific expertise in the area, Morano has become a prominent climate change skeptic. He has been called “the Matt Drudge of climate denial,” the “King of the skeptics,” and a “central cell of the climate-denial machine.” He was also listed as one of 17 top “climate killers” by Rolling Stone Magazine. He has accused climate scientists of “fear mongering,” and has claimed that proponents of man-made global warming are “funded to the tune of $50 billion.” <br> <br> From 2006 to 2009 Morano was the communications director for Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the minority chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Prior to the last election, Inhofe was the majority chair of the EPW committee. In the 2002 election cycle, Senator Inhofe received more in donations from the oil and gas sector than any other senator. Sen. Inhofe is known for his infamous quote that the threat of catastrophic global warming is the “greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people,” and as his communications director, Morano has spent his recent years propagating this message.<br> <br> According to Mark Morano’s profile at the Heartland Institute, “Morano joined the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee as the majority Communications Director in June 2006 after a decade and a half as a working journalist, documentary maker, radio talk show host, and national television correspondent.” Apart from being a regular speaker at the Heartland Institute’s International Conference on Climate Change,and Morano is also listed on their website as a “global warming expert.”<br> <br> Prior to working for Senator Inhofe, Morano was a journalist with Cybercast News Service, which is owned and operated by the Media Research Center (MRC). The MRC is supported in part by right-wing foundations and funding from industry, including over $200,000 from ExxonMobil. From 1992 to 1996, Morano also worked as a producer for the Rush Limbaugh Television Show and was known as “Limbaugh’s man in Washington.” Morano often appears on Fox news to promote his ideas regarding climate change.<br> <br> — desmogblog.com