Patricia Wiberg, chair of the UVA Department of Environmental Sciences, recently told C-VILLE that the department hoped the university administration would issue a formal response to a recent Civil Investigative Demand (CID) from Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. The AG requested information pertaining to grant documents of former UVA climate scientist Michael Mann.
Today, Wiberg and her colleagues got their wish. UVA filed a petition in Albemarle County Circuit Court to "set aside" Cuccinelli’s CID. In a press release from the UVA Office of Public Affairs, Rector John O. Wynne remarks that "We are fighting for preservation of the basic principles on which our country was founded."
"The CIDs are deficient under the Virginia Fraud Against Taxpayers Act [FATA]…and their sweeping scope is certain to send a chill through the Commonwealth’s colleges and universities," reads the petition.
The filing goes on to call Cuccinelli’s CIDs "unprecedented," and argues that none of the five grants identified by Cuccinelli’s demands "appears to implicate FATA." Additionally: "The fifth grant was an internal University grant initially awarded in 2001. FATA did not become effective until 2003…and it does not apply retroactively."
Read the petition here, and a letter sent from the Union of Concerned Scientists to Cuccinelli’s office here.