In particular, it sought to defend SDI "from attack by the Union of Concerned Scientists, and in particular by the equally prominent physicists Hans Bethe, Richard Garwin, and astronomer Carl Sagan.

[5] When the Cold War instead ended in the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, the institute shifted from an emphasis on defense to a focus on environmental skepticism, including global warming denial.

"[5] Nierenberg's report, which blamed global warming on solar activity, had a large impact on the incoming Bush presidency, strengthening those in it opposed to environmental regulation.

[7] The appointment of David Allan Bromley as presidential science advisor, however, saw Bush sign the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992, despite some opposition from within his administration.

[5] In 1994, the institute published a paper by its then chairman, Frederick Seitz, titled Global warming and ozone hole controversies: A challenge to scientific judgment.

Ideally, too, the agency officials and politicians, who have to enact a regulatory program, would consider its costs and benefits, ensure that it will do more good than harm, and remain open to options to stop or change the regulation in situations where the underlying science is tentative.

[17] The book Climate Change: An Encyclopedia of Science and History, noting that GMI received funding from the automobile and fossil fuel industries and espouses "a mix of conservative, neoliberal, and libertarian ideological positions", states that GMI has "supported authors opposed to the hypothesis of anthropogenic warming and proposed mitigation policies ... stressing the free-market and the dangers of government regulation, which they said would hurt the US economy.

[19] Noted climate change deniers Sallie Baliunas and (until his death in 2008) Frederick Seitz (a past president of the National Academy of Sciences from 1962 to 1969) served on its board of directors.

[21] In February 2005 GMI co-sponsored a congressional briefing at which Senator James Inhofe praised Michael Crichton's novel State of Fear and attacked the "hockey stick graph".

"[26] In 1998 Jeffrey Salmon, then executive director of GMI, helped develop the American Petroleum Institute's strategy of stressing the uncertainty of climate science.