The main climate scientist behind a letter asking President Barack Obama to prosecute those who question global warming may have been cheating taxpayers by illegally “double-dipping” — he was paying himself and his wife millions of dollars while running a taxpayer-funded research group while collecting a paycheck from his state-funded academic job.“Since 2001, as President of IGES, Dr. Shukla appears to have paid himself and his wife a total of $5.6 million in compensation — an excessive amount for a non-profit relying on taxpayer money,” Texas Republican Rep. [crscore]Lamar Smith[/crscore] sent to the inspector general of the National Science Foundation.

“The public expects non-profit organizations that receive taxpayer money to exercise responsible stewardship of their tax dollars,” Smith wrote. “In this case, it appears that grants provided to IGES did not serve the intended purpose of providing services to the public. Instead, taxpayers picked up the tab for excessive double dipping salaries, nepotism, and questionable money transfers.”

Climate scientist Jagadish Shukla of George Mason University, who also ran the Institute of Global Environment and Society (IGES), made headlines last summer when he sent a letter to the Obama administration asking them to prosecute global warming skeptics with an anti-mafia law — the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO).

The letter sparked huge pushback from skeptic bloggers, who began looking into Shukla’s organization, IGES, and found he was collecting millions from taxpayers while calling for those who disagree with him to be investigated by the Department of Justice. IGES eventually deleted the letter from its website, and the group tried to explain away the letter.

House science committee Republicans took notice and began to investigate Shukla’s getting rich off taxpayer grants. Now, Smith says the committee has evidence Shukla was diverting taxpayer funds to another nonprofit he founded and was breaking Virginia state law by “double-dipping.”

“It appears IGES may have improperly commingled taxpayer funds with private charitable contributions when it shifted $100,000 to an education charity in India founded by Dr. Shukla,” Smith wrote. “This raises concerns that taxpayer money intended to be used for climate research was redirected to an overseas organization favored by Dr. Shukla.”

Smith also cited a recent audit by George Mason University which, he says, Shukla was illegally “double-dipping” by collecting money from the National Science Foundation while also getting paid by Virginia taxpayers.

“In other words, he received his full salary at GMU, while working full time at IGES and receiving a full salary there,” Smith wrote. “This practice may have violated GMU’s university policy, his employment contract with the university, and Virginia state law.”