Elizabeth Harrington of the Washington Free Beacon details another disappointing use of federal funds.

The National Science Foundation is funding a doctoral dissertation on “climate change denial.”

The University of Kansas was awarded $12,000 for the research, which began on June 1. The research seeks to find a “more complete and nuanced understanding” of individuals who are skeptical that human beings cause climate change.

The dissertation focuses on two parishes outside of New Orleans, along the Mississippi River, and claims that residents who work in the oil industry “exploit the local environment.”

“The study will investigate residents’ attitudes on climate change and assess the relationship between these attitudes and local environmental policy,” according to the grant for the study. “This region is of specific interest due to the unique configuration of social and environmental factors that impact the community, including environmental risk, economic dependence on extractive industry, high rates of climate change denial, and high concentration of oil and gas employment.”

The researchers seek to prove that people who do not believe in man-made global warming are driven in part by their emotions.