The office of Virginia’s governor, Timothy M. Kaine, has asked a University of Virginia professor of environmental sciences to stop using his title as state climatologist when conducting nonstate business, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported on Saturday.

That request closely follows reports that Intermountain Rural Electric Association, a Colorado utility cooperative that has opposed mandatory curbs on carbon-dioxide emissions, has pledged $100,000 to the professor, Patrick J. Michaels, for research. Mr. Michaels has been a prominent skeptic of theories that global warming is caused by human activities (The Chronicle, November 10, 2000 and February 5, 1999). He is also a fellow at the Cato Institute, and he has been an editor of World Climate Report, an online publication supported by the Western Fuels Association.

According to the Times-Dispatch, Katherine K. Hanley, the secretary of the commonwealth, sent a letter to the president of the University of Virginia asking that Mr. Michaels “avoid any conflict of interest or appearance thereof by scrupulously avoiding the use of the title of state climatologist in connection with any outside activities or private consulting endeavors.”

In an interview with the newspaper, Mr. Michaels said that he had never used his title as state climatologist or as a University of Virginia professor in public forums. But a spokesman for the governor told the Associated Press that use of the titles had been “a source of confusion from time to time, and the history has been murky.”