From an email David Vitter sent on December 18, 2009:

Dear  Friend,

As you are probably aware, what has now been  dubbed “Climategate,” has quickly turned into an international scientific scandal  involving the world’s preeminent climate change research center for global  warming.

Last month, either a whistleblower or a hacker  downloaded and released more than 1,000 emails and internal documents from the  Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia in the UK.   This research facility is the nerve center for the United Nations  Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and its scientists are the  primary authors of the UN’s global warming research and temperature data for  most modeling used at the international level, as well as cited here in the  U.S. by agencies and White House officials.

The emails and other released data appear to  implicate professors at some of the U.S.’s premier universities in a  coordinated effort to achieve the IPCC agenda rather than provide dispassionate  scientific data .  A review of the emails is illuminating.  In them,  scientists appear to advise each other on how to smooth over data so as not to  compromise the favored hypothesis, to discuss ways to keep opposing views out  of leading journals, and to give tips on how to “hide the decline” of  temperature in certain inconvenient data.

It’s also important to note that the data and research  at both the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA are not independent of the CRU.  As to date, NASA  has not been forthcoming with its own temperature data and records and has  stonewalled a request for data under the Freedom of Information Act  (FOIA).  At least one researcher has also found serious problems with  temperature data in Australia.  The full extent of the implications of "Climategate"  will not be known for awhile as years of  modeling and lost or destroyed data must be sifted through in an attempt to uncover the full story.

U.S. climate policy  – as well as  President Obama’s proposed new regulation of carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act and the international climate change treaty being proposed at the Copenhagen Conference today  – is based on  the “science” from the IPCC research and the authors of the now public emails  and data.  And because the EPA has proposed to regulate CO2 emissions on the  basis of the now questionable IPCC reports and data, I am working with Senate  and House colleagues to investigate the nature and extent of the inconvenient  revelations now made available.  I will be sure to keep you up to date on  our work.

Sincerely,

David Vitter
U.S.  Senator