Climate researcher defends actions, claims ‘smear’

As a result of the breach, Penn State officials are looking into Mr. Mann’s e-mails. University of East Anglia officials are also investigating the breach, and a top researcher there has left his post temporarily while the probe proceeds.

Mr. Mann said he welcomed the inquiry and thinks Penn State officials are simply “researching information to determine if an investigation is necessary.”

One of Mr. Mann’s e-mails read: “I think we have to stop considering ‘Climate Research’ as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. … We also need to consider what we tell or request of our more reasonable colleagues who currently sit on the editorial board. …”

Mr. Mann defended his statements, saying: “There was an editor who appeared to be, in essence, gaming the system to allow through papers that did not meet the basic standards of science, simply because they expressed a contrarian viewpoint about climate.” He added there is nothing wrong with skeptical science being published, but in this case, the basic standards of quality had been compromised.

Still, the problems may be expanding.

On Thursday, two Republican senators asked NASA to look into why it has not yet answered a researcher who filed a Freedom of Information Act request two years ago seeking temperature data and e-mails similar to the ones from the British university.

In 2007, NASA made corrections to its data that showed 1934, not 1998, was the hottest year on record for the contiguous 48 U.S. states. Researcher Christopher C. Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told The Washington Times he has filed three FOIA requests and will sue at the end of this year if the requests aren’t answered.

A NASA spokesman told The Times this week that it is still processing the request and that he couldn’t say why it’s taken so long.

U.S. law gives the agency 20 days to respond to the request, and Mr. Horner said he suspects NASA is delaying because it is afraid of what the data would show.

On Friday, 20 congressional Republicans, including the top House GOP leadership, sent a letter to the president expressing their “grave concern” that the U.S. delegation might commit to mandatory greenhouse gas emissions reductions.

“Only a treaty ratified by the United States Senate or legislation agreed to by Congress may commit our nation to any mandatory emissions reduction program,” wrote the Republican lawmakers.

“Congress has the sole responsibility to approve such a program,” they added, asking for clarification “that the U.S. negotiators will not commit our government to an emissions-reduction protocol at Copenhagen.”

The letter was signed by the two top-ranking Republicans in the House, Rep. John A. Boehner of Ohio and Eric Cantor of Virginia, as well as 18 other GOP lawmakers. It reflected their strong opposition to legislation that would reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and industry by 17 percent by 2020.

The House narrowly passed the bill last summer, but it has stalled in the Senate, which is expected to take up climate legislation in the spring.

Mr. Obama has said the United States is prepared to commit to reductions in the 17 percent range by 2020 in negotiations at Copenhagen.

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