Committee on Science - U.S. House of Representatives

In November 2009, emails and documents leaked by the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU), one of the primary repositories of climate change data relied on by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), highlighted numerous Federal scientists and recipients of Federal research grants involved in various inappropriate activities.

The stolen material comprised more than 1,000 e-mails and 2,000 documents pertaining to climate change research covering a period from 1996 until 2009. Some of the e-mails included discussions of how to combat the arguments of climate change skeptics, drafts of scientific papers, and discussions of efforts to shut out dissenters and their points of view.  Leading climate researchers also discussed destroying various files in order to prevent data being revealed under the Freedom of Information Act.

In response to these controversial emails, widely dubbed ClimateGate, Science and Technology Committee Republicans have written letters requesting hearings on the issue, letters requesting action from the Administration to ensure scientific integrity, as well as letters to both NASA and NOAA requesting that they keep all original climate data.