WASHINGTON - For months, climate scientists have taken a vicious beating in the media and on the Internet, accused of hiding data, covering up errors and suppressing alternate views. Their response until now has been largely to assert the legitimacy of the vast body of climate science and to mock their critics as cranks and know-nothings.

But the volume of criticism and the depth of doubt have only grown, and many scientists now realize they are facing a crisis of public confidence and have to fight back. Tentatively and grudgingly, they are beginning to engage their critics, admit mistakes, open up their data and reshape the way they conduct their work.

The unauthorized release last fall of hundreds of e-mail messages from a major climate research center in England, and more recent revelations of a handful of errors in a supposedly authoritative United Nations report on climate change, have created what a number of top scientists say is a major breach of faith in their research. They say the uproar threatens to undermine decades of work and has badly damaged public trust in the scientific enterprise.

The following is Part 2 in our series of excerpts from the Senate EPW Minority Report, titled, "‘Consensus' Exposed: The CRU Controversy." Here the excerpts focus on two points from the report. First is the distinction made between "utterly politicized scientists," such as those at the center of the CRU controversy, and scientists committed to disinterested, objective science in the field of climatology (and all other fields), who deserve praise and support. It points to the importance of openness and transparency in practicing good science-and shows how those principles were, at times, ignored or flouted. Second, it shows how the EPA relied heavily on the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report to make its endangerment finding for greenhouse gases. The IPCC's report was marred by errors and exaggerations. EPA failed to do its own independent review of the IPCC's science, so its finding is flawed, and EPA should dispense with it and start over again.

Washington Post: Senators to propose abandoning cap-and-trade - Three key senators are engaged in a radical behind-the-scenes overhaul of climate legislation, preparing to jettison the broad "cap-and-trade" approach that has defined the legislative debate for close to a decade. The sharp change of direction demonstrates the extent to which the cap-and-trade strategy -- allowing facilities to buy and sell pollution credits in order to meet a national limit on greenhouse gas emissions -- has become political poison. In a private meeting with several environmental leaders on Wednesday, according to participants, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), declared, "Cap-and-trade is dead." Graham and Sens. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) have worked for months to develop an alternative to cap-and-trade, which the House approved eight months ago.

The Hill: Senators rebrand, recast climate bill as 'cap and trade' becomes politically toxic - Senators trying to salvage a climate bill hope to put plenty of distance between themselves and cap-and-trade. It's an acknowledgment that the term cap and trade has itself become a political liability."Cap-and-trade in conservative circles is widely considered a dirty phrase, right up there with abortion on demand," said Frank O'Donnell, president of the advocacy group Clean Air Watch.

The Minority Staff of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works recently released a new 84-page report, titled, "‘Consensus' Exposed: The CRU Controversy." Recognizing the severe time constraints of interested readers-how can one read 84 pages amidst the daily maelstrom over global warming?-EPW Policy Beat will issue a series of excerpts from the report over the next several days. We hope this provides our readership with the report's essential findings, and a clear understanding that the CRU email controversy is more than just "a little email squabble." To the contrary, the report shows that the climate science "consensus" is far from settled, and it reveals unethical and possibly illegal behavior by the world's leading climate scientists, many of whom wrote and edited the IPCC's science assessments. It demonstrates that the IPCC's science is seriously flawed--a fact that, among other things, undermines the critical scientific basis of EPA's endangerment finding.