Ruh Roh: Inspector General says Climategate Needs More Investigation

There is actually more to this story than just the findings of the Inspector General, whose report clearly stated that the emails from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) 'warant further investigation.' However, that's not the way the liberal media is reporting the story. Since no wrongdoing was conclusively determined, the narrative coming from the mainstream media is that NOAA is off the hook after the investigation. Not so fast, Libs.

The investigation was spearheaded by Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe (R), who released this report in response to the IG's findings. Here are some highlights via Watts Up With That:

Highlights from the IG Report

Emails ‘Warrant Further Investigation’

“We found eight emails which, in our judgment, warranted further examination to clarify any possible issues involving the scientific integrity of particular NOAA scientists or NOAA’s data. As a result, we conducted interviews with the relevant NOAA scientists regarding these eight emails, and have summarized their responses and explanations in the enclosure.”

Potential Breach of NOAA Contracting

“In addition to the foregoing, we also found two other emails that raised questions, one regarding a 2002 contract NOAA awarded to the CRU…”

“This email, dated June 24, 2003, captioned ‘NOAA Funding,’ was sent by a visiting fellow at CRU, a NOAA contractor, to another researcher (affiliated with a research institution in Vietnam) stating the following:

‘NOAA want[s] to give us more money for the El Nino work with IGCN [Indochina Global Change Network). How much do we have left from the last budget? I reckon most has been spent but we need to show some left to cover the costs of the trip [name omitted] didn’t make and also thec fees/equipment/computer money we haven’t spent otherwise NOAA will be suspicious.’

“Auditing NOAA’s contracting with CRU was not within the scope of our inquiry, but in light of these circumstances it is important for NOAA to be assured that CRU fully complied with the applicable U.S. contracting rules and requirements. Moreover, NOAA could not tell us the universe of climate-related contracts it has issued over the past ten years to parties and institutions such as CRU.” [Emphasis added]

Clearly, there are some unanswered questions and this is not over. The IG's report also calls into question NOAA's handling of FOIA requests. Yet, HERE is how the liberal media reported the IG's findings:

A Commerce Department inspector general investigation into the “Climategate” controversy finds that government scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration did not manipulate climate change data.

It’s the latest investigation to clear scientists of manipulating climate data after thousands of e-mails from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit were leaked in 2009.

While the Hill did provide a link to the entire report, you'd think after reading their post that the issue is dead and buried, which is patently misleading.

Read WUWT's post.