SEE PAULA EASLEY'S (NGP Photo) ALASKA STANDARD PIECE: It has all the earmarks of a blockbuster thriller - greed, corruption, lust for power, obstruction of justice, and more. It's been called the biggest scandal in history. Organized scientific fraud. Cap-and-trade con game. A conspiracy. One thing the mainstream media hasn’t called it is news.  I’ve been riveted by the blogosphere's stunning "ClimateGate" revelations unfolding by the minute since November 20. It leaves me more disheartened than ever with the MSM’s long-standing failure to represent skeptics’ contention that CO2, a trace component of the atmosphere, never has and never will be capable of measurably affecting climate or weather anywhere on the planet.    ...  Greenwire (11/24, subs. req’d) reports, “House Republicans are asking a federal court to unseal the case file of a closed criminal matter in Southern California in which an air emissions credit trader sold fake credits to the tune of $12.5 million. Reps. Joe Barton (R-Texas) and Greg Walden (R-Ore.) say the details of the case should be released because they could offer a glimpse into how U.S. EPA will oversee criminal conduct under a national cap-and-trade system for global warming emissions.  ...  NY Times (11/25) reports, “The California Air Resources Board released a draft rule on Tuesday establishing a cap-and-trade program that sets a declining ceiling on emissions of greenhouse gases and allows companies to buy and sell permits to meet it. California’s goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. ... Washington Post (11/25) reports, “The percentage of Americans who believe global warming is happening has dipped from 80 to 72 percent in the past year, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. … Still, even respondents such as Woolcott who favored a cap-and-trade bill questioned whether Americans would support a policy that could raise energy prices in the short term, given the current state of the economy. "Honestly, I don 't think the public's going to back it," she said. "Right now it's all they can do to pay their electric bill and put gas in their cars. You're asking me right now, and it's like, let's get through Thanksgiving and Christmas."  ...  Bloomberg (11/25) reports, “China blamed a “lack of good faith” on the part of developed nations for hampering talks on a treaty to fight global warming less than two weeks before the start of the United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen. Yu did say China intends to plant 60 billion trees over the next 10 years to help combat pollution, increasing the country’s forested area by 40 million hectares by 2020. “These trees will play a carbon sink role in the years to come,” he said. China is the world’s biggest emitter of the gasses blamed for global warming and has resisted calls for specific goals on reducing carbon emissions, saying such measures would crimp economic growth.  ...  Robert Costa writes on National Review Online (11/24), “Later that month, McAleer threw another dart Gore’s way — his film Not Evil Just Wrong. The documentary takes aim at Gore’s role in ginning up global-warming hysteria.    ...    LA Times, by Margot Roosevelt.  California officials on Tuesday issued the nation's first blueprint for a broad-based cap-and-trade plan, an innovative and controversial effort to use market forces to control global warming.  The ambitious program would cap most of the state's greenhouse gases, including those from more than 600 power plants, refineries, cement plants and other big factories. It would allow companies to buy and sell emission allowances among themselves to reach an overall goal of cutting planet-warming pollutants 15% below today's levels by 2020.  ... Obama announces 2020 emissions target, Dec. 9 Copenhagen visit.

Oil & Gas Online.  Scientists in Washington, D.C. are reporting laboratory evidence supporting the possibility that some of Earth's oil and natural gas may have formed in a way much different than the traditional process described in science textbooks.

E&E News (11/24, subs. req’d) reports, “The Institute for Energy Research estimated that to date, the Obama administration has offered 2.9 million onshore acres for lease, of which slightly more than 1 million have been leased. The group said if it counts the 77,000 acres that the administration deferred in Utah earlier this year, fewer onshore acres were leased in 2009 than in any other year on record. "The Obama administration can take credit for leasing the smallest amount of taxpayer-owned lands in recent history, bringing in less than one-tenth of the $10 billion in revenue generated from lease sales last year, and vastly reducing the opportunities to put Americans to work producing American energy," IER said.