Barbara Boxer on Climategate: "You call it 'Climategate'; I call it 'E-mail-theft-gate'"

In the aftermath of the Climategate leaked emails, Sen. James Inhofe (Okla.) has asked for hearings into whether the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) "cooked the science to make this thing look as if the science was settled, when all the time of course we knew it was not." Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, just wants to prosecute the hackers whistle blowers who leaked the emails.

Leaked e-mails allegedly undermining climate change science should be treated as a criminal matter, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said Wednesday afternoon.

Boxer, the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said that the recently released e-mails, showing scientists allegedly overstating the case for climate change, should be treated as a crime.

"You call it 'Climategate'; I call it 'E-mail-theft-gate,'" she said during a committee meeting. "Whatever it is, the main issue is, Are we facing global warming or are we not? I'm looking at these e-mails, that, even though they were stolen, are now out in the public."