Politicians do not really understand science, they are in the policy business.  And environmental activists do not understand science, they are in the advocacy business.  Both claim to love science when it suits their agenda.  When they are together, as with recent tax schemes designed to penalize carbon usage, it can be very bad.    But everyone knew this except politicians and activists, who only believe in 'the miracle of capitalism' while they are legislating the parts they don't like out of society and insisting it will flourish if they control it.

In 2006-2007, the heyday of CO2 hysteria, we noted that a large problem that we could control without wrecking the global economy (not that it mattered, the global economy was kind enough to wreck itself) was methane production. 

Methane has 23X the impact on warming as CO2 and is caused by plants and animals - as impractical as shutting down all commerce sounded to sane people not in the anti-science environmental movement, cutting down the Amazon to remove dead plants causing methane was equally silly.   

The National Science Foundation is under some mainstream criticism due to budget and waste concerns highlighted by Senate watchdog Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Oklahoma (see Shrimp On A Treadmill - The NSF Under Fire).

It's easy for the public and members of Congress to show faux outrage unless it is one of their pet projects but, in Coburn's defense, he goes after everyone, not just science; transportation spending waste, military spending waste, you name it and he has gone after it.    He is exactly the sort of financial 'watchdog' everyone says they want - unless he is watching their group.   

During the ClimateGate scandal, researchers at East Anglia were not found to be manipulating data but were stonewalling Freedom of Information requests, the bedrock of a democratic science society since the work is financed by taxpayers.