It seems that Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) has lost his appetite for pursuing a ‘Climategate’ investigation, according to The Hill. Rep. Issa is the presumed chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform for the 112th Congress starting in January.

Perhaps it was just GOP chest-thumping in the run-up to the midterm elections.  Who knows?

But at least Rep. Issa has recognized the giant waste of time and taxpayer money another investigation into Climategate would represent.  After all, every independent investigation into the so-called ‘Climategate’ scandal has exonerated the scientists, and nothing has undermined the scientific consensus on climate change. (Although it’s worth noting that nobody has bothered to investigate the actual theft of the climate scientists’ emails or probed the role of a small group of climate skeptics in blowing it out of proportion.)

Skeptics and deniers cried bloody murder, and everyone (except hard-headed skeptics and deniers) now knows that Climategate was a ginned-up nontroversy whose proponents failed to “prove” that global warming is a “hoax.” 

There is no doubt that Rep. Issa and other incoming GOP committee chairmen will find plenty of other ways to waste time and taxpayer money “investigating” the baseless accusations lobbed at climate scientists in the climate denial machine’s long quest to confuse the public about global warming. 

But with Rep. Issa seemingly bowing out of the race, who will be the first GOP climate zombie to dig Climategate up again from the depths of the right wing conspiracy graveyard?