I was browsing the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee web site and found this interesting allegation (from the press release):

“Intimidation and abuse
of witnesses who disagree with ruling Democrats must not be permitted
in the Energy and Commerce Committee, 20 of the panel?s Republicans
told Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and subcommittee Chairman Ed
Markey, D-Mass., Friday. At issue is the curious case of an energy
company executive who, within hours of challenging the cost analysis of
Waxman-Markey global warming legislation, found himself the target of a
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission inquiry requested that day by
Chairman Markey.”

Here is the Republican letter to Waxman and Markey,
Markey’s original letter to FERC, and FERC’s response.

It really wouldn’t be that surprising if this was intentional.  Environmental extremists (from both parties) have attacked anyone that dare challenge the global warming/anti-poor movement.

In 2006, Senator Rockefeller and Senator Snowe sent a threatening letter to Exxon because they didn’t approve of Exxon’s funding of nonprofit organizations that  dare to question the extremist agenda.  A lowlight from the letter:

In light of the adverse impacts still resulting from your corporations activities, we must request that ExxonMobil end any further financial assistance or other support to groups or individuals whose public advocacy has contributed to the small, but unfortunately effective, climate change denial myth. Further, we believe ExxonMobil should take additional steps to improve the public debate, and consequently the reputation of the United States. We would recommend that ExxonMobil publicly acknowledge both the reality of climate change and the role of humans in causing or exacerbating it. Second, ExxonMobil should repudiate its climate change denial campaign and make public its funding history. Finally, we believe that there would be a benefit to the United States if one of the world’s largest carbon emitters headquartered here devoted at least some of the money it has invested in climate change denial pseudo-science to global remediation efforts. We believe this would be especially important in the developing world, where the disastrous effects of global climate change are likely to have their most immediate and calamitous impacts.

Notice that the threats from the extremists don’t just come when there is a question of whether global warming is a threat, but also when someone criticizes the policy choices being made to address global warming.  The “deniers,” as the extremists offensively call anyone that challenges their agenda, can even believe that global warming is a threat but simply disagree with the solutions, yet they still will be called “deniers” or “skeptics.” 

The extremists lump everybody together trying to give the impression that these evil people deny that warming has occurred–I don’t know of any “skeptic” that denies there has been warming.

When you have no arguments, this is what you have to do–attack your opposition.  The environmental extremists know how to attack, I’ll give them that.