Now it is time for the big boys to come out and play

From Anthony at Watts Up With That comes this delightful news:

DOE sends a �litigation hold notice� regarding CRU to employees � asking to �preserve documents�
It appears bigger things are brewing related to CRU�s Climategate.

WUWT commenter J.C. writes in comments:

I work at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina. I�ve been following the Climategate scandal since its inception. The first time many of my coworkers had heard of the situation was when I asked them about it.

Well, well, well.

Look what was waiting in every single email Inbox on Monday morning:

______________________________________________
�December 14, 2009
DOE Litigation Hold Notice

DOE-SR has received a �Litigation Hold Notice� from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) General Council and the DOE Office of Inspector General regarding the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in England. Accordingly, they are requesting that SRNS, SRR and other Site contractors locate and preserve all documents, records, data, correspondence, notes, and other materials, whether official or unofficial, original or duplicative, drafts or final versions, partial or complete that may relate to the global warming, including, but not limited to, the contract files, any related correspondence files, and any records, including emails or other correspondence, notes, documents, or other material related to this contract, regardless of its location or medium on which it is stored. In other words, please preserve any and all documents relevant to �global warming, the Climate Research Unit at he University of East Anglia In England, and/or climate change science.�

As a reminder, this Litigation Hold preservation obligation supersedes any existing statutory or regulatory document retention period or destructive schedule. The determination of what information may be potentially relevant is based upon content and substance and generally does not depend on the type of medium on which the information exists. The information requested may exist in various forms, including paper records, hand-written notes, telephone log entries, email, and other electronic communication (including voicemail), word processing documents (including drafts, spreadsheets, databases, and calendars), telephone logs, electronic address books, PDAs (like Palm Pilots and Blackberries), internet usage files, systems manuals, and network access information in their original format. All ESI should be preserved in its originally-created, or �native� format, along with related metadata. Relevant backup tapes and all indexes for those tapes should also be preserved. Further, information that is reasonably accessible must nonetheless be preserved, because such sources will, at the very least, need to be identified and, under compelling circumstances, may need to be produced.

If you have any doubts as to whether specific information is responsive, err on the side of preserving that information.

Any employee who has information covered by this Litigation Hold is requested to contact Madeline Screven, Paralegal, SRNS Office of General Council, 5-4634, for additional instructions.

Michael L. Wamsted
Associate General Council�
_______________________________________________

Everyone on-site who has an email account received this letter. That�s somewhere in the neighborhood of 8000 people. How about that?
And this is the first official mention of the entire subject that I have seen.

NOTE: DOE-SR = Department of Energy Savannah River
SRNS = Savannah River Nuclear Solutions
SRR = Savannah River Remediation Heh -- I would love to stand outside the Climatic Research Unit selling toilet paper and clean underwear -- I could make a fortune... I wonder what is happening at Penn State and NASA GISS The DOE is very much at the center of the United States Climate Change research:

Climate Change
The Office of Policy and International Affairs (PI) serves as the focal point within the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for the development, coordination, and implementation of DOE-related aspects of climate change technical programs, policies, and initiatives. The Office of Climate Change Policy and Technology, located within PI, provides supporting policy, planning, technical and analytical services to carry out this function. To the extent delegated by the Secretary, the Office provides similar services to other Federal agencies and to Cabinet and sub-Cabinet-level interagency policy committees that work on climate change-related policy, science, technology, and greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation programs.

Time to fix a big bowl of popcorn and sit down and watch the show. Discovery can be fun process to watch -- as long as you are on the right side...