Prompted by a February 2005 "Wall Street Journal" article, Barton launched an investigation that year into two climate change studies from 1998 and 1999. In his letters to the authors of the studies he requested details on the studies and the sources of the authors grant funding. "The Washington Post" condemned Barton's investigation as a "witch-hunt". During former Vice President Al Gore's testimony to the Energy and Commerce Committee in March 2007, Barton asserted to Gore that "You're not just off a little, you're totally wrong" (climate scientists have refuted Barton's assertion), stating that "Global warming science is uneven and evolving."