News Bites: Virginia lawmakers challenge Cuccinelli’s climate probe, U.S.-China energy deals on the march, and more

The Washington Post reports that some Virginia Democrats want to rein in state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s (R) campaign against a climate scientist.

“Democrats in the General Assembly are trying to curb the power of the state's attorney general to subpoena public universities in an effort intended to limit inquiries like the one Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II is conducting at the University of Virginia,” the Post reports.

“Under a 2002 statute designed to catch government employees defrauding the public of tax dollars, Cuccinelli (R) has demanded that the university turn over documents and e-mails related to the work of Michael Mann, a former university climate scientist whose research showed that the Earth has been warming.”

The Wall Street Journal has a piece about the wide range of energy deals announced Tuesday between U.S. and Chinese energy companies.

“Shortly before President Hu [Jintao] touched down in Washington on Tuesday for meetings with President Barack Obama, U.S. and Chinese energy companies announced a variety of partnerships at a conference organized by the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. The companies included Alcoa Inc., Duke Energy Corp., China Power Investment Corp. and Shenhua Group Corp.,” the piece states.

The U.S. and China are at odds over Chinese renewable energy policies that U.S. officials claim are at odds with World Trade Organization rules, but the Journal notes that the deals “were meant to show the upside of working together.”

“Alcoa and China Power Investment Corp. said they would collaborate on a broad range of aluminum and energy projects, both inside and outside China, which led to $7.5 billion in investments. Klaus Kleinfeld, Alcoa's CEO, acknowledged the dollar value was a ‘very rough estimate,’ but said the two companies could pool resources on investments outside China and that Alcoa could help boost CPIC's efficiency,” they report.

The Los Angeles Times, meanwhile, reports on a new study about green jobs in California.

“Employers offering jobs in fields such as solar-power generation, electric-vehicle development and environmental consultation added 5,000 jobs in 2008, the latest data available. In all, about 174,000 Californians were working in eco-friendly fields by early 2009, compared with just 111,000 in 1995, said nonprofit research group Next 10,” they report.