Record snowfall has buried Washington — and along with it, buried the chances of passing global warming legislation this year.

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee canceled a hearing on electricity markets and financial regulatory reform for Tuesday, as Washington struggled to dig out from Snowmageddon and braced for yet another winter beating expected this afternoon.

Elsewhere, the New York Times reports on the growing controversy surrounding the United Nations climate panel and its leader, Rajendra Pachauri. The paper says that Pachauri and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are “under intense scrutiny, facing accusations of scientific sloppiness and potential financial conflicts of interest from climate skeptics, right-leaning politicians and even some mainstream scientists.”

The story notes that Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) has called for Pachauri to step down.

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Senior White House adviser David Axelrod isn’t exactly talking up cap-and-trade these days even as President Obama is urging the Senate not to give up on climate legislation.

Axelrod, in a C-SPAN interview that aired Sunday, hardly threw the White House’s weight behind getting cap-and-trade through Congress in 2010 even as he said the U.S. must fight for leadership in "clean energy" industries.

“In terms of, specifically, of that aspect of it, the cap-and-trade aspect of it, there are efforts ongoing in the United States Senate between Republicans and Democrats to come up with an overall energy bill that would help drive this clean energy investment and clean energy economy,” he said.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) said Monday that a fatal explosion at an unfinished natural gas-fired power plant in Connecticut over the weekend underscores safety concerns about a proposed natural gas pipeline in New Jersey.

An explosion Sunday at the Kleen Energy Systems plant in Middletown, Connecticut killed at least five workers.

“This tragic incident reminds us that natural gas, while cleaner burning than other fossil fuels, comes with safety risks. The explosion raises a red flag about the construction of a natural gas line that would run through New Jersey primarily for the benefit of New York,” Lautenberg said in a prepared statement.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is giving its wide-ranging work on climate change a makeover.

The agency on Monday announced plans to create an official “Climate Service” that would draw together its research, modeling and observation work – a proposal that officials called a way to provide industries, government at all levels and other groups information they need to prepare for climatic changes.

For instance, they noted that coastal regions would be better able to access NOAA information to plan for sea level rises, the ski industry could better prepare for changing snowfall patterns, and energy companies could track forecasts of changing wind patterns in making decisions about future projects.

A top Obama administration climate official on Monday defended the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which has come under fire over flaws in a landmark 2007 report on the threat of global warming.

Jane Lubchenco, administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said inclusion of unsubstantiated claims in the IPCC report that Himalayan glaciers would vanish in 2035 is “atypical” of otherwise robust work.

She noted that the IPCC has recognized that the finding slipped through its vetting procedures. “I think the vast majority of the conclusions in the IPCC are credible, have been through the very rigorous process and are absolutely state of the science, state of the art in terms of what we know about the climate system,” she said on a conference call with reporters, calling the IPCC’s work “very strong, very credible.”

Audi's Super Bowl ad for its A3 TDI "clean diesel" vehicle is drawing criticism from the American Chemistry Council.

The big story coming out of the Super Bowl is Audi’s “green police” ad  (see the video) that promotes the automaker's A3 TDI “clean diesel” vehicle.

The ad shows thuggish eco-cops busting people for using plastic shopping bags (“You picked the wrong day to mess with the ecosystem, plastic boy,” a cop tells a guy he cuffed at the supermarket) and other crimes.

Failing to recycle and using inefficient light bulbs also bring a swift and heavy “Green Police” response. But a guy driving the A3 TDI is allowed through an “eco checkpoint” because the cops recognize the car’s green bona fides.

Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee spokesman David Marks is stepping down, but he's not going far -- geographically or topically.

Marks will be vice president of the public affairs agency Outreach Strategies, LLC.

The agency's clients include the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a coalition of large corporations and environmental groups pushing for climate change legislation. Members include BP, Duke Energy and the Environmental Defense Fund.

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