climategate
I haven't read Crisis and Leviathan by Robert Higgs, but I feel like he could issue an updated edition with at least a few pages on Climategate. To recap: hackers released data from a major climate research center that show that scientists have been somewhat less than forthright with climate change data. It appears that data that didn't fit the climate change story was massaged, and research that challenged the status quo was silenced. More analysis is here, including the following:
The damage here goes far beyond the loss of a few billions of taxpayer dollars on bogus scientific research. The real cost of this fraud is the trillions of dollars of wealth that will be destroyed if a fraudulent theory is used to justify legislation that starves the global economy of its cheapest and most abundant sources of energy.
It always seems to work that way, doesn't it? Climatologists, conservationists, sociologists, physicians, economists... some group of "experts" scream that the sky is falling; statists listen, get excited, send taxpayer dollars their way, and introduce some new freedom-restricting laws; and we, the forgotten men, pay for it. Stricter emissions standards mean more expensive and less reliable cars. Nature reserves prevent use of natural resources like timber and oil. Subsidies for ethanol production simultaneously increase the deficit (and thus taxes) and the cost of food. Bailouts reward risky business practices and lobbying efforts while punishing fiscal discipline and accurate forecasting.
Then—surprise, surprise—we learn that the "experts" were less than completely honest! No one (except a few "crazies" who had to be silenced for the sake of "progress") could have imagined that ANWR is covered in ice, corn doesn't make an efficient fuel, bailouts don't cause net job growth, and man-made global warming is a hoax. History suggests that the chances of this latest debacle being enough to stop Cap and Trade are slim. But no matter: even if the do-gooders fail today, they'll be back in a few years with a different set of "experts" proclaiming a different crisis—to which the only solution, they will assure us, will be to regulate us to death.