And the climate change deniers were there to greet him.

An excerpt from the Washington Post story:

In both hearings, Gore took criticism from Republican lawmakers. The toughest sparring was with Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), who has said he believes that climate change is a hoax.

Inhofe, during the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing, criticized Gore for using too much energy in his Tennessee home, and he also listed a number of scientists who he said had broken with Gore about the reality -- or the danger -- of rising temperatures.

"Are they all wrong, and you're right?" he asked.

Inhofe also dismissed Gore's list of proposed solutions, which include taxation of polluters, by saying he thinks they would offer little environmental benefit.

"It's something that we just can't do to America," Inhofe said. "And we're not going to do it."

Outside of those exchanges, many legislators greeted Gore warmly, recalling committee assignments they had shared with him or sharing news of new grandchildren. Gore was hailed as the country's loudest voice on climate change, the instigator of a movement gaining momentum around the country and in Washington.

"You have acted for us," said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), the Senate committee chairman. "You have acted more than anyone else."

In his talk before the Senate panel and before a joint hearing of Energy's energy and air quality subcommittee and Science and Technology's energy and environment subcommittee, Gore described briefly the scientific consensus on climate change's causes. Scientists say emissions of "greenhouse gases," primarily carbon dioxide emitted by cars and power plants burning fossil fuels, are accumulating in the atmosphere at an unsustainable rate and trapping more of the sun's heat.

A United Nations report in February concluded it was "very likely" that man-made gases were behind most of the increase in global temperatures over the past 50 years, which has worked out to about 0.2 degrees Fahrenheit per decade.