Republicans Request Investigation into Carbon Offset Programs
On April 17, Reps. Joe Barton (R-TX), the ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and John Shimkus (R-IL) sent a letter on to the Chairman of the full Committee, John Dingell (D-MI) and Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Bart Stupak (D-MI) requesting that they open an investigation into carbon offset programs.
The letter requested that Dingell and Stupak investigate various aspects of the carbon offset programs, with a particular focus on the lack of oversight in offset marketing schemes. The letter follows a report in the Wall Street Journal that the market for the offset programs may not be producing significant gains in greenhouse gas reduction. In the letter they wrote that one of their main concerns is that some of the carbon offsets that are counting as reductions would have happened anyway. They added that "if this is the case, the only additional greening taking place may be in the bank accounts of the people selling the offsets."
In a related development, in the Senate, Sen. Dianne Feinstein introduced S. 2423 the Emission Allowance Market Transparency Act of 2007 in an effort to provide federal oversight of a proposed "carbon trading" market. The bill, co-sponsored by Sen. Olympia Snowe, would encourage increased price transparency, prohibit market manipulation and also impose penalties to those that do not play by the rules.