Washington (Platts)--12Jun2007
A US House committee on Tuesday approved by a voice vote legislation that would require all federal government agencies to offset their greenhouse gas emissions. The Oversight and Government Reform Committee passed the Carbon Neutral Government Act of 2007 (H.R. 2635) after delaying a public markup on it and other less-controversial bills to conduct closed-door talks on changes to the measure. Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, a California Democrat, agreed to two amendments offered by Republicans. The first, authored by Representative Darrell Issa, Republican-California, would allow non-governmental organizations to sue the federal government in the US Court of Appeals in Washington for failing to comply with the GHG offset requirements. Waxman said the committee may make further changes to the new provision after the Congressional Research Service studies the issue of "legal standing" in the legislation. The Issa amendment also limits damages that can be sought by groups suing the government for noncompliance at $1.5 million per year. "Rather than sending fees to lawyers, we want money spent mitigating GHGs and getting full compliance from our federal agencies," Issa said. The committee also accepted an amendment by Representative Patrick McHenry, Republican-North Carolina, that requires federal agencies to disclose any cost savings resulting from the legislation's energy efficiency requirements. McHenry withdrew a separate amendment aimed at ensuring that agencies don't spend money to comply with the legislation if that funding should be used for their core missions, such as defending the country in the case of the Department of Defense or Department of Homeland Security. A committee spokeswoman said a date for a floor vote by the full House on the legislation has yet to be set. --Martin Coyne, martin_coyne@platts.com This is an excerpt. For more news, request a free trial to Platts Emissions Daily at http://www.platts.com/Request%20More%20Information/index.xml?src=story or subscribe now at http://www.platts.com/infostore/product_info.php?cPath=23_33&products_id=62
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