CAO would ‘welcome’ investigation into carbon offsets

The Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) for the House said Tuesday he would “welcome” an examination into the carbon offset marketplace, which has been a tool for the “Green the Capitol” initiative he oversees.

CAO Daniel Beard was reacting to a letter sent by two top House Republicans to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) last week, seeking a closer look at the program.

{mosads}While Beard stands behind the House’s recent purchases, which were approved by House leadership, he also said the market is relatively new and that congressional action is necessary to raise the standards by which companies that sell offsets operate.

“What we need in Congress is to pass legislation to bring a level of trust to the market,” said Beard. “It’s not a mature market. And we will live by whatever rules they decide. If we’re going to impose regulations on other businesses, it’d be rather hypocritical if we didn’t impose them on ourselves.”

As part of the one-year-old “Green the Capitol” project, which aims at reducing the level of pollution created by members of Congress, the House purchased $89,000 in carbon offsets from the Chicago Climate Exchange, an offset brokerage company. The company then paid farms in the Midwest to take steps to reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.

Carbon dioxide is one of the leading causes of global warming and is released both naturally, such as through the breaking-apart of soil, and by man-made design, such as through coal-burning power plants. Carbon offsets were created to counterbalance the release of carbon into the air through practices such as planting trees, which feed off of carbon and produce oxygen, or employing companies to use non-carbon-producing fuels as energy.

Last week Republican Reps. Joe Barton (R-Texas) and John Shimkus (R-Ill.) asked the GAO to look into “questionable purchases of carbon offsets” after recent media criticism of the venture revealed that while several farmers who had received money from the House purchase were actively sequestering carbon, they might not actually be using the money to further their carbon reduction efforts.

It raised a concern that industry insiders refer to as “additionality.” Some believe that in order for the offsets to be considered legitimate, companies or farms must use the money for the carbon offset purchases to employ measures greater than those previously used. In short, the money must provide an additional impact into reducing carbon in the environment.

Beard said that when considering the purchases he knew that there would be room to improve the marketplace, but that the concept is a sound one and should not be discarded in the process of tightening the rules governing the industry.