House Republicans use GAO report to bash climate proposals

“International global warming agreements require comparable, reliable measurements of greenhouse gases. What the GAO has found, however, is that some nations have not produced high-quality emissions inventories,” he said in a prepared statement.

Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas) used the report to attack U.S. climate proposals. “This report reiterates why the U.S. should not rush to enact energy policies that would disadvantage our own economy before having firm commitments from other nations as to their own emissions plans,” he said.

Legislation to cap greenhouse gases has stalled in Congress, but the EPA is moving ahead with regulations to limit emissions under its existing power. However, several lawmakers from both parties are pushing bills that would block EPA rules.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) told The Hill on Wednesday that he remains confident Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will follow through on his pledge to allow a vote on Rockefeller’s block-EPA measure this year.

Rockefeller wants a two-year delay in looming EPA rules to regulate emissions from coal-fired power plants and other stationary industrial facilities.

The report comes as the latest round of U.N. climate change talks is underway in Bonn, Germany, ahead of a year-end summit in Cancun, Mexico.

But odds of reaching a binding global treaty this year are believed remote following the divides among nations that hampered the Copenhagen climate summit in late 2009.

The GAO report calls on the State Department to work with developing countries with large emissions to improve their inventories, among other suggestions.