Earth Equity News

GOP Senators Object to Including Global Warming in NEPA Regs. By Noelle Straub, Greenwire, October 26, 2009. "Two of the Senate's most prominent global warming skeptics are taking aim at a potential move by the Obama administration to include climate change as a factor in environmental reviews required under the National Environmental Policy Act. Sens. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) and James Inhofe (R-Okla.) are demanding information about the administration's ongoing deliberations on whether to amend regulations to require climate change to be one of the elements considered in an environmental impact statement. The question has been pending since February, when a petition was filed with the White House Council on Environmental Quality by the Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council and International Center for Technology Assessment. Saying they are 'very concerned about the consequences of CEQ acceding to that request,' the senators sent a letter to CEQ head Nancy Sutley asking for a wide range of documents and communications about the issue by Nov. 13. They called NEPA a 'bedrock environmental statute' but said it is 'not an appropriate tool to set global climate change policy.'"