Isramart : Omnibus includes carbon 'audit,' other global warming measures

Isramart news:
There is nothing on the order of, say, a cap on carbon dioxide emissions, but the $447 billion omnibus House Democrats approved Thursday does include a few modest global warming measures.

The bill, for example, appropriates $2 billion to study and respond to climate change, which a summary from the House Appropriations Committee deems “one of the greatest challenges facing our country.”

NASA would get the bulk of the money, about $1.32 billion to pay to develop “space-based” climate measurements. The Economic Development Administration, meanwhile, would get $25 million for green building initiatives.

The total $2 billion for climate change research represents a modest increase of $75 million above what the programs received in 2009.

The omnibus also would direct $1.5 million for the National Academy of Sciences to study how U.S. tax policy may encourage emissions of greenhouse gases and ways that it discourages them.

The so-called carbon audit of the U.S. tax code is the brainchild of Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), who successfully added the study to the Energy Improvement and Extension Act of 2008. But the study has yet to receive any funding.

“Our tax code is riddled with perverse loopholes and positive incentives that impact the amount of pollution a home or business emits,” Blumenauer said in a statement.

The study would examine not just subsidies that the oil industry receives, but also whether tax policy encourages the construction of larger homes, which eat up more energy.