Two top Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee today asked committee Chairman John Dingell, D-Mich., and U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., to open an investigation into carbon offset programs.

U.S. Reps. Joe Barton, R-Texas, ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and John Shimkus, R-Ill., ranking member of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, asked Dingell and Stupak, chairman of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, to investigate various aspects of the programs, focusing on the lack of oversight in offset marketing schemes.

Recent reporting in The Wall Street Journal indicates that the fast-growing market for carbon offset programs may be producing little real gain in greenhouse gas reduction.

“A key concern is carbon ‘offsets’ that would have happened anyway are being sold as additional reductions, undercutting the whole point of the program,” Barton and Shimkus wrote. “If this is the case, the only additional greening taking place may be in the bank accounts of the people selling the offsets.”

A copy of the letter to Dingell and Stupak can be [downloaded] here:

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