Senior House Republicans say a new Government Accountability Office report on the quality of some international greenhouse gas data should prompt U.S. officials to steer clear of binding policies that limit carbon emissions.

Top Energy and Commerce Committee Republicans released GAO findings that emissions “inventories” from many developing countries — including China, the world’s top emitter — were “dated and of lower comparability and quality” compared to data from the U.S. and other wealthy nations.

Various developed and developing countries submit emissions data to the United Nations.

Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), the top Republican on the committee and a climate skeptic, said the findings are a cautionary tale about entering into a global emissions deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol.

“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.


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