GLOBAL CLIMATE DEBATE

Barton Questions GM, Chrysler on USCAP

A top House Republican wants to know if GM and Chrysler used taxpayer money to lobby for climate legislation.

Joe Barton, R-Texas, the ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, wrote to GM Chairman Edward Whitacre and Chrysler Chairman Rober Kidder this week questioning their membership in the U.S. Climate Action Partnership.

USCAP is a group of large companies and environmental groups formed in 2007 to build support for cap-and-trade legislation.  The group has spent more than $1.8 million on lobbying in the past two years and was behind much of the language in the Waxman-Markey bill that passed the House last June.

Barton -- an opponent of cap-and-trade -- questioned whether it's appropriate for GM and Chrysler to participate in the group after receiving billions of dollars in federal loans last year.

Insurance giant American International Group pulled out of USCAP in January 2009 after Barton wrote to then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, asking whether it had used taxpayer dollars lobbying activities.

Read the letters here.