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  • Tar sands: T&E lodges complaint over access to documents

    Transport & Environment and ClientEarth have written a letter to the European Ombudsman complaining over the repeated failure, by the European Commission, to fulfil an access to documents request concerning tar sands, their associated carbon dioxide emissions and how the latter would be dealt with in the revision of Article 7A of the Fuel Quality Directive.

    [mailchimp_signup][/mailchimp_signup]In their letter, the two organisations have highlighted how the Commission is not complying with its lawful obligations not responding to an access to information request issued in July 2010 and to a confirmatory application sent on 5 September 2010.
    “This is not the first instance of maladministration with respect to the time limits. Indeed, the European Commission has a longstanding practice of delaying indefinitely and without justification the time limit to respond to requests for access to documents…“, the letter reads.
    For the full text of the complaint click here.
    Meanwhile, the Commission published yesterday a report – then immediately withdrawn – confirming that carbon emissions from tarsands (mainly refined in Canada) are ‘significantly higher than…industry-average emissions from conventional fuels’.
    T&E, in a press release, has pointed out that –behind closed doors – Canada is putting pressure on the EU not to apply a different carbon emissions default value to tarsands than it applies to conventional oil, despite Tar sand oil extraction and production being one of the dirtiest methods of fuel production known to man.
    Click here to read the press release.