Four Environment Groups Sue European Commission Over Biofuels
March 09, 2010, 6:16 AM ESTBy Mathew Carr
March 9 (Bloomberg) -- Four environment groups sued the European Commission over its alleged refusal to release about 140 documents on the climate impact of widespread use of biofuels in the region.
The suit in the General Court of the European Union, brought by ClientEarth, Transport & Environment, the European Environmental Bureau and BirdLife International, “alleges violations of European laws designed to promote transparency, democracy, and legitimacy in EU policy-making,” the groups said yesterday in an e-mailed statement. The court was formerly known as the Court of First Instance.
EU member states are required to use renewable sources for 10 percent of their transport needs by 2020. Access to the information has been sought since Oct. 15, according to the statement. A consequence of biofuels production is the conversion of forests and other natural areas into cropland to replace land lost to fuel making, releasing greenhouse gases, according to the statement.
European Commission spokeswomen Maria Kokkonen and Lena De Visscher in Brussels were not immediately available to comment and didn’t immediately respond to an e-mail.
“That the commission should choose to deny our rights on such a critical issue as the science underpinning our climate policies is astounding,” said Tim Grabiel, staff attorney at ClientEarth, a lobby group of lawyers. “It is regrettable that the commission’s consistent obstructionism compels us to go to court.”
--Editors: Rob Verdonck, Jonas Bergman.
To contact the reporter on this story: Mathew Carr in London at m.carr@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stephen Voss at sev@bloomberg.net
