Environment

President Obama's top two climate advisers yesterday met with Democrats in the House Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition to discuss his carbon emissions agenda, focusing on a new White House data initiative. John Podesta and Dan Utech, Obama's climate advisers, met with 19 of the coalition's 56 members to share details about the White House-centered elements of the president's government-wide Climate Action Plan, according to a source briefed on the meeting. The sit-down "primarily" looked at the Climate Data Initiative, a project unveiled last week to allow easy visualization of government scientists' projections for sea-level rise and other global warming effects at Climate.Data.gov (Greenwire, March 19). Agency actions, such as U.S. EPA rules for power plant emissions that are expected to advance to the next stage in their regulatory process within weeks, were "a part of" the meeting, but the White House played the central role in Podesta and Utech's discussion, the source explained, speaking on condition of anonymity. The coalition is eyeing future meetings with the European Union commissioner for climate action and the Bureau of Land Management.