E2-Wire

The path forward for EPA nominee Gina McCarthy hit a snag Thursday — and could hit more in coming weeks.

Vice President Biden is rebutting claims that the Obama administration hasn’t pushed hard enough on climate change and defending President Obama’s first-term record.

Asked by Rolling Stone magazine why the administration doesn’t “use the bully pulpit to talk about climate change like it does for gun control,” Biden replied: “We have.”

“The president used the biggest settings he had, in the inaugural address and the State of the Union. In his inaugural address, he said, ‘We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations,’” Biden said in the wide-ranging new interview.

The Obama administration has launched an online tool to bolster research into links between climate change and health and inform “more effective responses.”

The interagency U.S. Global Change Research Program on Thursday unveiled its Metadata Access Tool for Climate and Health (MATCH) platform.

“It is a publicly accessible digital platform for searching and integrating metadata ... extracted from more than 9,000 health, environment, and climate-science datasets held by six Federal agencies,” said Tom Armstrong, executive director of the interagency climate program, in a blog post.

The rollout dovetailed with President Obama’s order that directs federal agencies to make more data publicly accessible and easier to search, which The Hill's Ben Goad wrote about Thursday on our Hillicon Valley blog.

White House press secretary Jay Carney accused Republicans of a "historic level of obstructionism" after a boycott of a scheduled vote on the president's nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

"There has been a historic level of obstructionism from the Senate on this nomination and others. … It just demonstrates the predilection for obstructionism that is bad for the functioning of the federal government in important areas," Carney told reporters aboard Air Force One.

The White House spokesman went on to "call on Republicans to stop the theater and to move forward."

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) suggested he might rescind his hold on Energy Department (DOE) nominee Ernest Moniz if the White House agrees to drop plans to study alternatives to a nuclear fuel project in his state.

Graham said he worries the Obama administration might abandon the Mixed Oxide Fuel (MOX) program, sticking South Carolina with a cache of weapons-grade plutonium and no way to get it out of the state.

“I’m going to stay on this as long as it takes,” Graham told reporters Thursday in the Capitol.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse called the remark "an extraordinary notion," but wouldn't reveal who said it.

A natural-gas van company awarded a $50 million Energy Department (DOE) loan has suspended operations and laid off roughly 100 workers, according to press accounts.

The closure of Vehicle Production Group (VPG), which builds wheelchair-accessible vans powered by natural gas, will likely increase Republican criticism of Energy loan programs that are already facing heavy Capitol Hill scrutiny.

Former CEO John Walsh told The Detroit Free Press that the Michigan-based company’s owners are negotiating a sale. “The people who are interested are close to the company and current partners,” he told the paper.

VPG’s woes arrive as plug-in hybrid maker Fisker Automotive, which was also supported by the department’s Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program, has collapsed and teeters on bankruptcy.

Sen. Barbara Boxer blasted Republicans for preventing a vote on Gina McCarthy, President Obama’s nominee to lead the EPA.

Republicans on the Environment panel say Obama nominee McCarthy hasn't answered their questions.

Bloomberg explains what President Obama and utility industry officials talked about Wednesday. Read more...