After The Times published articles in the spring about the plant's arsenic emissions, the department ordered Exide to suspend operations.
More worryingly, total CO2 emissions from departments have actually risen, the commission found.
He pledged to cut his personal carbon footprint and emissions from his department's headquarters by 10% in 2010.
"This will help us understand the impacts of climate change, adapt to the impacts of climate change and provide ways to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions as a department," Batten said.
Within hours of taking office, Obama issued a flurry of environmental directives – calling on the EPA to revisit a request from California and 13 other states to set tougher emissions standards, directing the department of transportation to set higher fuel-economy standards for cars and light trucks and pushing for energy and efficiency measures in the economic stimulus package.
What about, for example, capping CO2 emissions for those very departments, with their achievements published on an annual basis?
The claim is contradicted by environment department figures showing emissions are rising and advice from the Energy Security Board that Australia will fall short under a business-as-usual scenario.
The US energy department report shows emissions rose 2% in 2004 and stood one year ago at 7,122.1m tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent a year - about 25% of the world total.
Carfax has more than 1.4 billion records compiled from over 170 separate sources, including motor vehicle departments in the United States and Canada, emissions inspection stations, auto auctions, fire and police departments and insurance companies.
The White House today announced that it had directed all federal government departments to reduce emissions by 28% over 2008 levels by 2020.
Evidence from Burritt et al. (2011) indicates that within top German companies sampled information about the effects and successes of carbon emissions is not transferred between departments, rather a silo mentality exists whereby managers focus on the carbon consequences of their own departments.
