Climate Stewardship Act of 2003
CLIMATE STEWARDSHIP ACT OF 2003
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I rise to support the Climate Stewardship Act offered by Senators LIEBERMAN and MCCAIN and to cosponsor this aggressive plan to fight global warming.
When President Bush walked away from the Kyoto Protocol negotiations in March 2001, he promised the American people he would come up with an alternative. More than 2 years later, the President has yet to deliver on his promise and we simply cannot wait any longer to start making progress.
Here in the Senate we have a worthy plan that will cut greenhouse gas emissions. I want to applaud Senators LIEBERMAN and MCCAIN for presenting this meaningful and comprehensive plan.
The McCain-Lieberman bill will require mandatory greenhouse gas emissions reductions in the United States from broad sectors of our economy. Rather than just aiming to limit industrial emissions-as other plans have done-this legislation will require emissions reductions from four major sectors of the economy: electric utilities; industrial plans; transportation; and large commercial facilities. These four sectors contribute 85 percent of the greenhouse gases produced in America.
The McCain-Lieberman legislation relies on a national "cap and trade" system to reduce the air pollutants that contribute to climate change. Many of my colleagues are familiar with this approach. It was first used on a national scale to combat acid rain under Title IV of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990. A cap and trade system establishes an overall total limit on emissions and then allows pollution sources to trade emissions allowances. It gives participants the flexibility of the marketplace, and it works.
In fact, the acid rain program has reduced sulfur dioxide emissions from power plants-and it has done it at less than a quarter of the predicted cost to industry.
The McCain-Lieberman program will mandate that by 2010, the four sectors involved must reduce their emissions to 2000 levels. This is a meaningful and substantial reduction in emissions-a 5 percent reduction over the next 7 years.
Some critics suggest that you can't "grow the economy" without emitting more greenhouse gases. We know that is not true. As the acid rain program proved, the cap and trade system works well.
There were nay-sayers in 1990, and they were proven wrong. There are nay-sayers now, and we must prove them wrong again.
This is also an opportunity for American companies to get ahead of trends that we know are coming. We know that the future of energy production lies in renewable energy and in alternatives to fossil fuels. I want American workers to lead the way, and I want American companies to share in the benefits.
It is projected that over the next 20 years, $10-$20 trillion will be spent globally on new energy technologies. This is an enormous market, and much of the investment will take place outside of the U.S., in places such as China. I want American companies to sell the technologies that will be needed and used throughout the world. By passing this legislation, we will give American companies incentives to pursue new, clean energy technologies. And new technologies mean new jobs-especially compared to older energy sources.
Today, for every 1 percent of market share, renewable energy technologies generate 12,500 jobs. By the same measure, the coal industry only generates 3,000 jobs.
So this new technology holds a lot of promise in helping American companies and the American economy.
Let me mention briefly the President's so-called clear skies plan. This administration's approach to global climate change has been to focus on reducing greenhouse gas intensity. That is the ratio of carbon emission to gross domestic product. What most people do not know is greenhouse intensity is already declining. As the economy modernizes, it naturally becomes more efficient in terms of energy use, so when the President says he wants to reduce greenhouse gas intensity by 18 percent over the next 10 years with his Clear Skies Initiative, we should ask how much would the intensity decrease over the next 10 years without the Clear Skies Initiative.
The answer is stunning and underscores how little this administration really wants to do to reverse global warming. According to CRS, greenhouse gas intensity is projected to fall by over 14 percent over the next 10 years under current environmental regulations. The President's proposal is nearly as weak as existing law. President Bush thinks the Federal Government's primary climate change goal should be to encourage voluntary measures to reduce greenhouse gas intensity by only 4 percent over the next decade.
That is an utterly irresponsible approach to global warming. Our country should be taking an aggressive lead on reducing pollution. I am confident by using market-oriented strategies and new technologies, American ingenuity can find ways to reduce emissions without harming the economy. As I mentioned earlier, it will help our economy.
The threat of global warming is real. The Pacific Northwest stands to lose much from climate change from increasing severe storms to rising sea levels to negative impacts on our forests, our coasts, our salmon, and our agriculture. Those resources define the quality of life where I live.
In Washington State, increasing temperatures over the next decades could cause salmon in Puget Sound to migrate north. It could cause some crops to shift their natural habitats into Canada.
The western governors understand this. In September, the governors of California, Oregon, and my home State of Washington got together to curb greenhouse gas emissions by promoting tougher emissions standards for new power plants.
Governors and legislatures in the Northeast have taken similar measures.
Soon the Nation will face a patchwork of regional regulations, making it costly and cumbersome for industries to comply.
We in Congress need to take action since this White House has failed to act. It's time for a real policy to reduce our impacts on the global climate.
We know that a clean environment contributes to the health and quality of life for every Washingtonian and for every American. The McCain-Lieberman bill is an important first step.
I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to vote for this legislation.
I ask unanimous consent to have printed a New York Times article that reported on the regional regulations.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
[From the New York Times, Oct. 29, 2003]
THE WARMING IS GLOBAL BUT THE LEGISLATING, IN THE U.S., IS ALL LOCAL
(By Jennifer 8. Lee)
WASHINGTON, Oct. 28-Motivated by environmental and economic concerns, States have become the driving force in efforts to combat global warming even as mandatory programs on the Federal level have largely stalled.
At least half of the States are addressing global warming, whether through legislation, lawsuits against the Bush administration or programs initiated by governors.
In the last three years, State legislatures have passed at least 29 bills, usually with bipartisan support. The most contentious is California's 2002 law to set strict limits for new cars on emissions of carbon dioxide, the gas that scientists say has the greatest role in global warming.
While few of the State laws will have as much impact as California's, they are not merely symbolic. In addition to caps on emissions of gases like carbon dioxide that can cause the atmosphere to heat up like a greenhouse, they include registries to track such emissions, efforts to diversify fuel sources and the use of crops to capture carbon dioxide by taking it out of the atmosphere and into the ground.
Aside from their practical effects, supporters say, these efforts will put pressure on Congress and the administration to enact Federal legislation, if only to bring order to a patchwork of State laws.
States are moving ahead in large part to fill the vacuum that has been left by the Federal Government, said David Danner, the energy adviser for Gov. Gary Locke of Washington.
"We hope to see the problem addressed at the Federal level," Mr. Danner said, "but we're not waiting around."
There are some initiatives in Congress, but for the moment even their backers acknowledge that they are doomed, given strong opposition from industry, the Bush administration-which favors voluntary controls-and most Congressional Republicans.
This week, the Senate is scheduled to vote on a proposal to create a national regulatory structure for carbon dioxide. This would be the first vote for either house on a measure to restrict the gas.
The proposal's primary sponsors, Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, and Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, see it mainly as a way to force senators to take a position on the issue, given the measure's slim prospects.
States are acting partly because of predictions that global warming could damage local economies by harming agriculture, eroding shorelines and hurting tourism.
"We're already seeing things which may be linked to global warming here in the state," Mr. Danner said. "We have low snowpack, increased forest fire danger."
Environmental groups and officials in state governments say that energy initiatives are easier to move forward on the local level because they span constituents-industrial and service sectors, Democrat and Republican, urban and rural.
While the coal, oil and automobile industries have big lobbies in Washington, the industry presence is diluted on the state level. Environmental groups say this was crucial to winning a legislative battle over automobile emissions in California, where the automobile industry did not have a long history of large campaign donations and instead had to rely on a six-month advertising campaign to make its case.
Local businesses are also interested in policy decisions because of concerns about long-term energy costs, said Christopher James, director of air planning and standards for the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection. As a result, environmental groups are shifting their efforts to focus outside Washington.
Five years ago the assumption was that the climate treaty known as the Kyoto Protocol was the only effort, in town, said Rhys Roth, the executive director of Climate Solutions, which works on global warming issues in the Pacific Northwest states. But since President Bush rejected the Kyoto pact in 2001, local groups have been emerging on the regional, state and municipal levels.
The Climate Action Network, a worldwide conglomeration of nongovernment organizations working on global warming, doubled its membership of state and local groups in the last two years.
The burst of activity is not limited to the states with a traditional environmental bent.
At least 15 states, including Texas and Nevada, are forcing their state electric utilities to diversify beyond coal and oil to energy sources like wind and solar power.
Even rural states are linking their agricultural practices to global warming. Nebraska, Oklahoma and Wyoming have all passed initiatives in anticipation of future greenhouse-gas emission trading, hoping they can capitalize on their forests and crops to capture carbon dioxide during photosynthesis.
Cities are also adopting new energy policies. San Franciscans approved a $100 million bond initiative in 2001 to pay for solar panels for municipal buildings, including the San Francisco convention center.
The rising level of state activity is causing concern among those who oppose carbon dioxide regulation.
"I believe the states are being used to force a federal mandate," said Sandy Liddy Bourne, who does research on global warming for the American Legislative Exchange Council, a group contending that carbon dioxide should not be regulated because it is not a pollutant. "Rarely do you see so many bills in one subject area introduced across the country."
The council started tracking state legislation, which they call son-of-Kyoto bills, weekly after they noticed a significant rise in greenhouse-gas-related legislation two years ago. This year, the council says, 24 states have introduced 90 bills that would build frameworks for regulating carbon dioxide. Sixty-six such bills were introduced in all of 2001 and 2002.
Some of the activity has graduated to a regional level. Last summer, Gov. George E. Pataki of New York invited 10 Northeastern states to set up a regional trading network where power plants could buy and sell carbon dioxide credits in an effort to lower overall emissions. In 2001, six New England states entered into an agreement with Canadian provinces to cap overall emissions by 2010. Last month, California, Washington and Oregon announced that they would start looking at shared strategies to address global warming.
To be sure, some states have decided not to embrace policies to combat global warming. Six-Alabama, Illinois, Kentucky, Oklahoma, West Virginia and Wyoming-have explicitly passed laws against any mandatory reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
"My concern," said Ms. Bourne, "is that members of industry and environment groups will go to the federal government to say: 'There is a patchwork quilt of greenhouse-gas regulations across the country. We cannot deal with the 50 monkeys. We must have one 800-pound gorilla. Please give us a federal mandate.' " Indeed, some environmentalists say this is precisely their strategy.
States developed their own air toxics pollution programs in the 1980's, which resulted in different regulations and standards across the country. Industry groups, including the American Chemistry Council, eventually lobbied Congress for federal standards, which were incorporated into the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments.
A number of states are trying to compel the federal government to move sooner rather than later. On Thursday, 12 states, including New York, with its Republican governor, and three cities sued the Environmental Protection Agency for its recent decision not to regulate greenhouse-gas pollutants under the Clean Air Act, a reversal of the agency's previous stance under the Clinton administration.
"Global warming cannot be solely addressed at the state level," said Tom Reilly, the Massachusetts attorney general. "It's a problem that requires a federal approach