Posted on 08/06/2007 12:28:48 PM PDT by Shermy
WASHINGTON, DC, August 3, 2007 (ENS) - Senators Joseph Lieberman, a Connecticut Independent, and John Warner, a Virginia Republican, Thursday unveiled a detailed proposal for the climate bill that they will introduce this fall, America's Climate Security Act.
Lieberman and Warner, who are the chairman and ranking member, respectively, of the Senate Subcommittee on Private Sector and Consumer Solutions to Global Warming and Wildlife Protection, requested comment on the proposal from Senate colleagues and all interested stakeholders.
"The ball is really rolling now," said Lieberman. "We have the bipartisan momentum to ensure that, this fall, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will report a strong, mandatory climate bill to the full Senate for the first time in U.S. history."
"In my 28 years in the Senate, I have focused above all on issues of national security, and I see the problem of global climate change as fitting squarely within that focus," said Warner. "In hearings before the Environment and Public Works Committee, and in meetings with the private sector, I have come to appreciate the challenges our nation faces in addressing this complex issue.
The senators propose a mandatory, market-based cap-and-trade program that would cover 80 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and that would reduce those emissions to current levels by 2012, to 10 percent below current levels by 2020, and to 70 percent below current levels by 2050.
The document describes measures to sustain U.S. economic growth, protect American jobs, and ensure international participation in emissions reductions.
The comments immediately began to fly.
"Climate change will have profound, landscape-level effects on fish, wildlife and the lands and waters they depend on for survival. The proposal advanced by Senators Lieberman and Warner to dedicate a portion of funds to fish and wildlife conservation will enhance our ability to take proactive conservation action, with benefits for fish, wildlife, and people," said Ed Parker, president of the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies and chief of the Bureau of Natural Resources for the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection.
Friends of the Earth Domestic Programs Director Erich Pica said the bill falls short of solving the climate change problem.
"The Lieberman-Warner legislation is just one more proposal that won't get the job done on global warming," Pica said.
The U.S. has generated a large proportion of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, and we owe it to the planet to take the lead in fighting global warming," she said.
"We have to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80 percent by 2050, and probably more, but this legislation proposes just a 70 percent decrease - and most of its decrease comes in the distant future, even though major reductions are needed now," Pica said.
The legislation violates the polluter pays principle by distributing many emissions permits for free, and Friends of the Earth would like to see "corporate polluters pay for all of their global warming emissions and reinvest that money into renewable energy, energy efficiency improvements, and mitigation strategies for impacted communities around the world."
“We have the bipartisan momentum to ensure that, this fall, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will report a strong, mandatory climate bill to the full Senate for the first time in U.S. history.”
Ain’t govt grand? A whole new layer of bureaucracy to stifle business.
Full steam ahead.
I wonder if Newsweek in the near future will have an expose about the financial firms financing global warming hysteria.
I think not - would hurt Democrats. Obama and Hillary also have bills in their name written for them by carbon trading firm lobbyists.
Oh what a great plan. Tax energy use and do nothing to actually curb global warming. Can we just give Warner to the Democraps?
Prepare to cease exhalation.
Once again, silliness from our “leaders”.
Not just that! The USA now has a new commodity for trading -- carbon offsets.
Carbon Credits form the same folks who floated the BTU Tax a few years back..............If this is a trial balloon, it really full of hot air.........
Ridiculous!! This whole mass of Bullcrap was dreamed up and created by that Wonderfully Disgraced Corporation to make more ill gotten money! and pray tell what was the name of that Corporation?
Yep, You got it: ENRON!!!!!!!!!!
“Oh what a great plan. Tax energy use and do nothing to actually curb global warming.”
Carbon trading is the worse thing to do even if you believe in anthropogenic CO2 global warming. But it’s being pushed by the (mostly) Democrats for their pay masters the financial firms like Goldman Sachs. There are a myriad of ways to game carbon trtading, carbon registering, subsidies, and influencing govt. to harm competitors via allotments.
Carbon trading already failed in Europe.
Did you know the carbon trading market in Europe was designed by a Drexel-Burnham alum? That Michael Milken is a big proponent of carbon trading?
How many greenhouse gas credits do I get if I agree not to fart for a week?
Ought to work as well as the mortgages at Bear Stearns did......
“How many greenhouse gas credits do I get if I agree not to fart for a week?”
That depends on how much money you are willing to pay to lobbyists and to politicians for the “government” to apportion you indulgences.
That’s right, we all contribute to global warming because we exhale CO2. Will they pass a law that mandates that we all collect and dispose of our CO2? We have been lectured at about the need to reduce our personal carbon footprints. Wouldn’t that be a logical step?
“”Carbon Credits form the same folks who floated the BTU Tax a few years back””
Actually its worse. I’ve seen some oil industry types say that something is inevitable, so they are advocating a tax over carbon trading be imposed on themselves. I have no sympathy for them, but they are right about carbon trading being a joke.
I’ve seen no media outlet take on the big money behind cap and trade. I’ve seen some things in WSJ in the past, like a single opinion piece denouncing carbon trading long ago, but nothing since. They are probably waiting to see which waay their readership thinks they can best game the market.
A couple of times the WSJ was the leaking ground to say that Bush was thinking about joing up with Europe in the scam, but hopefully this was just disinfo to keep the British hopeful we’ll buy into their scam, while they threaten an Iraq pullout.
How exactly are we to do the extra work needed to feed the increased number of peoplae 40 years from now with one-third the energy we now use unless they figure out a way to burn air or eat rocks?
people, people, people; I really can spell properly but the “a” key on this keyboard hates me.
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