Posted on 06/30/2002 4:10:20 PM PDT by Retired Chemist
With little fanfare, a Senate committee is swiftly moving ahead on a bill that would bring back the treaty that won't die - the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, an agreement signed in 1997 by Vice President Al Gore that would require hugely expensive reductions in greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide (CO2), the stuff we exhale, the stuff that makes plants grow.
Gore signed the treaty over the opposition of 95 senators, who warned unanimously five months earlier that they would not sign any agreement that excluded developing nations and that would cause "serious harm" to the economy. Kyoto did both.
Early last year, President Bush rejected Kyoto as "fatally flawed." Bush recognized that surface temperatures had increased by about one degree over the past century, but recent satellite data show no rise. The President wanted more research before committing the U.S. to extensive cuts in fossil-fuel use by vehicles and power plants. It remains unclear how much warming will occur in the future and how much human activity may be to blame.
Now, a Senate committee headed by Jim Jeffords of Vermont, who was among those who voted against Kyoto-like strictures in 1997, is close to passing a bill that can only be described as "Backdoor Kyoto."
When Jeffords left the Republican Party last year, he gave Democrats control of the Senate. Apparently as a reward, he received the chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee and quickly set out to implement his Backdoor Kyoto policy with a bill, S.556, initially co-sponsored by Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., and 13 other senators, all from the Northeast and California.
The committee is expected to mark up the bill this week and to vote soon after. The tally will be close. Key votes will come from Democrats Max Baucus of Montana, Harry Reid of Nevada and Bob Graham of Florida and from Republican Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.
At stake is nothing less than the health of the U.S. economy -- critical at a time of sluggish business, high unemployment and a terrorist threat that requires increased production and stability.
The bill, for the first time in environmental history, lumps CO2 together with three recognized pollutants - nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide and mercury. The legislation sets limits for all four, but a 228-page study by the Energy Information Administration brands CO2 reductions as especially difficult to achieve. Overall, the EIA predicts a loss of about one million jobs and a "reduction in gross domestic product ranging from 0.4 percent to 0.8 percent" when the limits are imposed. That's $40 billion to $80 billion per year at the current value of the dollar - or about $400 to $800 per American family.
The EIA says that "to meet the assumed CO2 limit, significant switching from coal to other fuels is expected." No doubt about it: The Jeffords bill will be devastating to states that mine and use coal to generate power. The United States has vast reserves - we are the Saudi Arabia of coal - and coal last year was responsible for 51 percent of all electrical power generation in this country, compared with 20 percent for nuclear and 17 percent for natural gas.
Coal generation has become much cleaner over the years, but, as the EIA points out, "low-cost technologies for capturing and sequestering CO2 are not expected to be widely available" for at least another 20 years. The only way to reduce carbon dioxide, then, is to cut back on coal, which emits about twice as much CO2 as natural gas. But Jeffords wants to limit natural-gas use as well, and the bill would require a mind-boggling shift to expensive "renewables," such as wind and solar power, which would have to increase their share of power-generation from 0.2 percent to 10 percent.
I see a Bait and Wedge ploy at work here.They are counting on those "Evil Mean Spirited Republicans" to stand up against them.This will then yeild Negative press against the Republicans ,and garner votes for Dems. The Dems do not expect the programs to pass, they just want the Wedge Issue against the Republicans.....
Too late, the globalists have already done the deed.
O.K., Arlen McSphincter, here's a PERFECT opportunity to use your Scottish Law "Not Proven" B.S. - just apply it to Global Warming like you did Clinton, you hot-air gasbag.
Death to the nwo scum and God Bless The U.S.A.
Amen.
I would counter with a campaign that the RATS are trying to pass a law that makes it illegal to breathe!
Agreed. In fact, I need to go use the jeffords right now. BRB.
Pluck out a molecule of CO2 from the air. Can you devise a way, any way at all, to tell just where that particular CO2 came from? There is no "evil" CO2 or "Good" CO2 there is only the molecule CO2 and once created it does not matter from where it came.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.