Posted on 07/11/2002 2:58:19 PM PDT by GeneD
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senate Democrats Thursday dismissed the Bush administration's plan for voluntary cuts in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions as "baloney" and said it will not help slow global warming.
The White House plan depends on U.S. companies to voluntarily curb industrial emissions of carbon dioxide and links reduction targets to American economic growth. Democrats prefer a mandatory approach that dictates specific cuts.
President Bush withdrew the United States last year from the international Kyoto treaty that aims to cut heat-trapping emissions, saying it was too costly to the economy.
James Connaughton, chairman of the White House's Council on Environmental Quality, told the Senate Commerce committee that the administration's voluntary plan would reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions relative to the size of the American economy by 18 percent over the next decade.
But Democrats expressed skepticism. They said the Bush plan was based on cutting the amount of emissions emitted per dollar of economic output, which would not reduce total U.S. emissions.
"This is a myth and we're going to expose it," said Democrat Sen. Barbara Boxer of California, referring to the White House plan. She added: "It's baloney."
Connaughton acknowledged the administration's proposal would slow the growth of U.S. emissions, not reduce them. "Greenhouse gas emissions will rise under our approach, there's no question about that," he told the Senate panel.
13 PERCENT JUMP
The National Wildlife Federation, for instance, said in a report released Thursday that the administration's plan would result in an 13 percent jump in U.S. emissions in the next decade.
The United States has only 4 percent of the world's people, but produces 25 percent of global greenhouse emissions that are linked to climate change and health problems like asthma.
Democrat John Kerry of Massachusetts, who chaired the hearing, said the administration was not doing enough to reduce emissions and fight global warming. He criticized the administration for claiming the science on the cause of global warming was unclear and using that as an excuse for not tackling the problem.
Kerry asked how the United States could ignore the position of the European Union, Japan and more than 100 other countries that have endorsed the Kyoto treaty.
"What do they know that we don't?" said Kerry, who is seen as a Democratic candidate for the 2004 presidential election.
Connaughton said the Kyoto treaty would have cost the U.S. economy up to $400 billion and caused the loss of 4.9 million job to comply to with the accord's requirements.
Democrats said the United States should have participated in the treaty so it could refine and change the troublesome provisions in it.
WHITE HOUSE REPORT
Connaughton and other administration officials appearing before the panel were also grilled on the recent White House climate change report sent to United Nations.
The report said human activities -- from driving automobiles to operating power plants and oil refineries -- produced greenhouse gas emissions that were the primary cause of global warming.
Connaughton defended President Bush's dismissive-sounding comment that the report was nothing more than a product of the federal bureaucracy.
"The fact of the matter is the report was produced by the bureaucracy," he said. The report was written with input from several agencies and cabinet departments, including the Environmental Protection Agency.
However, EPA Administration Christine Todd Whitman said last month that she never saw the report before its release and did not know it was posted on the agency's Web site until the media reported on it.
The Senate panel wanted Whitman to testify, and rescheduled the hearing twice to accommodate her, but the White House said she would not be able to appear.
The White House report laid out possible global warming side effects for the United States, including higher sea levels for coastal cities, more wildfires in the Southwest and less snowcover in the Rocky Mountains and Alaska.
John Marburger, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, testified the computer models used to predict weather conditions years into the future were unreliable and did give much credence to the report's conclusions.
Copyright 2002, Reuters News Service
I'll post the text right below this line:
Was Kerry one of the 95 who voted against Kyoto---or one of the five who abstained?
Kerry asked how the United States could ignore the position of the European Union, Japan and more than 100 other countries that have endorsed the Kyoto treaty.
This Fred Gwynn looking hypocrite can start by asking himself why he voted for the Byrd-Hagel resolution (which passed 95-0) with the expressed intention of killing any chance of ratification of the Kyoto Agreement in the US Senate.
Lying, gold-digging, disingenuous punk.
Good to know that Americans can count on the Democrats to help the President, that they wouldn't intentionally work to destroy the economy, the justice system and the country for political purposes.
God knows.
You would think that this would be a question that would come to the mind of even the lowliest cub reporter. Of course, there is no media bias, right?
The media has tried to convince americans that it is not economical to build nuclear power plants. If that is so, then why is General Electric been tasked to supervise the construction of 25 of them in China? In 1980 GE said that if they were to build an identical power plant in France as in the US that the French regulatory environment is so much different and so much more lenient than the american environment that the power plant in France would cost to build one third what the american power plant would cost. That is an industry that has been regulated to death purposely. As a result while Japan, Germany, France and England can get 80-90% of their electricity from nuclear sources we can get only much less than half. We've shot ourselvces in the foot purposely.
The result is not only much more expensive electricity for the americans, but also much more pollution in the air. Probably 5-10 thousand americans die every year prematurely according to academics who've studied the issue as a result of the excessive regulation on that industry imposed by Washington as compared to the regulations imposed by these other nations on their nuclear industry.
If we revive the nuclear power construction industry in america by backing off on the stupid regulations, then we'd create lots of high paying blue collar jobs and we'd prepare the way for less imports of oil. Where is Bush? Why doesn't GE itself campaign for this in America. Where is the integrity of the American elite to do what's right?
They're real big on GE building 25 plants in China so they can one day engage in nuclear war with us. They're AWOL when it comes to the American interest.
What's that? You mean they don't want it to pass? They just want to slam Bush for doing what 95 members of the Senate told the president to do?
They drum both out of students in journalism school.
Which is good news. Increased growing season. Lower utility needs for heating. Less pollution. Fewer accidents. Less heart attacks.
Warming can't come fast enough for me.
Funny how we can't agree even on the spelling of basic food groups. Balogna, ketchup.
Let's even take this one step further, if there were global warming, it would not be a bad thing. The cost of trying to prevent global warming would be humongous for little if any effect. Why bother?
Bush of course is a weenie, who takes the position that is the worst of all worlds. He agrees that there is global warming, so he dumps science and his base for support and gets zero support from the enviro-wackos, who simply raise the ante and say Bush isn't doing enough about a problem that he admits to. DUMB, DUMB, DUMB!!
What's that? You mean they don't want it to pass? They just want to slam Bush for doing what 95 members of the Senate told the president to do?
Exactly. The dishonesty and hypocrisy of the two-faced Democrats is just astounding on this.
How could anyone vote for these lying creeps?
President Bush withdrew the United States last year from the international Kyoto treaty that aims to cut heat-trapping emissions, saying it was too costly to the economy.
Yes, but he also did it because not all countries are treated equally (the biggest producer of the so-called greenhouse gasses will be China by the end of the decade, and they're immune from Kyoto), and the "science" behind Kyoto is shaky at best. Has he backed down on that now?
273-180=93 days lost over 9 years.
93/9 = 10.33 days per year.
180/10.33 = 17.43 years until there is no summer.
Looks like Global Cooling is occuring to me...better start building up supplies. ;-)
Hey, it's at least as equally absurd as their baloney.
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