GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE: ADEQUACY OF THE NATIONAL ACTION PLAN MONDAY, MARCH 1, 1993 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC POLICY, TRADE AND ENVIRONMENT, Washington, DC. The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 1:30 p.m. in room 2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Sam Gejdenson (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Mr. GEJDENSON. The Subcommittee on Economic Policy, Trade and Environment meets today to discuss global climate change. Today's hearing is the first hearing of this subcommittee focusing solely on environmental matters, which were recently added to the subcommittee's jurisdiction. We intend to exercise this jurisdiction intensively. For 12 years, Congress faced two administrations whose commitment to protecting either America's environment or the world environment was questionable at best. With the election of President Clinton, we now have an administration committed to environmental protection and to living up to our national interest in being environmentally responsible. This sea change in the international environmental policy could not come at a more critical time. Scientists have demonstrated that the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, together with the destruction of the world's forests, are warming the Earth's atmosphere. If this trend continues, sea levels may rise, agricultural patterns may change, and the world's energy, transportation and water supply systems could be endangered. As the Clinton administration gets under way, they unfortunately will be faced with a clean-up task related to global climate left over from President Bush. In the last days of the previous administration, the State Department, over the objections of the Environmental Protection Agency, transmitted a National Action Plan for Global Climate Change to the other nations of the world. This plan was designed to fulfill U.S. commitments under the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change and was signed last June by 157 nations at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. The public comment period on the plan will end March 8. As envisioned by the drafters of the Climate Change Convention, each country's action plan would not only delineate the sources of greenhouse gas emissions within the Nation's borders; it would also outline an aggressive policy and program to reduce greenhouse gas (1) emissions, as well as to protect the world's forests, which absorb carbon emissions. The Bush administration's plan, however, is a great disappointment. The plan is simply a restatement of government initiatives already under way to stabilize and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It does not require the U.S. Government to take any new initiatives. Furthermore, the emission reductions which will be achieved by the National Action Plan do not even stabilize U.S. greenhouse gases at the 1990 levels, which was called for under the Convention. The Clinton administration has an opportunity to revise the National Action Plan and to demonstrate to the world that the United States will not shy away from its international environmental commitment and responsibility. The purpose of today's hearing is not only to examine the shortcomings of the previous administration's plan, but to discuss the options available to President Clinton in redrafting a plan to better meet U.S. commitments under the Climate Change Convention. I believe the United States should submit a revised National Action Plan which makes three basic changes over the existing document. First, the United States should commit itself to reduce greenhouse gas emissions below 1990 levels. Specific timetables and targets for U.S. reductions will force us to craft aggressive and effective global warming policies. Second, the administration should spell out how U.S. programs which reduce greenhouse emissions will be improved. While we are currently in an era of fiscal restraint, the government can better use existing resources to promote energy efficiency and alternative fuels, to increase protection of our forests, and to pursue research and development into solutions to global warming. Third, the Clinton administration must specify how U.S. efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will be coordinated. Currently, many different U.S. Government agencies, from the Environmental Protection Agency to the State Department, play a role in crafting and implementing U.S. global warming policy. We can get more bang from our buck if we eliminate the duplication and increase cooperation. By submitting the National Action Plan after President Bush's election defeat, the administration-the Bush administration may have been trying to lock in U.S. policy on global climate change. They were clearly harboring false hopes. I am confident that the new administration, the Clinton administration, will see the National Action Plan for what it is: the first opportunity for the new administration to enunciate a far-reaching and ambitious U.S. policy to battle global warming. I look forward to hearing from today's witnesses and working closely with the administration in months to come. My colleague, Mr. Roth. Mr. ROTH. Mr. Chairman, thank you for your opening statement. Let me say that I would like to join you in welcoming our witnesses today. Few environmental issues generate more widely diverse views than global warming. Some believe we are on the road to inevitable catastrophe. Others deny it is happening at all. Very little has been proven by either side. Like most people, I am concerned by what I read about global warming, but I am also concerned that the most radical approaches also would cause serious economic dislocation. It is going to be very hard to sell global warming to a worker whose job is being done away with because environmental rules close a plant or force a business overseas. That is why I am delighted to have the National Association of Manufacturers testify today. Everyone says we need a balance between environmental and economic concerns, and that is what the Bush administration did in its proposed plan. And before the new administration tries to rewrite the Bush plan, it should remember that spending billions on economic stimulus can be canceled by strangling American business with more government regulations. After all, the first country to implement the plan was what country? It was the United States of America. Other governments have talked about it, but we were the first to implement it. There is a Wisconsin adage, talk is cheap; it costs money to produce milk; and that is the way it is with regulations. Let's remember, no country has done more on the environment than the United States. As our witnesses testify today, I hope they will address the danger of stalling our economy and hurting our competitive negatives. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. BALLENGER. Thank, Mr. Chairman. First, left me thank you for holding the hearing today. Global climate change is an issue that has been in the public eye for several years now, and the policy implications for action to control global warming are far-reaching, including areas of the business community. But there is a real simple answer to this whole question: If we will all just hold our breath, the problem is solved. Mr. Chairman, I am somewhat concerned about the makeup of today's panel. Although you have included members from the business community, I believe that the panel is pretty one-sided in that it does not include persons opposed to the conventional wisdom on global climate change. There are currently several scientists who believe that statistics on global warming are more hype than substance. It is my understanding that the subcommittee intends to hold another hearing on this issue in the near future. I hope the subcommittee will act to hold this hearing and not only-and not be only offering the Republicans' rhetoric to keep us from complaining about this very unbalanced panel. In addition, I would ask that the subcommittee keep the record of the hearing open for an additional 2 weeks to include the testimony of Professor Patrick Michaels of the University of Virginia. Professor Michaels is widely respected as an expert who refutes the conventional wisdom on climate change, and I believe his statement will offer the subcommittee the kind of balance that we need to fully understand the magnitude of the climate change problem. Mr. Chairman, I look forward to today's witnesses testimony, and I look forward to our second hearing on this same topic. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. GEJDENSON. Thank you. We did ask representatives of an organization called the Climate Council, which represents a large portion of the coal and rail industries, if they wanted to come and have a witness testify. They declined. So we are always happy to get additional recommendations for witnesses. What we would like to do is-if it is all right with everyone's time—is have all of you make your opening statements. Your entire statements will be placed in the record and, without objection, the record will be kept open for 2 weeks. Summarize the most salient points of your comments, and then maybe we can get a fight going between the four of you. If not, we will sit back and ask some ques tions. Let me introduce the panel in the order they will be speaking: Dan Lashof, senior project scientist, Air and Energy Program, National Resources Defense Council; T.J. Glauthier, director, Energy and Climate Change Policy, World Wildlife Fund; Irving Mintzer, Center for Global Change, University of Maryland and Stockholm Environment Institute; John Hemphill, executive director, Business Council For A Sustainable Energy Future; and Michael Barrody, senior vice president of policy communications, National Association of Manufacturers and chairman of the Global Climate Coalition. Mr. GEJDENSON. So if we can start with Mr. Lashof, you may proceed. STATEMENT OF DANIEL LASHOF, SENIOR PROJECT SCIENTIST, AIR AND ENERGY PROGRAM, NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL Mr. LASHOF. Thank, Mr. Chairman, Members of the committee. My name is Daniel Lashof. I am a Senior Scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council. In summarizing my written testimony, I would like to focus on specific recommendations for improving and rewriting the Bush administration's National Action Plan to produce an acceptable plan to deal with the problem of global warming. But before turning to that, let me say a few words about the scientific basis for taking action on global warming. My written statement quotes at length from a summary of the science prepared by the Bush administration, and while we strongly disagree with the climate policies of that administration, I do believe that they presented a fair assessment of the science. The problem with the Bush administration was that they failed to act on their own assessment of the science, and so I would commend members of the committee to that summary of the science on global warming, which does, I believe, represent, as it states, the view of the vast majority of the climate scientists on global warming. The critical link between science and policy is now found in the objective of the climate treaty itself, which the United States is now a party to. That objective is, and I quote, "the stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system." It further states that "such a level should be achieved within a timeframe sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened, and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner." While significant uncertainties about global warming remain, it is clear that we can only ensure that this objective is achieved if the United States and other industrialized countries move rapidly to cap emissions at 1990 levels by the year 2000 and subsequently reduce them 25 percent by 2005, and details of how I have arrived at that conclusion are in my written statement. At this point, I would like to move on to the specific recommendations about how to move forward with an effective National Action Plan. NRDC believes that the National Action Plan released by the Bush administration fails to meet U.S. commitments under the Climate Convention in at least two key respects. First, the Bush administration NAP does not demonstrate an aim of returning emissions of greenhouse gases to 1990 levels as required by Article 4; and second, it was not prepared with public participation as required under Article 6. I would note that, of course, the United States is not technically in violation of the treaty at this point in time because the treaty has not entered into force; but if it had entered into force and if the existing action plan was supposed to comply with the treaty, we would believe that it does not. There are many technical problems with the existing action plan that are mentioned in my testimony that will be detailed in public comments, but the most important failing of the Bush administration plan is that the mitigation section does not provide a plan for capping and then reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Instead, it provides a mixture of existing and planned programs, some of which include projected emission reductions while others do not. Glaringly absent are energy taxes and policies to reduce emissions from the transportation sector, in particular, through automobile efficiency improvements. Moreover, there is no specific plan of action that must be taken by government agencies and the private sector in order to achieve those emission reductions that are specified. Drawing on the public comments, the administration now should revise the National Action Plan using the following general guidelines: First, the NAP should detail a credible plan for capping emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases not controlled by the Montreal Protocol at 1990 levels by the year 2000, with subsequent emission reductions of 25 percent by 2005. Second, the NAP should provide specific baseline and post-policy emission projections from 1990 through at least the year 2010. Third, the NAP should include a specific implementation plan, including programmatic timetables and required budgets by agen cy. And fourth, the NAP should include an evaluation procedure for regularly assessing whether the United States is on track to achieving its stated emission targets with provisions for adopting additional measures, for example, increasing energy tax rates, if emissions are higher than anticipated. The most recent DOE/EIA reference case projection indicates that carbon dioxide emissions will increase by some 160 million |