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 questions.

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

metric tons of carbon by the year 2000 relative to 1990 levels. If properly implemented, many of the measures in the existing plan could significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions from projected levels. In particular, EPA's voluntary public-private partnerships, such as Green Lights, Energy Star Computers and Golden Carrot Refrigerator programs, have been highly successful to date. These programs remain underfunded relative to what would be needed to achieve the market penetration targets in the current plan. If adequate funding is provided, the combination of EPA's program, effective implementation of the Energy Policy Act of 1992, and ongoing State-level and utility efficiency programs might reduce carbon dioxide emissions by the year 2000 by about 100 million metric tons of carbon based on the calculations in the existing plan. That leaves a gap of some 60 million metric tons of carbon that need to be made up.

In my testimony, I enumerate a number of policies that complement or augment those in the existing National Action Plan. Estimated emission reductions are given for the year 2000, and they come to a total of some 80 to 110 million metric tons of carbon, assuming that the individual programs are additive. These emission reductions come from measures-including the Btu tax, included in the Clinton-Gore economic package-increasing automobile fuel efficiency standards and measures to internalize the cost of driving automobiles and therefore reduce the use of single-occupancy vehicles where other modes of transportation are available, measures to increase the efficiency of Federal buildings and residential buildings, as well as measures to promote renewable energy and natural gas to replace higher carbon fuels.

These policies, taken together with the existing measures in the plan, would allow emissions to be reduced by some 180 to 210 million metric tons of carbon, more than enough to achieve the goal of reducing emissions below 1990 levels by the year 2000; and the impact of most of these programs would increase in future years beyond 2000, yielding significant emission reductions.

The importance of timing cannot be overstressed, however. Much valuable time has already been lost since the 1988 Toronto Conference first called for a 20 percent reduction in emissions. The turn of the century is now only 7 years off. Each program outlined here will take some time to get off the ground and additional time to achieve significant emission reductions as equipment turns over. The administration and Congress must move quickly to adopt and implement a real National Action Plan to arrest global warming. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Lashof appears in the appendix.] STATEMENT OF T.J. GLAUTHIER, DIRECTOR, ENERGY AND CLIMATE CHANGE POLICY, WORLD WILDLIFE FUND

Mr. GLAUTHIER. Mr. Chairman, I am T.J. Glauthier, director of Energy and Climate Change Policy at the World Wildlife Fund. I also coordinate the policy work of WWF organizations throughout the world on energy and technology transfer issues.

WWF is the U.S. affiliate of the international WWF family, which is the world's largest private conservation organization. We have over 1.2 million members here in the United States and over

4 million members worldwide. We have national organizations or representatives in nearly 40 countries around the world.

I also wish to acknowledge our identification with the Climate Action Network, which is a coalition of nongovernmental organizations working on climate change here in the United States and internationally. While I can't speak specifically for all the members of this coalition, I think, together with the comments of my colleagues, Mr. Lashof and Dr. Mintzer, you will get a sense of the general reaction of the nongovernmental organization community regarding the U.S. Action Plan.

I will summarize my comments. The testimony is submitted to you in its entirety.

The subcommittee did raise a question of whether or not the draft action plan should be revised or completely scrapped. This question is largely a matter of semantics. In either case, the thinking and the public comment that has gone on is relevant and should be used in moving forward; and the draft material certainly contains some sections, such as descriptions of key program elements and research plans, that will be useful. However, the revisions that are needed to the overall plan are so extensive that the final version should be substantially different from the draft.

I have four key recommendations I would like to make: The first one is that the draft plan needs a 180-degree shift in orientation to become a strategic document that sets goals and drives actions within the administration.

As you have heard from Dr. Lashof, the draft plan is not goal directed. It is just a compendium of programs and actions that are being undertaken for other reasons.

This plan should be a strategic document. It should be the statement of strategy for our Nation's climate action program. As such, it needs to set forth goals, priorities, and program directions that are useful on a day-to-day basis in making research, policy, and resource decisions.

Our final plan should embrace the objective of the convention and make a clear, explicit commitment to meeting the target of returning greenhouse gas emissions to their 1990 levels by the year 2000. Then the body of the document should spell out in detail our strategy for achieving that. Our plan should also include a commitment to monitoring our progress and adding additional measures to the plan or increasing their pace if subsequent information shows that the actions we have laid out are not adequate to meet the year 2000 target.

In making the plan a goal-driven document, we also recommend a substantial amount of restructuring being done. I will leave the details of that to later comments.

Our second recommendation is that the action plan needs more actions. The current draft does not meet the test of a good-faith plan because it does not achieve the emissions reduction goal of the treaty. In fact, using the numbers in the draft, it is possible that the steps in the action plan will only go halfway toward the goal of returning emissions to the 1990 levels by the year 2000.

In addition, I understand that a number of the technical assumptions underlying these calculations are based on a rosy scenario

and may overstate the emission reduction that will actually be achieved by the listed actions in the plan.

Currently, what is needed is a credible package of programs and actions, that technical experts agree will be such, to achieve our national goal under the treaty. That will require adding more measures now and including the commitment to monitor results and add additional measures later, if needed.

A third recommendation regards the technology transfer section of the draft plan. That too needs to be changed to be strategic. It needs to contain specific goals that will drive the program and actions to assist the U.S. private sector in undertaking projects abroad.

The present draft on technology transfer lacks both goals and any statement of strategy. At this point, it contains just a listing of examples of activities that fall within this sphere but without direction. The entire treatment of one key area, for example, technology development and transfer, consists of a one-sentence introduction followed by 22 bullets of examples of U.S. projects. These may be valuable sound projects; however, there is no attempt to provide an overall perspective, set of goals, and strategy that binds these together.

Our technology transfer program must be based on facilitating actions by hundreds or thousands of firms in the private sector. We can do that by providing a vision, setting goals, creating incentives, removing barriers and facilitating private sector action.

Some specific recommendations: The United States should set an ambitious, specific goal, such as having 1,000 private-sector projects under way by 1996 in developing countries and countries whose economies are in transition. One thousand projects would provide real focus for government officials who are implementing this program. It would tend to concentrate their attention on real, concrete actions that would stimulate private-sector activity, and the number of projects should be high, high enough to be a worthy goal, but even at this level, it amounts to only two projects per year for each of the next 4 years for each of the developing countries or transitional countries that sign the treaty.

Another recommendation is that the administration should integrate the Action Plan goals and objectives into whatever reorganization is developed for the AID program.

Another is that the United States should actively seek and support meaningful changes to the Global Environmental Facility, which is the interim financing mechanism for technology assistance to developing countries under this treaty.

And finally, the administration should work actively to improve incentives and remove barriers to technology transfer, and effective international private sector partnerships.

Assistance programs could be modified to provide seed money to establish "energy efficiency trust funds" in developing countries. Such monies could be used as revolving funds to overcome the high initial cost barrier of efficient technologies, and the earnings could support continued local staff capability. That idea comes from our experience in conservation finance, specifically in the debt-for-nature swaps. It has shown that the single greatest determinant long