The Global Climate Coalition is supportive of the voluntary approach taken in the President's Climate Change Action Plan. To the extent the measures in the Plan are cost effective and make economic sense, American business will be supportive, since a healthy economy is the single largest ingredient for a strong environmental program. The science of climate change remains uncertain, but whatever the level and timing of risk, the problem is global in nature and cost effective Joint Implementation projects in other countries should be encouraged. The GCC looks forward to reviewing the underlying assumptions used in developing the specific measures of the Plan and working with the Administration in developing reasonable benchmarks and monitoring programs. American Automobile Manufacturers American Electric Power Service American Forest & Paper Institute Duquesne Light Company Exxon Illinois Power Company Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corp. National Association of Manufacturers National Coal Association National Rural Electric Cooperatives Phillips Petroleum Company Process Gas Consumers Texaco, Inc. The Southern Company U.S. Chamber of Commerce Union Electric Company General Membership Aluminum Association, Inc. American Commercial Barge Line Co. Arizona Public Service Company Association of International Automobile Manufacturers BP America, Inc. Burlington Northern Railroad Carolina Power & Light CIBO CONRAIL Consumers Power Du Pont Company Eastman Kodak LTV Steel Company, Inc. Midland Enterprises Nestle Norfolk Southern Northern Indiana Public Service Co. Pennsylvania Power & Light Company Union Carbide Corporation Mr. SHARP. Thank you very much. I'd like to also welcome our witness on behalf of the Environmental Defense Fund. She has had probably a miserable time dealing and coping with the transportation system in the country. But Ms. Alice LeBlanc is with us now. Her plane finally took off or arrived or both. If she would like to come forward to the table we would be happy to have her join Mr. Goffman certainly in the questioning. We are happy to welcome you. Let me ask a couple of questions before I recognize my colleagues. Mr. Jasinowski and also Mr. Davis, let me sort of address with you this question of voluntarism that both of you endorse. And as you know, some critics of the plan are kind of skeptical that this will occur. Ironically, it strikes me that people on both sides of this issue are both asking serious questions about documentation with different perspectives in mind as to how to document the success or failure or the bench mark and what is not at issue. Something I think is very important for all of us to be focused on. But here I want to focus on another aspect of this. You articulated the point of view, Mr. Jasinowski, of the marketplace doing efficient things. And I think the thing that is important in this program both politically today and from the standpoint of making it successful politically in the future as to what choices we make in this country with respect to how much if any, command and control to engage in will depend in part, as I think many perceptive people understand, on what we see as the level of success in the voluntary effort. It strikes me that some people miss that there is an in-between between the market efficiency and the command and control in this respect. And that is that we know that just as in our own operation in our office, we don't always do things that are politically efficient or substantively efficient. Many of our corporations and business struggle with this. They have multiple goals to serve. They have large bureaucracies. And so they aren't necessarily making what is in their own self interest the most efficient. And therefore, an organized effort to get people organized in this by the Government and within the private sector may make a difference. I was just in Indianapolis helping to co-sponsor for a statewide meeting on green lights to get people to make the only thing that is asked of them is to make the best economic judgment you can make on your lighting and you will remarkably save us energy and save us pollution. And people are not in the habit of having the Government agency say to them make the best economic decision. But the reality and the importance of it is because even people in the corporation who are focused on the issue can't get the attention sometimes of those who might make a difference and because maybe it doesn't have the dramatic difference in the corporate strategy that they have to worry about at the Board level, it doesn't happen. And so I in a sense am making a plea for the private sector both for its political and economic benefit to take very seriously what is being asked in this voluntary program so that in fact economic decisions get made. I think too many people sort of say well, the marketplace will in fact make all the efficient decisions. Well, it makes lots of them. But it misses some just as we all do because of other priorities. And that's why I think it's a compelling case to be made for the trade associations, for the administration to engage in a very active outreach program on this respect. Mr. JASINOWSKI. I couldn't agree with you more, Mr. Chairman. And I think you have put the issue about the responsibility for us exactly right. And I think that we certainly want to do all that we can to encourage this program to work as well as we can. I do want to make two points to try to make a distinction about the exchange we are having here that I think are important. One is to make a distinction about command and control versus something in between. I would still reject the notion of command and control, which to me implies that the means for achieving the emission reductions are to some extent dictated by the Federal Government. That's what command control means to us. And that's the biggest mistake we could make. With respect to an in-between ground, everything from setting goals, the Federal Government setting goals to establishing a dialogue to encouraging through incentives actions to achieve that in. And I would say this question of establishing a consciousness about the issue. Energy efficiency is central to the country and the private sector. We're making quite a lot of progress. A lot of that has come about because people like yourself and others have stressed the importance of this. And so it has become part of the national culture and consciousness in both the public and private sector. So all of those in between grounds, I think we find common ground with you and others and certainly feel a major responsibility ourselves to move forward in this. The second point I'd make is a little more skeptical. If you look at all the uncertainties in this plan, Mr. Chairman, I'd have to say that I wouldn't make a big bet on being able to predict whether or not it's going to work or not. I think it's moving in the right direction. We feel very strongly that we should make a commitment like this. But, I mean, there are just a lot of things we don't know. I think before we really commit everybody 100 percent we need to know more about the economic assumptions, more about the impact of the programs and all of that so that we don't make a mistake by setting ourselves on a course in which we don't have enough information to know if it will work. Mr. SHARP. I can understand that. But in a way, I would rather not see us in this country get into an argument about whether you are for the President's plan or not for the President's plan. I believe it will change. I believe policies will change in various ways. But rather, get down to if we could take seriously those aspects that are asking people to make the maximum economic judgment that will reduce CO2 so that it is in fact a part of corporate strategy and people are trying to make a commitment and not dismissing, as I think a few might, the fear of being ensnared in something that they are committed to. At least do that and not get into a resistance mode. Some will and some won't. And all I'm urging is to get the maximum amount of participation. Not in terms of false sign-up. I mean participation in the sense of understanding this priority. For many of them it will be on a political view very frankly that they are going to get something worse if they don't do this. Mr. JASINOWSKI. Let me just close out my comments by saying I accept your final point. And certainly from the point of the Global Climate Coalition and the NAM I think within the bounds of anything that seems reasonable we are committed to moving forward with you and others in the framework that has been established by the administration. Mr. SHARP. My own view is that often times we make statements, and I've preached doing the doable now because I'm not sure if we have the political will and the understanding to craft a broad scale thing in which we can get a sufficient agreement to have a policy in place if we had a consensus intellectually. But my concern is we don't really quite get around to doing the doable. And so at least for an interim period as we figure this out in this country, if we can get everybody moving in that direction even though other people have dramatic goals to go one way or the other, we will make some success that is of value to us economically and pollution wise. One of my endearing concerns here too, and probably my friends in the environmental community, is the setting of universal goals worldwide and getting governments committed to meeting those goals. I see that as an important effort to engage in. But the likelihood of getting a tightly operating committed thing and having a dramatic impact is not enormously great. Various governments will either give lip service or certainly they don't have the economic wherewithal in much of the world to focus the way we do. And I think it's very important that our government and the international community as a separate track-these are not inconsistent-but is to try to focus on what are the handfuls of strategies that we can universally agree upon as to where we know we can make a difference over the next 10, 15 or 20 years. A couple come to my mind quickly. But I don't pretend to have done the kind of analytical work that others are doing in this. It's like we all have a stake in the Soviet system not leaking so much in natural gas. The methane that goes out of that system I am told is an enormous loss. They have an economic interest in it. The goal here is to try to get that as one on the list. Get coal burning in China and India. They are making fundamental decisions about that. Get that as another priority on the list. I may have the wrong list. I'm not trying to say what the list is. But if we could get sufficient agreement that there are 6 or 7 of these things that make a big difference over the next 20 years rather than everybody marginally trying desperately to squeeze out something, then you have at the State Department level, at the Presidential level and the governments there in the international community the knowledge that as policies are crafted there are some goals we are striving for. Because I think the biggest problems we have worldwide-we have it in corporations, we have it in subcommittee-is we always have multiple goals. So today we are for climate change and we are focused on this and for tomorrow we are for something else. And you never even get the people in the U.S. Government who deal with one of these governments to know what is a high priority. It simply is never sufficiently listed. It is often in some report somewhere. But you can't get 25 people in the U.S. Government, you can't get 25 in corporate America or anywhere else to be able to state clearly what the goals are. Very smart people. Very active people. Influential people. And so if we could get that, I think we could have a very positive impact. Some of those goals may be us too. I'm not trying to eliminate the United States. But I don't know. Mr. Goffman or Ms. LeBlanc, I didn't mean to put that to you necessarily. But you may wish to have a chance to comment. Ms. LEBLANC. I will just comment. I think that our approach is a little different from that in that yes, the goal should be emissions reductions or certain commitment to limiting emissions to a given level. Once that commitment is made and the responsibility for making those reductions is assigned, then our approach is to open up all the options and let the persons or the individuals with the responsibility make the decision about what the priority should be. Have all the options available to them. That's one reason that we push for joint implementation. We push for the use of forestry. There is a compliance option. Rather than having a committee decide what the priorities are, set the goal in terms of the environmental guide of emissions reductions and let the individual polluters, those with the responsibility make the decision about where their resources should be put. Mr. SHARP. I actually appreciate the rationality of that and the logic of that. I think that is very compelling and I agree with you that the goal setting with the flexibility to choose priorities is very relevant. My own sense about it is that neither our Government nor the foreign governments nor others will act quite as rationally as logically as that in the near term. I mean, over time that may be what we end up doing. And I'm not saying do this instead. What I am saying though is by the time we get people committed to that we may have lost opportunities where we could have been intervening in ways that would mean power plants being brought on line in China are in fact upgraded in efficiency or forest land is not lost in Brazil or Alaska or somewhere else because we can't quite energize enough people to stay focused. And so I just see the risk of us picking away. And suppose we don't get the Chinese government? Suppose it isn't willing to come on board to that? |