poised to meet a growing number of energy demands in the United States and abroad. Developing countries which do not have extensive electric grid systems represent a large and growing export market for many U.S. solar technologies. U.S photovoltaic producers, for example, already export approximately 65 percent of their total product, and their overseas markets are expected to grow rapidly throughout the 1990's. Thus, an insurance policy against global climate change based on these sustainable energy technologies offers concrete economic as well as environmental advantages. However, while the United States is currently the technological leader in all major solar technologies, intense international competition, including foreign governments' aggressive promotion of their national firms, threatens the United States lead in these high tech industries. Without strong Federal support, the United States could well lose its technological edge in this field, and the substantial domestic employment and international market opportunities that go along with it. How do we take out this insurance policy? The key lies in developing a coherent national strategy to put the United States on a more sustainable energy footing. A clearly articulated national goal that aims to have solar and other renewable energies comprise 25 percent of our energy mix by 2010 will send a powerful message to industry and capital markets that these technologies are a sound investment. It will also send a clear political message that the United States is prepared to assume global leadership in the fight against global climate change. The first step in such a strategy begins with implementing the National Energy Policy Act of 1992 (EPACT). Government-industry joint ventures authorized under this Act provide a framework in which the Federal Government can leverage its funds with private capital and expertise to overcome the final market barriers to renewable energy technology. This will help U.S. producers commercialize their cutting edge technologies in time to meet emerging market demands, rather than ceding these valuable markets to foreign producers. EPACT's technology transfer measures will promote the use of U.S. technology abroad, thus boosting U.S. exports and ensuring that developing countries have full access to clean, renewable energy technologies. These are only two of the key provisions of the Energy Policy Act. SEIA looks forward to working with this subcommittee to insure that all of EPACT's Title XII renewable energy provisions receive the attention and funding they deserve. Legislation under the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, particularly the conservation and renewable energy allowance reserve under the acid rain provisions, constitute another important area where solar energy can gain industry acceptance as a tool for achieving environmental compliance while simultaneously providing economic benefits. The point is to couple a strong national vision of the role we would like renewables to play in our energy future with rigorous implementation of the laws already on the books. While the problem of global climate change is complex and ambiguous, most of its solutions are relatively straight forward. On the demand side, energy efficiency and conservation measures will continue to rationalize our energy use, limiting our need for new production capacity. Ultimately, however, we must address the supply side of our energy equation as well. Solar energy technologies can meet an ever increasing portion of our energy needs, and they can do it without emitting dangerous greenhouse gases. Given that the fastest growth in future CO2 emissions is expected to take place in the developing world, in the very regions where solar resources are most abundant and already economically competitive, solar technologies will constitute the lynch-pin of any global strategy to combat greenhouse gas emissions. If United States policy-makers view the fight against global climate change as an opportunity as well as a challenge, they can use it to ensure that our country's small but robust solar technology industries lead the charge toward a sustainable energy future. This is an area where the United States really can "do well by doing good," ensuring that we simultaneously achieve two of our most important national goals: a healthy environment and a vibrant economy. GLOBAL WARMING WEDNESDAY, MAY 26, 1993 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE, The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:47 a.m., in room 2322, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Philip R. Sharp (chairman) presiding. Mr. SHARP. The subcommittee will please come to order. We are very pleased this morning to have witnesses from the administration on the question of global warming. The subcommittee is continuing to monitor progress on the international agreement, progress on what we are doing with internal administrative decisions, and what we may or may not decide to do further in the Energy Act on this issue. Our goal is to try to make sure that we do the thorough scientific analysis that must be done, that we make an international commitment that entails the goals being met through international actions, not just unilateral actions, and to make sure that we are progressing on the voluntary and cost-effective measures that have multiple value to our country, because we know that many of the things that will help on global warming help us in other ways. There are many that are actual win-win situations, where we get economic progress, as well as environmental progress, but we are all very sensitive to the potential economic costs that some proposals and some activities might have, and that will be a profound concern in the country, obviously. I am very pleased to welcome our distinguished former colleague Senator Tim Wirth, with whom I came to Congress and who served originally on this subcommittee before his distinguished career in the Senate, and is now with the State Department. He will, I have no doubt, have a very important voice in the new administration. I am very pleased to have Ms. Susan Tierney, the Assistant Secretary for Domestic and International Energy Policy, from the Department of Energy. We welcome her for her first appearance before our subcommittee and look forward to working with her on many issues that our subcommittee deals with. We are also very pleased to have the President's appointee, Mr. Robert Sussman, the Deputy Administrator from the Environmental Protection Agency. Ladies and gentlemen, I feel confident you are aware of our processes here. We will put your written statements in the record and be glad to hear your oral summary. (77) First let me recognize my colleague from Oklahoma Mr. Synar for an opening statement. Mr. SYNAR. Thank you, Phil. I will be very brief. I just want to join with you in welcoming our witnesses today and also remind everyone that Jim Cooper and I are still working on some legislation which we think is going to be very vital to this, and we should be in the next couple of weeks coming to closure on that. It is going to track very similar to the acid rain provisions on the tradeable credits and offsets which we had there. We think it is the most politically acceptable. We also believe it gives the industry the most opportunities for creativity. We look forward to the witnesses' testimony on these matters and others this morning. Mr. SHARP. Thank you. [The opening statement of Mr. Synar follows:] STATEMENT OF HON. MIKE SYNAR Mr. Chairman, I want to commend you for holding this hearing to look at the new administration's plans for global warming and their progress in meeting the requirements contained in last year's Energy Policy Act (EPACT). As you know, along with Congressman Cooper, I have actively pushed for the United States to deal with global warming through the use of tradeable credits or offsets which are similar to and compatible with the approach to acid rain under the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990. We have not yet finished drafting new legislation to follow up on the voluntary reduction reporting requirements we got incorporated into EPACT last year, but we are eager to work with the President to make the global warming goals of his Earth Day speech a reality. We believe that the tradeable credit or offsets approach is the most cost-effective, certain and flexible method for achieving reductions in the gases which contribute to global climate change. It should also be the most politically acceptable. This approach relies on the creativity of industry to come up with the kinds of trades that make the most sense for their businesses and does not subject them to inflexible or inefficient command and control schemes or even more taxes. I look forward to hearing the testimony on this important topic. Mr. SHARP. Senator Wirth, we are very pleased to hear from you. STATEMENTS OF TIMOTHY E. WIRTH, COUNSELOR, DEPARTMENT OF STATE; SUSAN F. TIERNEY, ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR DOMESTIC AND INTERNATIONAL ENERGY POLICY, DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY; AND ROBERT M. SUSSMAN, DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR, ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY Mr. WIRTH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I am very pleased to be with you and Congressman Synar this morning and to be back in the committee in which I spent so many productive years. Addressing this issue of global climate change for the Clinton administration is going to require very close collaboration between the administration and the Congress, including this committee. The President has assembled an excellent team to coordinate our activities. In particular, DOE Secretary O'Leary and EPA Administrator Browner have a great can-do attitude, I think, that will help to make it possible to rapidly move forward on this agenda. This effort is going to require significant United States leadership to leverage international resolve for action to prevent dangerous human intervention in the complex climate system that influences so many aspects of our society and our world. Last year, the international community acknowledged scientific concern and took the first steps to address this significant challenge. More than 160 nations have signed the Framework Convention on Climate Change, agreed to at the Earth Summit in Rio last June. To date, the United States and 18 other nations have ratified the treaty. The convention set forth a series of commitments intended to move countries toward the convention's ultimate objective, stabilizing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, to prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system. To begin this process, nations are to prepare inventories of their net greenhouse gas emissions and developed countries are to adopt national policies and measures to mitigate climate change and to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore, the convention calls for developed countries to provide resources to help developing countries to meet their obligations under the convention. Finally, it calls for countries to report on the actions they are taking to meet these commitments. The conference of the parties, which the United States anticipates will meet for the first time in mid-1995, will review these reports and the adequacy of the commitments under the convention. Subsequent reviews will take place at regular interviews, with the second review coming no later than December 1998. Since assuming office, President Clinton has directed his administration to conduct a broad review of international environmental concerns, including global climate change. Through this process, the President has determined that the United States should provide leadership to help guard against the challenge of global climate change. President Clinton clearly set forth the direction of our climate policy in his Earth Day speech, when he said: "We must take the lead in addressing the challenge of global warming that could make our planet and its climate less hospitable and more hostile to human life. Today, I reaffirm my personal, and announce our Nation's commitment, to reducing our emissions of greenhouse gases to their 1990 levels by the year 2000. I am instructing my administration to produce a cost-effective plan by August that can continue the trend of reduced emissions. This must be a clarion call, not for more bureaucracy or regulation or unnecessary costs, but, instead, for American ingenuity and creativity, to produce the best and most energy-efficient technology." This administration is committed to seeing the convention promptly implemented and, if necessary, strengthened. To this end, the administration is taking a two-pronged approach, a domestic effort to reduce emissions and enhance sinks of greenhouse gaseswhich my colleagues from Energy and EPA will speak to at greater length-and an international effort, including working to implement the convention and to support developing countries and others in meeting its goals. Under the Climate Convention's Article 12, developed country parties must report on their actions within 6 months of the convention's entry into force, which is expected by late 1994. The August plan the President referred to will be the cornerstone of that report. We anticipate that the next full version of the U.S. National Action Plan will be developed after August, in time to meet our convention obligation. The essential difference between the Clinton administration and the previous administration on climate change is that we are developing a domestic climate change policy and will use that policy to demonstrate our resolve to promote an effective global response. However, our domestic actions alone, even as large as they are, will not be enough to reverse the upward trend in global atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases. We must establish a partnership with other countries. Sources of emissions are spread globally, and action to reduce emissions undertaken anywhere on the planet has global significance. The United States currently contributes about 20 percent of global net emissions, but our share is declining. Developing countries represent an increasing share of total emissions, about 40 percent today and perhaps rising to 60 percent by 2030. Therefore, we must force common cause around the world. Industrialized countries will have to take the lead in implementing the convention's commitments as agreed to in the convention language and encourage developing countries to follow. In the administration's view, our leadership will be linked to the quality of our national responses, as well as to the extent of the financial and technical assistance we and other industrialized nations can provide to developing countries. We have already begun to demonstrate our concern for addressing the longer-term global effort. We are providing $25 million to a U.S. country studies initiative, which will provide an analytical and institutional foundation from which countries may develop appropriate measures and actions to address climate change. We want to insure that these studies enable countries to identify their vulnerabilities to climate change and opportunities to limit net greenhouse gas emissions in their own backyards. The country studies initiative, coordinated through the State Department chaired inter-agency committee and managed by DOE, EPA and AID, got into full swing last week, as bilateral discussions with our developing country partners were launched. Joint implementation will be another important piece of the solution to climate change, as recognized in Article 4. Under joint implementation, countries would be able to offset domestic emissions of greenhouse gases through emissions reductions achieved anywhere in the world. We believe many nations will want to investigate opportunities for more cost-effective reductions through joint implementation projects. While interest in joint implementation is increasing rapidly, many questions need to be addressed about how joint implementation will proceed, and no guidelines have been developed internationally. In the development of our August plan and in preparation for the ongoing discussions under the Climate Convention, the State Department will coordinate a working group to galvanize United States activities on joint implementation. We intend these efforts to guide our work internationally to develop as soon as possible agreement on joint implementation procedures. |