quality Thus, if we take these measures to combat global climate change, we will also reap immediate public health benefits in the form of cleaner air and cleaner water. Let me give you some examples: The Lancet, a highly respected British medical journal, recently published a peer-reviewed study of the particulate matter-related health impacts of fairly aggressive, worldwide greenhouse gas mitigation. The analysis found that an estimated 8 million deaths globally due to exposure to fine particles could be avoided between 2000 and 2020 if substantial steps were taken to limit greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels. In the United States alone, the study reports that thousands of deaths annually could be avoided during the 2000-2020 period. EPA's recently promulgated fine particulate standard begins to address this public health concern and should result in both some reductions in greenhouse gas emissions along with reducing the number of deaths associated with exposure to fine particles. In addition to health benefits, greenhouse gas mitigation would lead to improved visibility, more and better recreational opportunities, and reduced nitrogen deposition in vulnerable water bodies (such as the Chesapeake Bay). These benefits, however, have not yet been studied as thoroughly as the health impacts cited above. In 1999, EPA's CCTI programs alone are expected to also reduce NOx emissions by 90,000 tons per year, improving both air and water quality. The President's CCTI makes sense right now: it hedges our risk of climate change and puts us on the right path should the science dictate more rapid reductions would be required in the future, it saves businesses and consumers money, and it reduces other dangerous forms of pollution. In closing, I think it's clear that the Administration is delivering on its commitment to an environmentally sound and economically sensible approach. We are closely monitoring the science to make sure that our actions are proportionate to the risks we face. Internationally, we successfully negotiated a definitively American blueprint for the global response to climate change: targets and timetables, national flexibility, market-based approaches and developing country participation The tax credits and programs in the President's Climate Change Technology Initiative will provide economic and environmental benefits right now, while stimulating early action and positioning the United States to prosper in the global market for clean technologies that will provide the solution to global warming. We look forward to continuing to work with the Congress, the private sector and the American people as we move forward. I will be happy to answer any questions that you may have. DAVID M. GARDINER ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR OFFICE OF POLICY, PLANNING, AND EVALUATION David M. Gardiner has served as the Assistant Administrator of EPA's Office of Policy, Planning, and Evaluation (OPPE) since June 14, 1993. Mr. Gardiner directs the Agency's analytic and policy development activities regarding climate change. Administrator Browner has also charged him with establishing EPA's new Center for Environmental Information and Statistics. In addition, Mr. Gardiner leads several of the Agency's major initiatives to reinvent environmental regulations, particularly in the areas of paperwork reduction, community-based environmental protection, economic analysis, and innovative approaches to specific industries like transportation, electric utilities, agriculture, environmental technology, and metal finishing. Prior to joining EPA, Mr. Gardiner was the Sierra Club's Legislative Director in Washington, D.C., where he directed efforts on a broad range of environmental issues, including air, water, and waste pollution, energy, the international environment, and land protection policy. Mr. Gardiner received his Bachelor of Arts degree in history, with honors, from Harvard University. He resides in Arlington, Virginia, with his wife and three daughters. Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Thank you very much, Mr. Gardiner. And the final witness for the Administration is Gary BachulaI have it right this time? Mr. BACHULA. You have it right. Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The Acting Under Secretary for Technology at the Commerce Department. Please try to limit your remarks to 5 minutes so that we can get to questions and really have fun. Mr. BACHULA. Really have fun——— TESTIMONY OF MR. GARY R. BACHULA, ACTING UNDER SECRETARY FOR TECHNOLOGY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE, WASHINGTON, DC Mr. BACHULA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As Dr. Gibbons indicated, the U.S. Global Change Research Program is an important part of understanding the nature of the problem. And I would just like to point out that, at the Department of Commerce, NOAA, is a very major player in that program, both collecting data and doing the science and doing the simulations that have lead to our understanding. But today, I want to focus on another aspect of science and technology relating to climate change, and that is to find solutions to the problem. We believe that we can pursue economic growth, higher living standards for our people, and environmental protection at the same time. We think that it is a false choice to say that we must sacrifice economic growth in order to have a clean environment. We can have both, and the key is new technologies. If you can produce the same product with less energy, with less waste, with less pollution, a company can be more productive. You can be more competitive; you can make and sell your products for less; you can make higher profits, pay higher wages, and compete better in the global marketplace. The research that we propose to carry out at the National Institute of Standards and Technology under this Climate Change Initiative, will be good for the economy, good for industry, good for jobs-and almost as a "by the way"-good for the environment. Let me turn to the specific new research proposals that we have under this Climate Change Technology Initiative. They fall under three areas of research, and most of this is pretty basic researchunderstanding and cataloguing the fundamental nature of materials, fluids, gases, and their interactions. This is what NIST does for a living, and this is exactly what an organization dedicated to measurements, standards, and testing should be doing. The first area is membrane-based alternatives to distillation. Today, about 43 percent of the energy used by the U.S. chemical industry-which is about 9 percent of the energy used by all industry-is consumed by large-scale separations of chemicals based on distillation. You'll know what distilling is from eleventh grade chemistry-it's essentially boiling a liquid to separate out the parts. That heating process consumes a great deal of energy. It turns out that there may be a better way to separate chemicals by using membranes. The potential process would use far less energy. are that it will be done at a reduced cost. This could be a win-win for the chemical industry as well as for the rest of us. Now, what NIST proposes to do is the most basic research into understanding the properties and nature of various membrane alternatives and we will develop a data base for all to use. We will do modeling studies of how chemicals transport through these membranes, and we will attempt to catalogue that information so that other researchers can carry forward the work in more applied fashion to develop new processes and equipment to do this kind of work. A second category of work will relate to alternative working fluids for more energy efficient processes. Fluid systems are important for a wide variety of industrial processes, such as electric power generation, heating-cooling systems, industrial cleaning, and micro-electronics manufacturing. Many of the fluids currently used could be improved upon to either produce greater energy efficiency, or to find alternatives that have less negative impact on the environment themselves. Let me give you one example in this category, power generation. Right now, whether we use coal, natural gas, oil, or another source to produce heat, what we do is we boil water. We boil water to create steam that turns an electrical turbine-a generator. Regardless of the source of the heat, it is the boiling of water that ultimately moves that generator. It turns out that there are promising alternatives to using just water involving different thermodynamic cycles, different fluids particularly different mixtures. Carefully chosen mixtures of ammonia and water, for example, may improve the efficiency of coal-fired power generation by as much as 20 percent. And again, NIST's role would be the most basic. We would provide U.S. industry with the required thermo-physical property data and models needed to design and optimize processes to exploit the properties of different combinations of these fluids. A third area of our proposed work involves biotechnology. As you know, plants remove CO2 from the atmosphere through photosynthesis. A byproduct of photosynthesis is oxygen, so this is a very important chemical reaction for every human being. But it turns out that the enzyme that captures CO2 in plants during photosynthesis is relatively inefficient. NIST proposes to do research that could lead to improving its efficiency by undertaking extensive characterization of the biophysical and biochemical properties of the protein in concert with protein engineering efforts to optimize it's activities. The results of this work could lead to a new generation of plants that absorb more CO2. And while this could be an important contribution to the solution of climate change, it also could be a boon to the agro-chemical industry and for expanding opportunities for developing biomass-derived products. Mr. Chairman, the work we propose to do is basic but it can have enormous potential impact. It is what NIST does and does best. And it will be done, as always, in our NIST laboratory efforts in close concert with industry. We believe that partnerships with industry work and that they can lead to not only major technical breakthroughs, but also to ones that are relevant to the market |