Action Schedule for ATTACHMENT 2 Voluntary Reporting of Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Emission Reductions Notice of Inquiry to solicit initial public comments Date July-September 1993 November-December 1993 Public Workshops for the development of the Public Review Draft Draft Guidelines and Support Documents opened for public comment June 1, 1994 Mr. SHARP. Well, thank you very much, Madam Secretary. Let me applaud your efforts on these missions. They have certainly received high praise from people in business and industry who are eager to find new markets from folks who want to encourage energy efficiency and alternative energy production and appropriate technologies. And they have received praise from the diplomatic community because you have been successful in demonstrating goodwill and making friends for the country in ways that seem to have been difficult, for some odd reason, in the past. They had the wrong personality, probably coming from the U.S. Government, but you have been very successful, and I certainly applaud that. Let me I don't know that I have a lot of questions for you. I more want to engage in a discussion which we have had on many occasions about the importance of this issue, and my own sense about it. So I am just going to seize the opportunity to make a little statement, that I do think it is wise and prudent for us in the United States and around the world to take very seriously the issue of global warming. And at the same time, we know that we are reluctant and everyone is reluctant to engage in any high-cost options in the event we might be wrong or just because, frankly, as a pragmatic, we have so many demands for expenditures for resources here and abroad that it is difficult to keep and sustain support to do that. What we do know and what you have I think very successfully pursued, is that lots of things can be done that have value to serve multiple goals here in our country and abroad which also serve the goal of reducing greenhouse gasses, and you alluded to a number of them here. Most people are looking at these appropriate technologies, not because they solve the greenhouse gas problem, but because they provide energy cheaply and in a way that they can use them, and so they have energy efficiency, they have economic efficiency goals, they serve other environmental goals. And I think. we are wise to keep focused on that, because I don't think at this point we can command great and widespread support in our country, and I am not sure anywhere, to sustain a heavy global warming policy at this point. I think that is just the political realities, and it might well actually be the prudent intellectual thing, too, because we are still advancing the science. So it strikes me that we do want to advance the science with this administration, and indeed the past administration were committed to doing, and we are doing that in the international arena. We want to continue, as you have given us a solid example of the analysis and the program initiatives to try to meet the goals that we have agreed to. We certainly want to pursue the least costly approaches, given the state of the economy and the fragile political support for action, and I think we want to clearly continue the framework of Rio. But I am about to say something that some of my colleagues who support Rio may not like, and that is that I think the framework provides a very important way in which the international community works together, defines the problem, seeks to get people committed to doing the goals, but as you alluded many times, expressing a concern that I know is in you, that you can do tons of things on paper that in the real world never happen or don't happen sufficiently to match what you have committed to on paper. And I think there is a high risk if we push too hard on advancing commitments that no one else nor ourselves will make, that we will undermine this process that we have underway. And I know this is an intense argument within the administration, outside the administration, as how hard and how fast to go. And I don't know what the magic balance is. But it does strike me that we want to follow through on what we are committed to, as best we possibly can, but other countries, while they are meeting their report deadlines, I hear, anyway, politically are having difficulty making the tough tax choices and the tough other kinds of choices that we have had trouble making. Secretary O'LEARY. There is a memory there. Mr. SHARP. Yes. To actually get big payoffs. Under that kind of situation, I think it behooves us to remember what happened to us in the Vietnam War when we measured success in that war, the United States did, by something called the body count, a very crude and crass wartime analysis, in which we counted how many VC, Vietcong had been killed. And remarkably enough, we won the war several times over. Now, we won it on paper at the Pentagon and in press speeches for a number of years. But as everybody knows, that isn't the reality of what happened, because all kinds of things, the incentives were for people to indicate how many had been shot and to get rewarded immediately for having high numbers, which were not anywhere near the reality, and there is a danger. This is a gargantuan effort internationally in which governments are under intense pressure to do all kinds of things, so their capacity to make those commitments and sustain those commitments are going to be limited in the very near future. That doesn't mean it is a very important and worthwhile thing to do, but it just means if we put all of our eggs in that basket, I think 10 years from now we will ask how much we have accomplished. That is why I like your approach of just pragmatically pushing ahead with what you can make work, and trying to tabulate that as best you can. It is why I think joint implementation is horrendously important, not because I think it is going to be the absolute solution to global warming, but because I think it will do more to accelerate the movement of technology, it has economic benefit to us, to the local economy abroad that it is going into, and giving domestic industry some credit, sometimes just on paper, but credit is just one more stimulus to make that happen, and we win on that score. And if we try to be too perfectionist and say, oh, but, you know, that system leaks and somebody is going to get credit that shouldn't get credit under global warming, we are missing the boat. And I am concerned that some in the environmental community and some abroad are going to miss the boat, because the real-world action that needs to happen is to get that technology out there in the marketplace and expand it and move it forward. And we should be supporting everything that helps to do that. And you, of course, have been a strong advocate. I know I am preaching a little bit to the choir, I don't want to preach, and so I think that is just absolutely vital. The one last thing which I know folks have done some work on is we are pursuing multiple things in our government, that is really vital. But I think it would behoove us and it would behoove the international community to see if we could not come to agreement on half a dozen or fewer high-priority goals within global warming, on top of or independently from or separate from the national goals that everybody is setting under this. And by that I mean, let's focus on coal burning in China and make it efficient. I don't know what the five or six ought to be, I am just putting out ones I hear. Let's focus on rain forests and reforestation, let's focus on, as you already indicated, loss of methane, and the gasdistributing systems tends to be in the former Communist nations where it is worse, but even in our own, we have little communities in this country where that is the case. Those are enormous losses, and there is strong economic reason in most places to preserve that gas and not let it escape into the air. The reason I suggest that if we could get more consensus on a half dozen or fewer priorities, then it would be more possible for us and others to harangue the World Bank to say, here is what ought to be a priority, to get the AID program in the United States, to get the German aid program, to get the Japanese aid program, to get others to stay focused. Because I think one of the biggest problems we will have in global warming is you, me, everybody else have got a thousand things going at once, and global warming it is hard to stay focused on it, especially with the absence of strong political support here or around the world for action. And so it strikes me that we need to be moving in a parallel basis. These are not exclusive, but building the national goal system under Rio, as best we can, but prudently understanding that most governments are, frankly, not going to make it to the full level that they say. It is always good for all of us to set goals and try, but we are not going to let that just be the be all and end all. These other kinds of goals are ones that are very important, for a variety of reasons, to serve. But if we could get some consensus on what they are, then we might get more international resources, private resources and whatnot, going into them, so that we really have major payoffs in the future. Well, with that little exercise in using my 5 minutes to ask questions, if the Secretary wishes to respond, I will let her, then I will turn it over to my colleague. We invited you to answer the questions, Madam Secretary. Mr. BILIRAKIS. Phil, your professorship comes out in you every once in a while. Mr. SHARP. I know, I can't resist. Mr. BILIRAKIS. Good morning, Madam Secretary. Mr. Chairman, I have an opening statement, and also one for Mr. Hastert who asked unanimous consent they be made part of the record. Mr. SHARP. They certainly will be. [The opening statements of Hon. Mike Bilirakis and Hon. J. Dennis Hastert follow:] OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MIKE BILIRAKIS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I welcome this hearing today on climate change. The topic of climate change was the subject of one of the first hearings the Energy and Power Subcommittee held in this Congress. Now a year and a half later it is the subject of our last hearing and still one of the most challenging issues we face. I am concerned about this issue on a number of fronts. First, I am concerned about how our domestic climate change action plan is shaping up. I hope that the administration and industry are working together to meet the greenhouse gas emission reduction goals set forth in the plan. I am fearful that if this voluntary program is not successful, there will be a lot of pressure to enact command and control type regulations to reduce such emissions. Industry and utilities will then lose the flexibility to tailor carbon emission reduction programs to their own needs as they can now under the voluntary program. I am also very concerned about the status of the international negotiations on this topic. At a hearing on this topic last August I expressed concern that the administration was not coordinating enough with Congress and industry before making commitments in the international arena. Since then the administration has done a better job of notifying us before international meetings. However, I still have questions about the positions the U.S. is adopting in some of the debates, particularly the adequacy of commitments and joint implementation debates. Under the Rio Treaty, as I understand it, developed countries are committed to the aim of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2000. Developing countries, which in the past have had lower emissions do not have to achieve any emission reductions. However, in the past year, it has become apparent that emissions from developing countries are becoming greater than emissions from developed countries. Yet, my understanding of the debate is that these countries would like to see us make commitments to achieve even further reductions while they would continue to have no obligations. In addition, many of the developing countries would like to deny developed countries any credit under the treaty for joint implementation activities. Global climate change is truly a global issue and emissions reductions, no matter where taken, will reduce concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Joint implementation is one of the most cost effective methods for U.S. industry to achieve significant greenhouse gas emissions reductions and I hope the U.S. is pushing hard to see that we receive full credit under the treaty for joint implementation activities. Mr. Chairman, I thank you for your leadership on this subcommittee and on this issue. I am looking forward to the testimony of the witnesses on these issues-and any others that they feel are affecting the climate change issue. Thank you. OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. J. DENNIS HASTERT, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS Thank you, Mr. Chairman for holding this hearing today on recent developments in our efforts, both internationally and domestically, to reduce emissions of greenhouse gasses. Global climate change and energy policy are inseparable issues, and I am pleased that this Subcommittee is again addressing this issue. I am particularly interested in examining efforts to pursue "joint implementation" projects in developing countries as a reasonable and effective way of reducing greenhouse gases. Indeed, joint implementation initiatives make sound economic as well as environmental sense. I am proud to say that the state of Illinois is in the forefront in promoting these joint implementation projects. For example, the Illinois Department of Energy and Natural Resources is working with Illinois Power on a project in China involving a natural gas pipeline that was built in the 1930's and is experiencing leakage of about 25%. While the project is only in its preliminary feasibility stages, its potential impact on reducing emissions when completed is significant. The U.S. Department of Energy is also providing some grant money for the current preliminary feasibility work on this project. Commonwealth Edison, the electric utility that serves northern Illinois, has also entered into a joint implementation program. Specifically, Commonwealth Edison is making improvements to a plant in Decin, the Czech Republic. This joint implementation program will reduce CO2 emissions in a much more cost effective way than is achievable in this country, where most industrial facilities are already comparatively efficient. 86-466 - 95 - 2 |