Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but everyone is not entitled to their own set of facts. Unfortunately, here in political Washington people seem to think that they can make up the facts as well as making up the policy. There is an absolute scientific consensus that global warming is real and that there is an important human contribution to the problem, and so, though we have settled science and settled facts on that question, we continue to have a lack of political leadership on this very important issue.

We continue to have, for example, the chairman of the Environment and Public Works on the Senate side say that the whole global warming issue is the greatest hoax ever perpetuated on the American people. We had a Member of the House on the Science Committee in a hearing yesterday saying that the whole thing was made up, as well. Even the President of the United States, when he talks about this issue as he did in July in People Magazine, sort of said there is an open question with respect to whether or not there was a human component to the global warming question. He said it was a question of debate.

So, until the political leadership in Washington begins to deal with the facts, we are not going to be able to move forward. We can have disagreements with respect to what the best policy is, but we need our political leadership to begin to take responsibility for accepting what the scientific community has told us with respect to this very important issue, and then we need to move forward, and we need to move forward quickly, and we need to stop passing energy legislation that continues to provide big subsidies to the oil and gas industry and channel those funds instead into renewable energy and energy efficiency areas.

So I welcome the comments on both sides of the aisle about the need to move forward on a bipartisan basis on this issue, but, unfortunately, we have on the one hand people who continue to misrepresent the facts with respect to the science, and unfortunately the reality of the situation is the legislation that is passed out of the Congress has not demonstrated that people have come to grips with the reality of the science on this issue.

I hope we will begin to turn that situation around and begin to have policy coming out of here and political leadership that matches the facts with respect to this very important issue. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Van Hollen.

If there are no more opening statements, we will now proceed to our first panel. We have Dr. Stephen Eule, the Director of Climate Change Technology Program, and Mr. John Stephenson, the director of Government Accountability Office.

Thank you for bearing with us through our markup and opening statements.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. Eule, we will start with you. Thank

STATEMENTS OF STEPHEN D. EULE, DIRECTOR, CLIMATE CHANGE TECHNOLOGY PROGRAM; AND JOHN B. STEPHENSON, DIRECTOR, GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE

STATEMENT OF STEPHEN D. EULE

Mr. EULE. Thank you, Chairman Davis, Ranking Member Waxman, and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the climate change technology program and its strategic plan, which was released yesterday.

The administration believes that the most effective way to meet the challenge of climate change is through an agenda that promotes economic growth, provides energy security, reduces pollution, and mitigates greenhouse gases. To meet these goals, the administration has established a comprehensive approach, major elements of which include policies and measures to slow the growth in greenhouse gas emissions, advancing climate change science, accelerating technology development, and promoting international collaboration.

Since fiscal year 2001 the Federal Government has devoted nearly $29 billion to climate change programs. In 2002, President Bush set a goal to reduce the Nation's greenhouse gas intensity—that is, emissions per unit of economic output-by 18 percent by 2012. To this end, the administration has implemented about 60 Federal programs, and recent data suggests we are well on our way toward meeting the President's goal.

While acting to slow the growth of greenhouse gas emissions in the near term, the United States is laying a strong scientific and technological foundation. In 2002, two multi-agency programs were established to coordinate Federal climate science and technology R&D activities, the climate change science program [CCSP], and the climate change technology program [CCTP].

CCSP is an inter-agency planning and coordinating entity charged with investigating natural and human-induced changes in the Earth's global environmental system, monitoring understanding of predicting global change, and providing a sound scientific basis for decisionmaking.

CCTP, which was authorized in the Energy Policy Act of 2005, was formed to coordinate and prioritize the Federal Government's investment in climate-related technology, which was nearly $3 billion in fiscal year 2006, and to further the President's national climate change technology initiative [NCCTI].

Ten R&D agencies participate in CCTP. The program's principal aim is to accelerate the development and lower the cost of advanced technologies that reduce, avoid, or sequester greenhouse gases. CCTP strives for a diversified Federal R&D portfolio that will help reduce technology risk and improve the prospects that such technologies can be adopted in the marketplace.

In August 2005, CCTP issued its vision and framework for strategy and planning, which provided broad guidance for the program, and shortly thereafter released its draft strategic plan for public review. More than 250 comments were received and considered.

This revised strategic plan articulates a vision of the role for advanced technology in addressing climate change, establishes strate

gic direction, guiding principles, outlines approaches to achieve CCTP's strategic goals, and identifies a series of next steps. The six CCTP goals are: reducing emissions from energy use and infrastructure, reducing emissions from energy supply, capturing and sequestering carbon dioxide, reducing emissions of non-carbon-dioxide greenhouse gases, measuring and monitoring emissions, and bolstering the contributions of basic science.

The strategic plan defines a clear and promising role for advanced technologies for the near, the mid, and the long-term; outlines a processes and establishes criteria for setting priorities, such as those in NCCTI; and provides details of the current climate change technology portfolio, with links to individual technology road maps.

CCTP's portfolio includes realigned activities, as well as new initiatives, such as the President's advanced energy and hydrogen fuel initiatives, carbon sequestration, and future gen.

CCTP agencies also periodically conduct portfolio reviews to assess the ability of these programs to meet CCTP goals and to identify gaps and opportunities. In addition, CCTP uses scenario analyses to assess the potential climate change benefits of different technology mixes over the century on a global scale and across a range of uncertainties. When comparing the costs of achieving different greenhouse gas constraints, the cost savings for the advanced technology cases were 60 percent or more.

The administration believes that well-designed multi-lateral collaborations can leverage resources and quicken technology development. The International Partnership for the Hydrogen Economy, Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum, Generation Four International Forum, Methane to Markets-all U.S. initiatives-and the ITER Fusion Project provide vehicles for international collaboration to advance these technologies. The new Global Nuclear Energy Partnership seeks to develop a worldwide consensus on approaches to expand safe use of zero emission nuclear power.

Of course, through the Asian Pacific Partnership the United States is working with Australia, China, India, Japan, and South Korea to accelerate the uptake of clean technologies in this rapidly growing region of the world.

The United States has embarked on an ambitious undertaking to advance climate change technologies. CCTP's strategic plan, the first of its kind produced by any government, sets out an overall strategy to guide these efforts and provides a long-term planning context in which the nature of both the challenges and the opportunities for advanced technologies are considered.

I thank you for your kind attention. I will, of course, be delighted to answer any questions you may have.

TESTIMONY OF

STEPHEN D. EULE

DIRECTOR, CLIMATE CHANGE TECHNOLOGY PROGRAM
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

HEARING ON

"CLIMATE CHANGE TECHNOLOGY”

SEPTEMBER 21, 2006

INTRODUCTION

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today and report on the Climate Change Technology Program (CCTP).

I would like to begin my testimony by providing a brief overview of the Administration's approach to climate change, which provides the context in which CCTP operates. I will also discuss the role of CCTP, explain the purpose of the Strategic Plan, and discuss how the Plan will help the Administration and Congress make decisions about investments in advanced technologies that can have a significant impact on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

As a party to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the United States shares with many countries its ultimate objective: stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. In February 2002, President Bush reaffirmed the Administration's commitment to this long-term goal of the Framework Convention.

There is a growing recognition that climate change cannot be dealt with effectively in isolation. Rather, it needs to be addressed as part of an integrated agenda that promotes economic growth, provides energy security, reduces pollution, and also mitigates greenhouse gas emissions. In July 2005, the G8 leaders, meeting in Gleneagles, Scotland, agreed to a plan of action that interlinked climate change objectives with these other important considerations.

Meeting these complementary objectives will require a sustained, long-term commitment by all nations over many generations. To this end, the President has established a robust and flexible climate change policy that harnesses the power of markets and technological innovation, maintains economic growth, and encourages global participation.

Major elements of this approach include: (1) implementing near-term policies and measures to slow the growth in greenhouse gas emissions; (2) advancing climate change science; (3) accelerating technology development and commercialization; and (4) promoting international collaboration.

From fiscal years 2001 to the end of 2006, the federal government will have devoted nearly $29 billion to science, technology, international assistance, and incentive programs that support climate change objectives, more than any other nation. The President's fiscal year 2007 budget calls for $6.5 billion for climate-related activities.

NEAR-TERM POLICIES AND MEASURES

In 2002, President Bush set an ambitious but achievable national goal to reduce the greenhouse gas intensity-that is, emissions per unit of economic output-of the U.S. economy by 18 percent by 2012. At the time, the Administration estimated that achieving this commitment would avoid an additional 106 million metric tons of carbon-equivalent emissions in 2012 compared to the Energy Information Administration's Annual Energy Outlook 2002 business as usual base case projection, and would result in cumulative savings of more than 500 million metric tons of carbon-equivalent emissions over the decade.

To this end, the Administration is now implementing numerous programs—including partnerships, consumer information campaigns, incentives, and mandatory regulations—that are directed at developing and deploying cleaner, more efficient energy technologies, conservation, biological sequestration, geological sequestration and adaptation. For example, the Department of Energy's (DOE) Climate VISION program and the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Climate Leaders and SmartWay Transport Partnership programs work in voluntary partnership with specific commitments by industry to verifiably reduce emissions. The Department of Agriculture (USDA) is using its conservation programs to provide substantial incentives to increase carbon sequestration in soils and trees, and to reduce methane and nitrous oxide emissions, two additional and potent greenhouse gases, from crop and animal agricultural systems. The Department of Transportation (DOT) has implemented a new fuel economy standard for light trucks, including sport utility vehicles, that is projected to result in significant reductions in CO2 emissions over the life of the affected vehicles. DOT has also submitted an Administration proposal to Congress for authority to reform the setting and calculation of fuel economy standards for passenger automobiles.

In terms of financial incentives, new tax rules on expensing and dividends are helping to promote substantial new capital investment, including purchases of cleaner, more efficient equipment and facilities. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 provides for approximately $1.6 billion in tax credits and incentives in fiscal year 2007 to accelerate the market penetration of clean, efficient technologies. For example, the Act also provides tax credits of up to $3,400 for the most highly fuel efficient vehicles such as hybrids and clean diesel. It also establishes 15 new appliance efficiency mandates and a 7.5 billion gallon renewable fuel requirement by 2012.