the partners are committed to reducing PFC emissions by 45% from 1990 levels by 2000. EPA has also made good progress in programs with the chemical industry (HFCs), the electric power industry, and the magnesium industry (SF6).

Facilitate consultations with industry. The President has invited entire industries to work with the Federal government to take actions to meet voluntary emissions reduction targets. EPA will work with specific industries to provide assistance in establishing emissions baselines, developing technical analyses of energy efficiency opportunities and tracking progress in reducing emissions.

STATE AND LOCAL CLIMATE CHANGE PROGRAM

In the State & Local Climate Change Program, EPA will expand its support to states and local governments in their efforts to integrate energy efficiency, clean air, and climate change goals into their energy planning activities. EPA will also continue to work with state and local governments to develop the information they need to understand and promote cost-effective technologies and policies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Since 1992, the State and Local Climate Change Program has allocated more than $7 million in grants and other awards for 35 state greenhouse gas inventories, 26 state action plans, 24 demonstration projects, and 22 education and outreach programs. Many of these states and localities have implemented cost-effective mitigation projects that enable them to achieve multiple environmental and economic goals. Cities reporting savings in the Cities for Climate protection program in 1998 saved almost 1.5 MMTCE.

INTERNATIONAL CAPACITY BUILDING

In the area of International Capacity Building, EPA will build on the success of the U.S. Country Studies Program and establish cooperative programs with selected countries in order to open markets for clean and efficient U.S. technologies, to reduce the transboundary risk to the U.S. of pollution from other countries, and to ensure that the task of reducing greenhouse gases is shared globally and efficiently.

EPA is working to secure meaningful participation from key developing countries by assisting them to evaluate and implement policies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Since its inception in 1993, fifty-five countries have benefitted from the U.S. Country Studies Program. Twenty-six countries have produced greenhouse gas inventories; 34 have completed vulnerability and adaptation assessments; and 34 have completed studies of mitigation options. Eighteen countries have initiated development of National Action Plans with assistance from the USCSP, and 8 have submitted their plans to the Framework

Convention on Climate Change secretariat.

Full funding of this program would leverage greenhouse gas reductions. Work would be expanded

with China, Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, and Korea, while new work would be initiated with South Africa, Egypt, India, and the Philippines to develop strategies that mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and reduce concurrent pollution that causes millions of premature deaths, respiratory illnesses, and water contamination, as well as cross-boundary pollution.

CARBON REMOVAL AND SEQUESTRATION

In the area of Carbon Removal and Sequestration, EPA will continue to work with USDA develop incentives to increase carbon storage on agricultural and forest lands while improving soil quality, reducing soil erosion, and pursuing other environmental and conservation goals. EPA will continue efforts to account fully for carbon sequestration in the U.S. greenhouse gas inventory to enable these activities to be recognized internationally. Working closely with USDA and other agencies, EPA will design and launch a small set of pilot projects to demonstrate the feasibility of the measurement, GHG accounting, and environmental co-benefits methods and results.

CONCLUSION

This is not the first time that the President has sought to increase the investment in EPA CCTI programs. Some might ask why these increases are sought when Congress has failed to fund increases in the past. The answer is that the Administration believes that the

opportunity is too important for us to ignore simply because similar requests have not been fully funded in the past.

In summary, the EPA budget proposal is a balanced approach. It is built around programs that promote the use of existing technologies that save businesses and consumers, reduce our nation's dependence on foreign oil, and clean the air while we work with the private sector to develop the next generation of clean, efficient technologies that will be needed in the longer-term.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Paul Stolpman

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Paul Stolpman is Director of the Office of Atmospheric Programs (OAP) at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, DC. He is a member of the U.S. Government's Senior Executive Service. OAP is part of the Office of Air and Radiation, and is responsible for managing pollution reduction programs related to Acid Rain, Stratospheric Ozone Depletion, and Climate Change. This work is carried out under the U.S. Clean Air Act, and international agreements such as the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer and the Framework Convention on Climate Change. He has been with EPA since 1971.

Chairman CALVERT. Thank you.

I'd like really to congratulate the Administration. Because I think with the policies in effect right now, I understand in California, according to reports I get, we may have gasoline in California at $2.50 a gallon this summer. So, I'm sure that will lower consumption of gasoline, because no one will be able to afford it. And, we'll be on our way to getting rid of greenhouse gases.

NATIONAL ASSESSMENT PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD

But Dr. Baker, your testimony notes that the national assessment effort now underway in the USGCRP, a team of authors is currently drafting a report and that you expect the report to be completed in a few months. The fiscal year 2000 VA-HUD Appropriations Act Conference Report, among other things, prohibits the expenditure of funds to publish or issue this assessment unless the draft assessment has been published in the Federal Register for a 60 day comment period.

Do you intend to follow the conference report requirement, and if so, when can we expect the draft assessment to be published in the Federal Register?

Dr. BAKER. Mr. Chairman, we will in fact follow all of that language, and I understand-let me just check on the time, we will have that 60 day comment period, but let me just check on the time.

We expect that to be available for public comment late April at this point.

NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES REPORT: "RECONCILING
OBSERVATIONS OF GLOBAL TEMPERATURE CHANGE"

Chairman CALVERT. Late April. Okay. Doctor, again, the January 2000 National Academy of Sciences report entitled "Reconciling Observations of Global Temperature Change" found that a substantial disparity remains between surface and satellite temperature data sets. The panel that produced the report recommended a number of actions to better quantify and substantially reduce the measurement errors inherent in estimates of global mean temperature, as well as to develop and improve understanding of the processes that contribute to a short-term variability of global mean temperature. Is the USGCRP addressing this issue, and if you are, how?

Dr. BAKER. Yes, Mr. Chairman, we are addressing that issue. That's one of the interesting scientific questions, trying to understand how the troposphere temperature changes as compared to the surface temperature. We are improving our models, we are improving our surface and stratospheric, and our tropospheric measurements. And, we're looking at the comparison of the satellite measurements with the ground based measurements of the radiosondes, so that we can extend this time series even further back.

Even so, there are some discrepancies that we don't fully understand. And, this, of course, is one of the reasons we have a research program.

Chairman CALVERT. Just one second.

EPA AND DOE CCTI PROGRAM BUDGET AND EFFECTIVENESS

COMPARISONS

Mr. Reicher, if we add up all of your climate excuse me, Mr. Reicher, according to my arithmetic, Mr. Stolpman claims at its current level of funding, EPA's CCTI programs would result in over 100 million metric tons of carbon savings in fiscal year 2010, which is comparable to DOE's claim for CCTI programs, even though EPA's budget is less than 11 percent of DOE's.

Mr. Stolpman also claims that its fiscal year 2001 budget request level, which is less than 20 percent of DOE's, would result in nearly double the 2010 carbon savings of DOE. Do you agree with Mr. Stolpman's claims, and if not, why not? And, alternatively, if you do agree, why are EPA's programs so much more effective than DOE's?

Mr. REICHER. Mr. Chairman, I can't today address the details of those numbers. I'd have to sit down and understand how the EPA numbers were derived, and compare that with the way we derive our numbers at DOE. I will say, though, that these programs are both accomplishing a great deal and not only independently, but working together in a very complementary fashion.

The investments that we make in energy efficiency, in fossil energy technology, the work we're pursuing in nuclear energy, the vehicle oriented work, all of those are programs that are showing a great deal of success today, and will show a great deal more down the road. So that I think it's important that these activities go on in both agencies, and we can provide for the record greater information about how both sets of numbers were derived.