change report which brought together the 2,000 world leading climate scientists, this correlation between buildup of CO2 gaseswhich, again, is absolutely measurable—and the temperature variation which that will produce is, they indicate, clear. WHY WOULDN'T WE BE HAPPY WITH A MODEST CO2 INCREASE? Mr. BARTLETT. When CO2 is produced, pollutants are also produced. Carl Sagan warned us of what he called a nuclear winter in the event of a nuclear war which would drastically reduce temperatures. It's very difficult to produce CO2 without producing pollutants, other pollutants-I'm not really sure if CO2 is a pollutant-but producing other pollutants which could either warm or cool our globe depending upon whether they let in more or less energy from the sun and whether they reflected more or less energy. The sun comes in over a wide spectrum of wavelengths. When it has warmed up the Earth we then reflect back only in long wavelengths which can be easily flawed. So, I'm not sure whether increasing CO2 temperatures will increase increasing CO2 concentrations will increase the temperature of the Earth or not because of all of the other factors. So, in the future, we're going to face the problem of producing enough food for our increasing population. Plants now live on the ragged edge. Only .04 percent CO2. They like more CO2 and grow faster and better. From that perspective, why wouldn't we be happy with a modest CO2 increase? Mr. EIZENSTAT. Because it will have discernible impacts around the globe that will be very negative. For example, in terms of absorption, they'll be much heavier precipitation which will have a negative impact, in some cases, in agriculture, and we'll have much drier soils because of the absorption that will occur, and so the capacity of some countries to produce agricultural products will be severely impacted. It is true that in some areas there will be an increase in agriculture; in others there will not, and as Secretary Romeger indicated in testimony today before the Senate Agriculture Committee, the more discernible impacts will be on forests probably than on agriculture, and, there will be very severe changes in forest patterns. Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman's time has expired. The gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. English. ECONOMIC IMPACT OF KYOTO PROTOCOL ON PENNSYLVANIA Mr. ENGLISH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity to appear here. Secretary Eizenstat, it's certainly a privilege to have someone of your long service and caliber here before the Committee and in a position to, perhaps, answer a couple of questions. I am very concerned about the economic impact of this treaty on my home State of Pennsylvania. You're very familiar with our unique combination of heavy industry; our concern with a variety of emissions issues and not just this one. I'm concerned that a study by Wharton Econometrics has predicted a very substantial bit on their findings and get your response on the strength of their interpretation of the treaty. They have predicted 32,200 job losses for Pennsylvania if this is implemented including 22,000 manufacturing jobs, and I have, perhaps, the biggest concentration of manufacturing in the State in my District, so that gets my attention. They have predicted that it would lower Pennsylvania's wages between 2.8 percent and 1.5 percent which is cumulatively a substantial impact. It would mean higher energy costs, and, therefore, higher grocery, housing, and medical costs, and they predict a cost per year of roughly $255 per person. Can you do anything to dispel that gloomy picture out of Wharton? Mr. EIZENSTAT. Yes, sir, absolutely, because that gloomy picture does not take into account the kinds of flexible mechanisms including trading that we have that would, in a major way, reduce the costs. Janet Yellen is not here to give her full testimony. Hopefully, she will be invited to do, so you can go into this in more detail but, again, if I may just summarize the testimony that she's given which indicates a very modest cost-and that's why we say this is an affordable insurance policy. She suggests that the total cost of attaining targets with the kinds of flexible market mechanisms that we have built in would amount to about $7 billion to $12 billion a year in the period 2008 to 2012. This implies that overall costs excluding the benefits that you get from climate change initiatives, and this would be you talk, Congressman Bartlett about pollutants-you'd have less pollutants, less asthma, less problems of a health kind. Also, even excluding cost mitigating factors like Sinks and the President's electricity restructuring program she estimates would reach roughly only 10 of 1 percent of projected GDP in 2010, and that as I indicated, I think before you came in-we're talking about emissions prices of $14 to $23 per ton; an increase in fuel oil prices over this 15-year period of only 5 to 9 percent; gasoline prices 3 to 4 percent; average household energy bills over that whole period, only between $70 and $110 per year. Mr. ENGLISH. Mr. Secretary, do you have anything specifically applies that analysis to Pennsylvania? Mr. EIZENSTAT. I don't believe that the Council of Economic Advisors has done State-by-State breakdowns, but we'll be glad to supply Chairman Yellen's testimony which is the most definitive statement we have on this. MEXICO'S AND OTHER DEVELOPING COUNTRIES' WILLINGNESS TO PARTICIPATE IN AND SHARE IN THE REGULATORY BURDENS Mr. ENGLISH. I would be grateful for that. I have one follow up question if I have time. And that is, as you probably know, Pennsylvania has the largest concentration of trade adjustment assistant claims relative to Mexico of any State in the Union. Needless to say, we are very concerned about the impact of NAFTA, and there has been some public dissatisfaction of the Administration's enthusiasm for NAFTA. I am very concerned that this treaty does not apply similar restraints and similar regulatory burdens to a number of "developing," countries including Mexico; including ates an enormous regulatory burden imbalance which will have the effect of shipping more jobs than we already have to Mexico. I realize the Administration has made public statements to the effect that they will be seeking to engage these countries, but so far they have been resistant. May I ask you, do you have any confidence and can you give us any confidence that Mexico is going to be willing to participate and share in the regulatory burden in a way that they haven't, for example, under the labor and environmental side agreements? Mr. EIZENSTAT. Let me respond to your question, which is well taken, in two ways. First of all, we do not intend to have the United States of America bound by law, which means Senate ratification, unless and until we do get meaningful participation by key developing countries. Second, with respect to Mexico, in particular, Mexico, Argentina, several of the central and Latin American countries were the most interested in participating, and we believe through our bilateral relationships that they will be increasingly be So. I mentioned-I think, perhaps, before you came in, Congressman English-that I feel quite strongly that a country like Mexico or South Korea that's in the OECD or Argentina that wishes to be in the OECD ought to assume the kinds of obligations that go with that kind of membership, and that's the kind of effort we're going to be urging on them. So, I do think that we're going to see real participation by Mexico, and that will be one of our clear targets of opportunity. Mr. ENGLISH. Thank you for your illumination, Mr. Secretary, and thank you for your patience, Mr. Chairman. Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Well, you're very welcome, Mr. English. The gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Ehlers. SEPARATING FACTS FROM CONCLUSIONS Mr. EHLERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. A number of comments, perhaps a few questions. I thank you for being here, Mr. Secretary, and some of my comments are going to be about the science involved, and I apologize for burdening you with that, but the other two hearings that we had on this topic I had to leave before question period, and I just wanted to make these points. As a scientist myself, I like to separate the facts from conclusions, and I think-well, let me list a few facts first. First of all, CO2 is increasing in the atmosphere. I don't think there's too much question of that. I am curious why we don't have a worldwide average there rather than just Mauna Loa. I think it's worth looking at it throughout the country-throughout the world and not just one location. But CO2 is increasing, and I would also mention that methane is increasing, which is far more of a problem in terms of its retention of heat in the atmosphere than CO2 is. A second fact: this does result in increased energy being retained in our biosphere, and I don't believe there's too much question about that; greenhouse gases do retain energy here. I also will concede another fact in your area of economics rather than my area of science, and that is that market-based emission trading does Now, the conclusions, however, I think that you seem to hold very affirmatively, I believe are subject to question. For example, global warming, if you look at the graph on the right, which you referred to a number of times, it's very hard to discern any observable pattern up to this point, and we may well speculate that the temperature's going to go up in the future. But there's considerable controversy about that, and it certainly is not at all evident from the graph there. As you can see, it's relatively flat for the past couple of centuries with lots of squiggles. So, I think we have to be very careful about assuming that the energy that's being dumped in and retained in the biosphere is going to manifest itself as temperature increase. ARE THE GLOBAL CLIMATE EFFECTS GOOD OR BAD? Mr. EHLERS. I think-and there is a lot of uncertainty here but I think it's far better to talk about global climate effects rather than global warming. Then the question is what are the climate effects? And, there, I believe there is even greater uncertainty than there is with the warming effect. The further assumption you seem to make is that the climate effects would necessarily be bad. And since I'm very conservative in my thinking I share your concern that they might be bad. But, again, that's not a foregone conclusion, because the climatic system is so incredibly complex. Just take, for example, the impact of El Niño, which is fairly well known after this year. Florida experienced some terrible tornadoes of much greater intensity than they normally have, and this is blamed on El Niño, and that's terrible. At the same time, the climate change as a result of El Niño spared them from hurricanes. Last hurricane season, they had very little difficulty, and I'm just giving that example to illustrate how difficult it is to predict whether the effects on climate are going to be good or bad. The effects of El Niño in Florida are both good and bad and in this particular case I suspect the good outweighed the bad. That's not true of California where they have had very severe storms, and they have not received much benefits. In the Midwest, it's been an absolutely wonderful winter except for those who like winter sports. It's been very warm; our snowfall in Michigan has been only 40 inches for the year, which is high by Washington's standards, but about half the normal. It's been a wonderful winter yet, we may have a drought next summer as a result of El Niño. Again, very complex and it's hard to determine whether it's good or bad. My point of all this is it's very difficult even though we can agree on the facts about CO2, methane, and so forth-it's very dif ficult to determine how this is going to manifest itself in climate and whether it's good and bad, and then also it creates great uncertainty in what to do about CO2 and how to resolve that. EXCLUSION OF DEVELOPING COUNTRIES FROM KYOTO PROTOCOL REQUIREMENTS Mr. EHLERS. One last point I'd make-this is political rather than strictly scientific, although, there's some science with it as well-I think it is a grave mistake to exclude the developing nations from the requirements. And I say that with considerable hesi chaired one dealing with the problems of developing nations, particularly, the issue of world hunger, and I sympathize with the need for them to develop their economies. However, the difficulty to get into it, if you exclude them at this point-and they are at a point where they are, in fact, developing; they're developing their industry; they're developing their energy sources-they are likely to install sources that are going to result in substantial emissions. Even if we, for some reason, cannot impose requirements on them now, I would hope for you to make it clear in writing that they will have to meet certain requirements within a certain time span, and for the simple reason I'm almost there, Mr. Chairman-for the simple reason that the decisions they make now as to which kind of power plants to put in and what time; what other equipment to get has to be colored by the fact that they have to buy low-emission equipment now. Otherwise, we will face the problem 10 to 15 years from now, and they will say, "I'm sorry, we've got all this and we can't afford to change it." I'm sorry for overrunning my time, and I just wanted to register all those points and I hope that you factor those into your thinking as you continue to work on this. Mr. EIZENSTAT. Do I have time to answer that? [Laughter.] Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Hopefully, briefer than the question. [Laughter.] Mr. EHLERS. No, the question was brief, the statement was long. Mr. EIZENSTAT. I thought it was a yes-or-no answer, Mr. Chair man. First of all, I very much appreciate the erudite quality of your statement and Congressman Bartlett's. It's obvious that you've given a lot of thought to this. But let me respond in a couple of ways. First of all, I couldn't agree with you more on the developing country piece. They are going to be installing the next generation of power plants; the next generation of industrial plants, and it's important that we catch them at this point, because, otherwise, they'll say, "Well, we've just put in the next generation, and it will be another 15 years before we can do anything." So, there is an urgency to our trying to get the developing countries in, and that's why the President has said he simply won't bind this country to binding obligations unless and until we get this meaningful participation. So, that I agree with you. Number two, obviously, I agree with you on the degree that CO2 is increasing; that it is, in fact, attracting greenhouse that greenhouse gases are being trapped. I think where I would, perhaps, depart a bit is in terms of the likely effects. Here, we do have a 1percent increase in temperature over the last 100 years since the industrial revolution. Second, we have very clear computer simulations indicating the relationship between this buildup in concentration which is dramatically increasing as you, yourself, indicated, and the likely temperature effects. Now, what you said is, "Well, that is not certain. You can't be sure that it will lead to warming |