Mr. FINGERHUT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. GEJDENSON. Mr. Fingerhut's issues and the one that you are discussing, technology, make life easier. When I was visiting Israel in the early 1970's, we got to an apartment building that had six floors. At the bottom floor, there was a switch that turned the lights on, but only long enough to get to the third floor. Then there was another switch that got you to the top floor, but then it went out again as well.

In the new offices that have been redone in the Capitol-C-5, I think one of the rooms has the switch that, as you walk in, turns the light on. Although this is probably not the most efficient energy saver, with devices such as this switch, you no longer have to depend on a human remembering to turn the light on or off. It goes on automatically; and if there is no body motion in the room, it shuts off.

One of my frustrations in the last year has been seeing the American auto industry argue against energy efficiency standards for American automobiles, forgetting their own experience in the 1970's when Americans wanted to buy big cars right up to the day that the gas lines started. You would think that the American auto industry would be pushing for a higher fleet average so that they would have a product marketable both at home and around the world. If America had more fuel-efficient automobiles, we would be more competitive internationally.

Mr. FINGERHUT. Mr. Chairman, are you suggesting that we have hot air activated elevators in the Capitol?

Mr. GEJDENSON. That would be something for a freshman class to discuss.

The Clinton administration is faced with a number of policy options related to the energy efficiency issues we have just discussed: renewable energy, energy sector R&D, energy taxes, technology transfer, and mass transportation.

I understand from discussions that we have had that the White House will be leading that effort.

Would you care to elaborate on where we are going?

Mr. WIRTH. There will soon be announced a comprehensive program on this front, Mr. Chairman. It is extremely important, as we have learned, as I suggested earlier, from the National Action Plan set up by the previous administration, what was good about that, what wasn't good about that.

There were scores of public comments that came in on that process. We have learned a lot about the technology, the computer modeling; and all of that will be a part of a very broad and comprehensive plan.

It is also our intent, Mr. Chairman, to include the outside world as much as possible. This administration has tried to engage the private sector and the nongovernmental sector as much as we possibly can in all of the activities related to our work on environmental issues and global climate change. And that will continue in this instance as well. We have much to learn from those on the outside. And, after all, they are American citizens too; and they ought to be part of this process, both to do the job at home, as Congressman Roth has suggested, and to build coalitions around the world.

Mr. GEJDENSON. Let me ask you two final questions, then I think one of our colleagues has a few more. After that I believe we will be finished.

We have touched on this issue before, but I think some recurring arguments are that the data is not factual enough, the models are not good enough, and the estimates of what is going on and how it is affecting the world are not strong enough. As a result, all your models have been thrown out after an extended period of time.

Are we shooting in the dark too much? Do we need to do more work on modeling and more research on what is happening globally?

Do you feel confident that the data and the models being used provide an adequate basis for the policy decisions and the resulting expenditures requested of us?

Mr. WIRTH. I believe there is enough certainty to know that the level of greenhouse gases is increasing dramatically.

To extrapolate from that, that temperatures probably will become greater and that if we intervene now in a sensible fashion, we can come up with cost-effective strategies that can begin us on the route to making sure that we can reach stabilization at the 1990 level, the answer to the second part of the question is yes, as well.

We have much work to be done and much to learn about the specifics of this, Mr. Chairman. As I suggested in answering Mr. Fingerhut's good question, we have much work to do to know exactly where, how much, and how fast we believe that there will be global climate change from the increase in greenhouse forcing gases.

And we have much to learn about the exact measurement of this. But I think there is enough certainty across the scientific community research that was shared and broadly done in the previous administration and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, that we know enough to act now and act with some urgency.

Mr. GEJDENSON. Currently you are formulating goals for the year 2000. Should we wait to set targets for the year 2010 or 2020, or should we set those aims as well?

Mr. WIRTH. We can reach to the 1990 level by the year 2000. The question is what happens after the year 2000.

I think that everybody's best sense would be to stabilize at the year 2000 for a long time to come. We still have much to learn about which strategies may be the most cost effective for doing so.

Let me go back to your discussion of fuel-efficient automobiles. I think that there are a number of people in the administration and the automobile industry who believe that we can take a leap beyond where we are today.

And remember that then-candidate Gore was speaking about having a time in which the internal combustion engine might be obsolete. That is a goal that I think everybody would like to reach, that we are getting to a point where we are working on different fuels and truly clean automobiles.

If we changed our transportation fleet dramatically over a 30- or 40-year period of time and had a very different kind of a fuel and a very different kind of a engine, we would have a very different set of emissions in the United States and would be in a position

in which the United States would be leading in a major global technology. That is a win-win-win situation for us. It is a win in terms of environmental protection; it is a win in terms of U.S. leadership; and it is a win in terms of the export of U.S. technology. And we ought to be pursuing that.

And that, again, is one of the combined goals of this administration where we believe that there is major synergism there, and we want to do everything we can to take advantage of that.

Mr. GEJDENSON. Finally, the Clinton administration, in its economic package, has proposed a broad-based energy tax. Some people felt that should have been a carbon tax.

I think the administration may have recognized, or at least felt, that a carbon tax would place too much of a burden on particular, already depressed areas in the country. We understand the decision of the Clinton administration to try to mitigate economic impact on a depressed region.

Now, the package that has basically been passed by the Ways and Means Committee at this point, if that package is approved by the Congress, do you have any indication that this will help us meet the greenhouse gas emission standards? Is there any way to take a look at the correlation?

If you don't have the information presently, just submit for the record the relative taxes on energy by our closest competitors.

Mr. WIRTH. First, the answer is yes, we do know that the passage of the Btu tax will be helpful just as a number of other measures that we have or will take in the country have been helpful. The Surface Transportation bill passed a couple of years ago is a step in the right direction. The Clean Air bill is a step in the right direction. The Montreal Protocol is a step in the right direction. The energy bill that was passed last year-all of these steps add up.

And as it was suggested earlier, the United States has really taken a lot more steps than most countries have in specifically saying it is that we are doing. What we want to do in the Action Plan is define exactly the parameters of what still has to be done to reach the 1990 level. And there are still some uncertainties about that.

All of this, I might say, is just in the realm of sources. We have not talked at all about sinks, which you did in your opening statement, about what New England Electric is doing.

Looking at places where we can sequester carbon and how that might be changed, and then not looking very much at the methane question that Mr. Roth brought up and alternative technologies, there is an enormous area of potential that is economically promising for the United States. I stress that over and over again because for any of us to go away from a discussion of greenhouse strategies not understanding that it contains a wonderful potential for the United States of America, both domestically and in terms of foreign policy if we agree that we want to try to pursue it in that fashion, that is very important for us.

For the record, there is very good data put together by the World Resources Institutes on the question of where taxation is and maybe that is the best objective table to put in the record.

[The information referred to is retained in the subcommittee file.]

Mr. GEJDENSON. If I recall correctly, in the Soviet Union the energy classes were also massively subsidized. This policy may have helped to distort not only their nonmarket system, but their economy as well.

Mr. Manzullo.

Mr. MANZULLO. My understanding is that the administration, in an attempt to decrease the consumption of motor vehicle gasoline by the people of this country, wants to raise the taxes on their gasoline. Is that correct?

Mr. WIRTH. There is not a proposal that I know of for an increase in gasoline taxes.

Mr. MANZULLO. How about on the Btu tax?

Mr. WIRTH. There has been a proposal of a Btu tax which moves across all sectors of the economy and all parts of the country, and we believe is the fairest way in which to approach greater equities in the energy costs.

Mr. MANZULLO. Would a Btu tax also increase the cost of gasoline?

Mr. WIRTH. It would encourage greater efficiency in other areas. I think a Btu tax would have some impact on the price of a gallon of gasoline.

Mr. MANZULLO. The purpose therefore of the Btu tax with respect to the environment is to make the price of gasoline higher so people would use less. Is that a correct statement?

Mr. WIRTH. That is one of the purposes of the Btu tax. The central purpose, however, is to focus on the President's economic program and the need to deal with this dreadful deficit which plagues the country and its economy.

Mr. MANZULLO. We are talking about the environment, not the economy.

Mr. WIRTH. You asked what the purpose of the Btu tax was. I think its central purpose is focused on a long-term

Mr. MANZULLO. Has anybody considered the fact that in one of the counties that I represent, people travel 30 and 35 miles each way getting jobs that pay $5 and $6 an hour, and then Washington says "You are using too much gasoline. We are going to impose a Btu tax."

That is a penalty, Counselor, on people who live on marginal incomes. It is also a penalty to business people, who operate with a very low margin of profit. I think it is improper. I think it is immoral to raise gasoline taxes so people use less gasoline.

That has a tremendous impact on small business. It has a tremendous impact on poor people. It has a tremendous impact upon people who live in Colorado, which is an area for recreation. It has a tremendous impact upon people who live in Illinois. It has a tremendous impact upon people who live in Maine that depend upon tourism, because every time the price of gasoline goes up, somebody is in the position where he or she is not able to drive that automobile a considerable amount of miles.

I think it is wrong for the administration to penalize the poor people and those on marginal incomes in this country in order to save energy.

Mr. GEJDENSON. Mr. Wirth.

Mr. WIRTH. I don't know whether that was a statement or a question. I think that is one way of doing one economic analysis. There is another economic analysis which can be done as well which suggests that for every dollar that the American consumer spends on a gallon of gasoline, that there is a subsidy for that gallon of gasoline to the nature of $2 or $3 per gallon that goes broadly through the economy that that consumer is paying as well.

I think if one is looking at equities for individuals who do not drive at all who are subsidizing other peoples' driving habits, I would suggest that is probably not fair. For those to be broadly subsidizing those who drive a great deal versus those who don't drive at all is probably not fair.

I believe there is a very broad school of thought saying that you ought to pay for what you get. Rather than person x subsidizing person y, if everybody is paying a full cost of that gallon of gasoline, one, there are greater equities in that; and second, if full cost is going to be recovered, people are going to be more careful with their expenditure. That is a kind of basic economics that is neither Republican nor Democratic, but certainly one in which during the last administration we made significant headway at starting to recover full costs.

Mr. MANZULLO. The basic economics, Counselor, is the fact that people cannot afford to pay one tax hike after the other in the price of gasoline because people end up driving less. When I practiced law in a small town in the County of Ogle in Illinois, it had 6,000 senior citizens living alone in the country out of 44,000 people. Most heat by oil, which is the most expensive type of heat that you can get.

To impose these type of energy taxes for the purpose of saving energy penalizes those people that can least afford to live in this country. It is a hack across the neck of people on marginal incomes.

I think there is a lack of sensitivity as to the impact of these theories. We are talking about real people, not theories. I know of people who, when gasoline went up in the 1970's, could no longer afford to drive to work because they were living marginally at that point.

With the high unemployment that we have back home and the suffering across the country, this is not the time to raise taxes.

Mr. WIRTH. Let me also suggest, as I did before, that the purpose of the Btu tax is focused on the economy and on this enormous deficit that we are living with, which ran, as you know, well out of control for the last dozen years, and this administration is determined to attempt to slow down the growth of that deficit, and we hope to reverse it.

It will need the cooperation of all people. We can't ignore the deficit and that extraordinary interest cost which is also a significant tax on all the people in your district, whether rich or poor or drive or don't drive.

Mr. MANZULLO. We are saying stop the spending going on in Washington and not raise the taxes.

Mr. GEJDENSON. If the gentleman would yield, I suggest that maybe the gentleman propose his alternative budgets on where he would have his spending cuts and where he would like his taxes.