ENERGY POLICY ACT OF PLAN TUESDAY, MAY 10, 1994 U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES, Washington, DC. The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:37 a.m. in room SD366, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. J. Bennett Johnston, chairman, presiding. OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. J. BENNETT JOHNSTON, U.S. SENATOR FROM LOUISIANA The CHAIRMAN. I am pleased to welcome you to this morning's hearing on the administrations Climate Change Action Plan for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. We are pleased to have with us Hazel O'Leary, Secretary of Energy; Bob Sussman, Deputy Administrator, EPA; and Rafe Pomerance, who is Deputy Assistant Secretary, Department of State; as well as a distinguished panel of nonadministration witnesses. As I sat down to review for this hearing, I was reminded of the extent to which this committee has investigated the issue of global climate change. Seven years and 17 hearings ago, this committee began its exploration of the relationship between energy use and global climate change. One year later, in what would later be known as one of the hottest summers on record, Dr. James Hansen sat before this committee and warned of the commencement of global climate change. During that same year, 1988, Senator Tim Wirth and I introduced legislation to address global warming. This legislation would later form the foundation of many of the energy efficiency renewable energy and climate change provisions in the Energy Policy Act. Now we sit today to review testimony on the President's Climate Change Action Plan for reducing greenhouse gases, a plan based in large part on the provisions of the Energy Policy Act of 1992. Not only does the plan build on the Energy Policy Act by providing for an expanded role for the Federal Government in encouraging energy efficiency at the industrial, residential, and commercial levels, but it is expected to leverage billions in private investment by the year 2000 and save Americans money through lower energy costs. (1) While debate still lingers among some of my colleagues as to the magnitude and timing of global climate change, most committee members should be pleased with the administration's proposal to address global warming through voluntary measures rather than mandates and taxes. Although I am generally supportive of most of the Plan's programs, uncertainties in the regulatory climate and the fiscal year 1995 budget process make the President's greenhouse gas reduction targets difficult, if not impossible, to achieve through domestic measures alone. It is with this in mind that I reiterate my strong support for joint implementation. Joint implementation offers an excellent opportunity for U.S. industries to work cooperatively with the private and public sectors of foreign countries in the development of lowcost options for reducing net greenhouse gas emissions, including such measures as fuel switching, energy efficiency, and forest management. For this reason, I strongly urge the administration to broaden its joint implementation program beyond the pilot stage and to take all possible measures to ensure the quick establishment of an international system for crediting emissions reductions in developing countries. The exchange of information and technology is one of the best methods for helping developing countries reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. The Energy Information Administration's recent report outlining the dramatic growth in developing country emissions makes joint implementation all the more imperative. I believe you are all familiar with our committee's procedure for keeping oral remarks brief in order to allow ample time for questions. And now, I would like to call on the distinguished ranking minority member, Senator Wallop. STATEMENT OF HON. MALCOLM WALLOP, U.S. SENATOR FROM WYOMING Senator WALLOP. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for holding the hearing on the implementation of President Clinton's Climate Change Action Plan. I confess to you that I was very disturbed when President Clinton announced last year that his Climate Action Plan would incorporate and I use his words-"targets and timetables." When the Senate ratified the Framework Convention on Climate Change, it was the Senate's position that any decision by the Executive Branch to reinterpret the Convention to apply legally binding targets and timetables to the United States would alter the shared understanding of the Convention between the Senate and the Executive Branch, and would therefore require ratification by the Senate-Executive Report 102-55. I am also disturbed by the administration's continuing suggestion that the United States take unilateral action to implement the Framework Convention. The Convention itself does not envision unilateral action. What is envisioned is multinational action; initially by the developed countries, followed by the developing countries. Neither targets and timetables, nor unilateral action, were supported by the United States during negotiations on the framework Convention, nor when the Senate ratified it. Therefore, I have to question on what authority the Department of Energy has included the reduction of energy related emissions of greenhouse gasses below 1990 levels by the year 2000 as a departmental strategy. The objective goes well beyond even President Clinton's statements in three respects: First, it advocates a reduction of emissions below 1990 levels; second, it is limited to energy related emissions; and third, it does not apply to all greenhouse gas. Because this plan sets forth the Department's management priorities, I must also observe two related provisions of the 1992 Energy Policy Act. First, EPAct-Energy Policy Act-requires the Secretary to assess the feasibility and the economic, energy, social, environmental, and competitive implications of stabilizing the generations of greenhouse gasses by the year 2000. To my knowledge, this assessment has yet to be completed. Second, the Energy Policy Act also requires the Secretary to formulate a least-cost energy strategy. When doing so, full consideration is to be given to the economic, energy, social, environmental, and competitive consequences resulting from the establishment of any priorities for inclusion in our National Energy Strategy. If I am not mistaken, this April 1993 statutory requirement has not been satisfied, as well. Consequently, the Congress is faced not with what was requested, but with two visions of national energy policy that were prepared for other purposes. Most recently, the April 1994 Strategic Plan for the Department of Energy sets forth presidential candidate Clinton's vision of our Nation's energy future, and last year President Clinton's October 1993 Climate Change Action Plan. The latter plan was used to restructure the President's proposed budget for fiscal year 1995. We are now informed that DOE's Strategic Plan will be used to restructure the administration's fiscal 1996 budget request. My hope is that today's witnesses can clarify what the administration proposes as our National Energy Strategy. Last year, when the Clinton administration released their proposed domestic Climate Change Action Plan, I observed that a sufficient plan already existed, the National Energy Policy Act. I also questioned why the proposed actions did not reflect the Energy Policy Act. And I am informed by staff that the Energy Policy Act is now reflected in the draft program plans for each of the individual action items. Clearly, the October 1993 Climate Change Action Plan benefitted from the extensive dialog that took place between the stakeholders. As a consequence, the plan avoided more bureaucracy or regulation or unnecessary cost, laudable goals that the President enunciated and that I strongly support. My concern is that this dialog be continued throughout the whole process, from the formulation of the program plans through their eventual implementation and assessment for their effectiveness. Ultimately, the most cost-effective actions will be those that rely on American ingenuity and creativity and not the Government. Perhaps today's witnesses can help the committee understand the progress that has been made by other developed and developing countries. What is now required is a similar commitment to that of the United States from other signatories. I hope that today's witnesses will also clarify how the Climate Change Action Plan being discussed here today differs from the National Action Plan that will be submitted by the United States under the Framework Convention in September. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. STATEMENT OF HON. LARRY E. CRAIG, U.S. SENATOR FROM IDAHO Senator CRAIG. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. Let me thank Secretary O'Leary and Deputy Administrator Sussman and Deputy Assistant Secretary Pomerance for being here. All of us are obviously concerned. The attendance in this room demonstrates a concern, I think, for the issue of global warming and climate change, and that it be addressed in proper fashion, Madam Secretary, and that good science and long-range strategy be the kind that allows our country to enjoy energy independence and growth for our future. Over the weekend I was in Idaho, and that offers me transit time, lots of transit time. So I took your little blue book along and I read it-DOE's Strategic Plan: Fueling a Competitive Economyand I have concerns about this. I have concerns because if I am a person in the year 2020 and I am looking for warmth during a cold winter, the only warmth I am going to get is burning this. And I say that because I believe this is a strategy for the unilateral disarmament of our energy future in this country. If we are concerned about global climate change and warming and the greenhouse gasses, then we must be a government that has as its policy the promotion of the proper use of nuclear energy, and that is no longer our policy with your administration. I do not know how we can speak doubletalk and expect our country to believe that there is an energy future that will provide for our needs and warm our people in the year 2020. I am extremely disappointed that an administration analyzes the Congress and decides that it cannot get from it what it wants so it will negotiate a treaty and then come in through the back door by saying well, this is a treaty that we signed and therefore you all have to be conform to be inside the treaty. I have a sense that that is not a totally inaccurate statement. I do not think that that which is embodied in the treaty you could get passed as public policy through this Congress-in toto. And, if you will, that is called back door policy. And that is a very strange way, and I am extremely concerned that international relationships that we continue to increasingly continue to involve ourselves in may in some way dictate to us then the public policy we must transform ourselves to instead of the vice versa, if you will, which I believe is the correct and proper way to go, or at least the traditional or historic way to go. |