Senate Not Ready to Act on Global Warming

By J.R. Pegg

WASHINGTON, DC, October 30, 2003 (ENS) - The Senate today rejected a bipartisan bill that would require some sectors of the U.S. economy to enact mandatory reductions of greenhouse gas emissions. The defeat of the legislation was expected, but supporters believe the vote is a watershed moment in the U.S. debate over the issue of global warming.

"We have to start somewhere," said Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican and cosponsor of the bill. "This debate has been important and we will be back."

In its first action on the contentious issue in six years, the Senate defeated the proposal by McCain and Senator Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut Democrat, by a vote of 55 to 43.

Eight Democrats joined 47 Republicans to reject the bill; four Republicans and the Senate's lone Independent voted with 38 Democrats in favor of the legislation.

The bill would have set a nationwide cap on industrial emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and reduce those emissions down to 2000 levels by 2010 through an emissions trading system.

Most - but not all - scientists are convinced that greenhouse gas emissions are causing the planet's climate to change. (Photo courtesy the David Suzuki Foundation)

Supporters called it a modest - but significant - step forward in American responsibility for global warming.

"It is clear that piecemeal, voluntary approaches have failed to reduce the total amount of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States," said Hawaii Senator Daniel Akaka, a Democrat. "Now is the time to send a strong message that the U.S. is serious about the impacts of climate change."

The United States is responsible for more than 25 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

U.S. emissions have increased 14 percent from 1990 to 2000 and are expected to increase another 12 percent by 2012.

McCain told colleagues that the "overwhelming body of scientific opinion in America and the world believes that human activity is causing climate change in the world."

Bill sponsor John McCain, an Arizona Republican, says this is only the first step toward convincing the Senate to adopt mandatory reductions of greenhouse gas emissions. (Photo courtesy Office of the Senator)

"We need to stop putting our heads in the sand and saying global warming is not a problem," said Senator Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat.

But several Republican lawmakers challenged the validity of the science behind global warming.

"The science is not sound behind the myth, the hoax of global warming," said Senator James Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican.

CO2 is not a pollutant and "it does not hurt our health," said Senator Jeff Sessions, an Alabama Republican.

The greenhouse gas is "something that helps us and something that would be to the benefit to have more of," said Inhofe.

The divisions over the science behind global warming clearly irked supporters of the bill.

"This has been a disappointing debate," said Lieberman, a presidential candidate. "I wish we could agree on reality and then argue about what to do about it."

Critics said adopting mandatory C02 emission reductions will harm the U.S. economy would jeopardize the U.S. economy by increasing electricity costs and by giving an advantage to developing nations that have not committed to similar emissions reductions.

Many scientists believe climate change will bring new weather patterns, such as increased torrential rains. (Photo by C. Errath courtesy FAO)

Inhofe, who said scores of labor and union groups opposed the McCain Lieberman plan, labeled the legislation a "jobs bill" for China, India and other developing countries.

The issue of global warming is one that the United States should not be expected to take on without commitments from other nations, added Senator Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican.

"The United States alone can not improve the Earth's climate," Hagel said.

But supporters of the legislation countered that the measure would ultimately help the U.S. economy without undue cost and noted that many large U.S. corporations have already adopted strategies to reduce emissions.

A study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology estimated that the costs of the plan at between $10 and $20 per household in 2010 and predicted that it would not raise coal or natural gas prices.

The bill would encourage American firms to develop new energy technologies, Lieberman said, a market that some estimate will reach $10 trillion to $20 trillion a year in global spending over the next two decades.

"What bothers me is this idea that somehow America - the most innovative, creative nation the world has ever seen - cannot cope with this problem," said Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, a New York Democrat. "This defeatism, this pessimism, this fatalism that I hear from the opponents is fundamentally un American."

"We have a problem," Clinton said. "We should get about the business of addressing the problem."

Democrats took aim at the Bush administration, which has repeatedly questioned the science behind global warming and is loathe to enact mandatory greenhouse gas emissions reductions.

President George W. Bush favors voluntary measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. (Photo by Paul Morse courtesy the White House)

Domestically the White House has pushed forward with a voluntary program to cut the nation's greenhouse gas intensity - the ratio of emissions to economic output - by 18 percent.

Critics believe this approach will do little to reduce emissions and note that this ratio would fall by more than 14 percent over the next decade regardless of the administration's plan.

President George W. Bush is taking "an utterly irresponsible approach to global warming," said Senator Patty Murray, a Washington Democrat.

The United States is in the best position to lead a global effort to combat global warming, added Senator Robert Byrd, a West Virginia Democrat, but the President has "abandoned international negotiations."

Byrd voted against the bill due to concerns that developing nations are not bound to similar reductions, but took aim at those who question the science behind global warming.

"I have been here a long time and I do not need any scientific evidence," the 88 year old Senator said. "I believe that the problem is real and that it demands action."

Environmentalists hailed the symbolic victory in the vote and noted that unlike the federal government, many U.S. states, local governments, investment groups and corporations are acting to combat global warming.

Last week, a dozen states, two cities and more than a dozen environmental groups filed suit in federal court challenging the administration's decision not to regulate emissions of greenhouse gases as pollutants under the Clean Air Act.

"The bipartisan support for the McCain Lieberman approach is a clear rebuke of the Bush administration's stand against mandatory limits on CO2 emissions," said Katherine Silverthorne, director of the U.S. climate change program at the World Wildlife Fund. "It shows that reason is gaining ground against rhetoric."