Senate Budget Vote Rebuffs Bush on Global Warming
By Eric Pianin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 7, 2001; Page A05
The Senate yesterday approved a bipartisan measure to restore $4.5 billion in funds for climate change programs over the coming decade that the Bush administration had sought to cut.
The amendment, offered by Sens. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and James M. Jeffords (R-Vt.), covers a broad range of international and domestic programs that study and address problems associated with the Earth's rising temperature.
It also provides additional authority to the State Department to enable the United States "to fully engage with the international community in on-going and highly complex negotiations" toward a global warming treaty.
The Senate action by voice vote follows the Bush administration's announcement that it was abandoning a landmark 1997 global warming protocol negotiated in Kyoto, Japan. The decision has triggered strong protests from European and Japanese allies abroad and from Democrats and environmental groups at home.
While yesterday's amendment to the fiscal 2002 budget resolution doesn't directly address the president's decision to unilaterally chart a new course on global warming, supporters of the amendment said it signals displeasure with the president's handling of the issue.
"While no one is under the illusion that Kyoto is perfect, this vote today . . . underscores that the Bush administration's initial approach of ignoring climate change altogether is beyond imperfect -- it's unacceptable," Kerry said.
Kalee Kreider of the National Environmental Trust said that the Senate "appears to be rejecting the president's approach on global warming, which so far has been to do nothing."
The Bush administration announced late last month that the Kyoto treaty, which committed industrial nations to limiting gases that many scientists believe threaten the Earth's climate, was dead.
Officials said a Cabinet-level task force would develop a new approach -- less onerous to the U.S. economy -- that would be presented to the allies later this year. Bush complained that the Kyoto protocol, a decade in the making, was unfair to the United States and wrongly exempted developing countries, including India and China.
The Senate language will be considered as part of a final budget plan to be ironed out by Senate and House leaders.
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christine Todd Whitman yesterday urged environmentalists to quit fighting lost battles over global warming and work with the administration on politically achievable alternatives.
Whitman delivered that message during a speech to a National Wildlife Federation convention. Environmental leaders there were fuming over Bush's decisions to break a campaign pledge to seek reductions in carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, and to pull out of the Kyoto agreement.
In defending the president, Whitman said the administration still intends to adopt a tough new standard for arsenic in drinking water, despite a recent decision to scrap a new rule that would have reduced permissible levels by 80 percent. And she said there is the chance for an agreement with Congress to limit greenhouse gas emissions other than carbon dioxide.
© 2001 The Washington Post Company
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