Terrible news
Bush Faces Heat Over Global Warming
As Political Pressure Grows
From Key Allies, Administration
Could Be Forced to Act
By JOHN J. FIALKA, JOHN D. MCKINNON and JEFFREY BALL
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
June 20, 2005; Page A4
President Bush is facing new pressure from key allies -- both abroad and in his own Republican Party -- for tougher action on global warming. While the White House remains opposed to new regulations, the shifting politics of the issue could force Mr. Bush to move further this summer on curbing greenhouse gases.
In the latest sign of change, Senate Energy Chairman Pete V. Domenici is indicating support for legislation mandating limits on carbon emissions. That raises the prospect that Congress this year could pass global-warming regulations for the first time. And it comes as European leaders prepare to lobby President Bush next month to pledge stronger action against so-called greenhouse gases at the annual summit of the Group of Eight leading nations.
Mr. Domenici's chief of staff, Alex Flint, says the New Mexico Republican has become "convinced" by leading scientists in the U.S. that the damages caused by climate change are real "and we need to do something about it." As a result, Mr. Flint says, "there is a very real possibility" that Mr. Domenici will cosponsor this week a measure with his fellow New Mexican, Jeff Bingaman, the top Democrat on the Energy Committee, that would set up a system requiring annual limits on emissions, and forcing companies exceeding those caps to buy "permits" allowing the emissions. The Senate is expected to debate global warming this week as part of deliberations on an energy bill moving through Congress.
Mr. Domenici's interest in the Bingaman approach reflects the search for middle ground in the climate-change debate, even as the Bush administration and many business groups in the U.S. continue to question the most dire predictions about global warming.
[Curbing Greenhouse Gases]
The group that came up with the proposal behind Sen. Bingaman's bill is the National Commission on Energy Policy. The foundation-funded organization has members from both political parties and from industry as well as labor and environmental groups. Among the commission's corporate members are former executives of Ford Motor Co. and oil producer ConocoPhillips, as well as John Rowe, chairman and chief executive of utility Exelon Corp.
The commission's recommendations are less severe than those in the international Kyoto Protocol treaty, which the U.S. has rejected. They're also less stringent than a rival plan to be debated this week in the Senate proposed by Joseph Lieberman, (D., Conn.), and John McCain, (R., Ariz.). The Kyoto treaty would have required the U.S. to cut global-warming emissions 7% below 1990 levels by 2012. The McCain-Lieberman bill also would require the U.S. to cut emissions, though less sharply: to 2000 levels by 2010.
By contrast, the commission's proposal introduced by Sen. Bingaman wouldn't require an absolute cut in U.S. emissions. It would, like the Bush administration's preferred approach, slow the growth in emissions as the economy expands. Unlike the Bush approach, though, the Bingaman proposal would make that slowed growth mandatory. Under the plan, the Department of Energy would issue companies allocations or permits for certain levels of emissions annually. Each year after 2009, the supply of permits, measured against U.S. economic output, would shrink by 2.4% requiring companies to reduce their emissions or to buy more permits from the government.
Additional permits could be bought from other companies or at government auctions, says Bob Simon, Sen. Bingaman's chief of staff. Revenue from the sale of allocations would go into the "Climate Change Trust Fund," run by the Treasury Department. The money would be used for incentives for new technologies that reduce emissions, including cleaner coal-burning power plants and processes that can make ethanol from farm wastes. The money also would be used to encourage production of more fuel-efficient cars.
According to a study issued by the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration, the Bingaman approach would "not materially affect average economic growth rates" in the U.S. through 2025.
The Bingaman bill is drawing criticism from many industry officials -- who say it's still too stringent -- and some environmental groups -- who say it doesn't go far enough. But an imprimatur from Mr. Domenici could swing enough Republicans toward supporting some climate-change regulation to win passage in the Senate. That would set up a showdown with the House, which has repeatedly rejected climate-change regulation, and has passed its own version of the energy bill without such a provision.
There's room, however, for compromise. House leaders say they will fight hard for an environmental-liability waiver for oil companies that make the gasoline additive, methyl tertiary butyl ether. The Senate so far has rejected that. Some aides say an energy bill containing both measures could emerge from a House-Senate conference committee.
Then it would be up to President Bush to decide whether such a proposal might lead him to veto an energy bill he has long sought. Administration officials are concerned about growing political support for some regulation, and Vice President Dick Cheney met with Mr. Domenici Friday morning to discuss the issue.
James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, declined to say whether Mr. Bush would veto an energy bill containing the Bingaman measure. He criticized the proposal, saying it "goes right to the heart of our competitiveness " by forcing all sectors of the economy to achieve efficiencies equally. The administration also contends that the Bingaman approach would drive up energy prices -- a charge that could become a political weapon with voters smarting over gasoline prices now hovering above $2 a gallon.
Mr. Bush also will face pressure from British Prime Minister Tony Blair and other foreign leaders, who will attempt to jump-start negotiations over global warming at the G-8 summit in Scotland starting July 6.
Mr. Blair and other leaders hope to create a framework on greenhouse-gas emissions among the major energy-consuming economies. Many of the leaders say global warming is a more serious and imminent threat than the U.S. recognizes; they also can score political points back home by bashing the U.S. position.
To counter that pressure, the Bush administration is attempting to recast its message on climate change by emphasizing that it, too, favors some regulatory solutions but wants to tailor them to the economic sectors that need them. |
