Bush Plan Expected to Slow, Not Halt, Gas Emission Rise
" The one thing the climate policy would not do is require
anything of anybody, sticking with the position Mr. Bush
has held for more than a year on the climate issue: that
firm limits on the so-called greenhouse gases would drag
down the economy"
The New York Times
February 14, 2002
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
P resident Bush is set to
announce a plan today
calling for VOLUNTARY measures to
slow but not halt the growth in
emissions of heat-trapping gases linked to global
warming, White House officials said last night.
The climate proposal is Mr. Bush's response to the Kyoto
Protocol, the 1997 treaty accepted but not yet ratified by
all other large industrialized countries, which would
require cuts in such emissions by 2010 to well below their
1990 levels. Mr. BUSH REJECTED the treaty last March,
calling its targets arbitrary, its schedule too costly to meet
and its terms, which are not easily applied in large
developing countries, unfair.
The program he is to announce this afternoon would slow
the rate of growth in emissions in relation to the growth of
the overall economy. It would use $4.6 billion in tax
credits over the next five years to encourage companies
and individuals to limit those emissions.
Utilities, for example, would get incentives to build
power-generating windmills; homeowners would get new
tax credits for buying solar panels or more efficient cars.
The one thing the climate policy would not do is require
anything of anybody, sticking with the position Mr. Bush
has held for more than a year on the climate issue: that
firm limits on the so-called greenhouse gases would drag
down the economy.
The administration's approach, he plans to say, is based
"on the common-sense idea that sustainable economic
growth is the key to environmental progress - because it
is growth that provides the resources for investment in
clean technologies," according to an advance text.
On another emissions issue unrelated to climate, aides
said Mr. Bush would call today for mandatory restrictions
on three other kinds of pollutants from power plants:
mercury, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides. In contrast to
proposals by environmentalists and many Democrats,
however, the plan would delay such cuts until 2010 or
later.
Last night, administration officials called the voluntary
approach on climate the most reasonable path for the
time being. A senior administration official did say,
however, that if insufficient progress was being made by
2012, there could be a move toward some kind of limits. "If
we're not making progress toward our goal," he said, "we
will be considering a full range of programs."
Some environmental groups criticized this kind of
checkup, saying it puts off any measuring of progress
until well after Mr. Bush is out of office.
Under the administration's proposed target, the growth
rate of emissions of carbon dioxide would drop nearly 18
percent by 2012 - to 151 metric tons for each $1 million
in gross domestic product, from the current level of 183
metric tons.
But environmental groups sharply criticized this kind of
yardstick, saying that it merely reflects an existing trend
toward using energy more efficiently and adding that as
long as the economy grows, this would not result in
emissions reductions.
Alluding to the date of the speech, Jennifer Morgan, the
climate policy director for the World Wildlife Fund, called
it "a valentine to the coal and oil industry that will allow
emissions to increase without any time frame, eternally."
One provision of the new climate plan would be to greatly
expand a program encouraging businesses to monitor and
report their emissions of greenhouse gases. Those that
participate, voluntarily, would gain credits that might
eventually be used in a trading scheme similar to that
used for other pollution.
White House officials said this could prompt industries to
change behavior, the same way similar reporting
requirements instituted in the late 1980's resulted in big
cuts in releases of toxic chemicals.
Philip E. Clapp, president of the National Environmental
Trust, a private lobbying group, criticized this approach,
saying: "The president's global warming proposal appears
to be another faith-based initiative: we should have faith
that major corporations will line up to volunteer cuts in
their carbon pollution. That approach has failed for a
decade now, since the president's father set up the first
voluntary program."
And Myron Ebell, a climate policy expert at the
Competitive Enterprise Institute, a private group whose
free- market views are frequently embraced by industry,
criticized the idea from the opposite ideological direction.
"What looks like voluntary will actually be coercive," Mr.
Ebell said.
The president is leaving for Asia on Saturday and has
been under pressure to present a climate plan before
visiting Japan. Japan, which has avoided criticizing the
administration over its rejection of the treaty, has been
eager for a sign that Mr. Bush is concerned about the
issue. Several experts on the treaty said that his decision
to make the announcement now was very likely
influenced by this situation.
The proposed plan on nongreenhouse emissions from
power plants - mercury, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen
oxides - would impose mandatory limits but would allow
companies to exceed them by buying credits from others
that reduce pollution below required levels.
There would be no similar limits on power plants'
emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas. In
the face of lobbying from coal companies and utilities, Mr.
Bush abandoned a campaign pledge last March to control
the four plant emissions together and has shown no signs
of reconsidering that idea.
As hints of the emerging plan circulated in e-mail
messages by environmental groups and conservative
groups, it appeared that no one was particularly pleased.
An official at an energy company that had been pressing
the White House to revise power plant rules said the best
news was that there was something finally on the table to
discuss.
"At least they're coming out with something," the official
said. "It may not be what everyone wants, but it recognizes
that the Senate is going to deal with climate on its power
plant bill."
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