White House plans on global warming yield little
By Guy Gugliotta and Eric Pianin
The Washington Post
DANIELLA P. RICHARDS / THE RECORD
Emissions from the smokestacks at the Gavin coal-burning power plant in Cheshire, Ohio, rise into the atmosphere. The plant is one of 17 in four states being sued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the state of New Jersey for violations of the Clean Air Act.
WASHINGTON — Two years after President Bush declared he could combat global warming without mandatory controls, the administration has launched a broad array of initiatives and research; yet few companies have curbed their greenhouse-gas emissions voluntarily, according to official documents, reports and interviews.
At the heart of the president's strategy is "Climate Leaders," a program that recruits the nation's industrial polluters to voluntarily devise ways to curb emissions by 10 percent or more in the coming decade. Scientists believe these greenhouse-gas emissions, which include carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, are contributing to a troubling rise in Earth's temperature that could disrupt weather patterns and cause flooding.
A tiny fraction of the thousands of U.S. companies with pollution problems — 50 in all — have joined Climate Leaders. Of the companies that have signed up, 14 have set goals. Many of the companies say they volunteered either because reducing emissions makes good economic sense or because they were being nudged by state and federal regulators.
Industry groups, meanwhile, have crafted their own programs under a Bush administration initiative called "Climate VISION," but none of the programs requires individual companies to either enlist or set goals for emission reductions.
Many companies with the worst pollution records have shunned the voluntary programs because such a commitment would necessitate costly cleanups or possibly could set the stage for future government regulation, according to industry insiders.
Long term, short term
Most of what the administration hopes to accomplish in terms of reduced emissions will not become apparent for many decades, experts agree. The president's more immediate goal, announced Feb. 14, 2002, is to reduce greenhouse-gas intensity — the amount of gas put into the atmosphere per unit of economy — by 18 percent over 10 years.
Congress' research arm, the General Accounting Office (GAO), concluded in October that Bush's plan would reduce overall emissions only 2 percentage points below what would be achieved with no federal program whatsoever.
These findings have further fueled a debate in Congress and along the campaign trail over whether voluntary efforts to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions are useful.
Bush promoted his voluntary initiatives after he abandoned a campaign pledge to impose mandatory controls on carbon-dioxide emissions and then formally disavowed the 1997 accord negotiated by the United States and 158 other countries in Kyoto, Japan, which would impose mandatory caps on greenhouse emissions in developed countries.
The Bush administration argued that mandatory controls would hinder economic growth. The U.S. rejection means the treaty will die unless Russia, which also has concerns about the economic impact, decides to ratify. Moscow hasn't said what it will do.
"There are a lot of activities, a lot of initiatives, but I don't think it amounts to very much in the short to medium term — over, say, the next 10 years," said Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, which does advocacy and research on the issue. "We don't think that the goal of the president's program is ambitious. We think it's pretty much business as usual."
But James Connaughton, the White House environmental-policy chief, said recently that the Bush program is working, and that private-sector companies and groups that opposed the Kyoto treaty "are now coming forward in what we would say is a more economically rational and more sensible policy environment."
"They are stepping up to the plate in a way they never have — never did in the 1990s. That's a huge step," Connaughton said.
The president also has announced initiatives promoting a better world network for climate observation, combating illegal overseas logging that destroys carbon-absorbing forests and encouraging research in fuel cells and nuclear-fusion technology.
Although controversy surrounds research on global warming, a panel of the National Academy of Sciences concluded in June 2001 that it is a real problem caused at least in part by man-made pollution building up in the atmosphere and trapping heat like a blanket. At present rates, the trend could well have a "serious adverse" impact on the climate by the end of the century, the panel said.
The United States is responsible for about one-quarter of the world's greenhouse-gas emissions. Overall, U.S. emissions exceed the 1990 level by nearly 12 percent and will continue to climb, although they dipped by 1.2 percent in 2001, largely as the result of an economic slowdown and an unseasonably warm winter that slashed demand for fossil fuels.
Bush repeatedly has opposed mandatory controls, including a bill sponsored by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., to impose caps on greenhouse-gas emissions from utilities and other industries. That bill was rejected in the Senate late last year, by a vote of 55-43.
Instead, the president called for more research and voluntary measures. "My approach recognizes that economic growth is the solution, not the problem," Bush said in his Feb. 14 speech.
Besides the Climate Leaders program for individual companies and Climate VISION for industry and trade groups, the new initiatives included:
• New guidelines for companies to disclose voluntarily their efforts to reduce emissions.
• Financial incentives for farmers who plant trees or cultivate crops in such a way that soil retains carbon dioxide.
Although Climate Leaders represents the cutting edge of Bush's strategy, it has a budget of $1 million a year and a full-time staff of three, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, which runs the program.
And although some "Leaders" are big names in manufacturing — among them General Motors, Caterpillar, U.S. Steel and Raytheon — most are perennial "good citizens" who were participating in "green" programs years before Bush called for volunteers.
We Energies and Ohio-based Cinergy — two of the six utility companies among Climate Leaders — had established track records of emissions reduction.
But the administration has made no headway signing up big utility companies with the worst emissions records. Many of them vigorously opposed mandatory controls. They refuse to take part in voluntary measures that set targets, largely for fear that those programs will lead to government regulation.
"Some just see it as a slippery slope," said a lobbyist for several major utilities.
Most of the 190 major U.S. utility companies represented by the Edison Electric Institute prefer to participate in an industry-created program called "Power Partners," which does not require companies to commit to specific goals.
"Under Power Partners, there's obviously greater flexibility, and it encourages companies to do what they can, recognizing that some can do more than others," said Dan Riedinger, a spokesman for the utility-industry group. "But it tries not to leave any company behind just because they can't make a specific numerical commitment at this point."
Climate VISION, run by the Energy Department, holds out hope for a broader assault on global warming. It seeks to enlist participants from 12 industrial sectors and trade groups, which represent the vast majority of the nation's industrial greenhouse-gas emitters.
Commitments vary
The commitments vary widely. The Semiconductor Industry Association had an agreement in place to reduce emissions of perfluorocarbons, a greenhouse gas, and the American Iron and Steel Institute pledged to reduce greenhouse-gas intensity by 10 percent by 2012.
But the Business Roundtable, an association of chief executives of 150 of the country's biggest corporations, sought only to persuade its members to endorse the program. The Nuclear Energy Institute simply wants people to use more emission-free nuclear power, a controversial goal because of the unresolved problem of disposing of radioactive waste.
In no case have the trade associations compelled participation, let alone compliance with industrywide goals, although some groups have reported a strong response from members.
Meanwhile, the Energy Department has drawn up more stringent guidelines for the voluntary reporting of steps taken by private companies and other "entities" to reduce emissions. The registry, begun in 1994, gives companies a federal database in which they can "bank" their emissions-control accomplishments, should a national or international regulatory regimen take effect.
The registry had 228 participants in 2001 and 2002, a modest number that could fall when the tougher guidelines kick in.
"There could be an initial decline (in participation) before there's a gain," Energy Undersecretary Robert Card said. "Our view is that industry is not necessarily going to be happy with the registry, (but) those who take it seriously will be."
USDA praised
Finally, the 2002 farm bill added $17.1 billion to federal conservation programs over 10 years. And the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), for the first time, is including greenhouse-gas mitigation as a criterion for granting incentive payments for such activities as planting hardwood trees and harvesting methane from livestock manure.
Some administration critics give the USDA high marks for paying attention to global warming but note the new money came not from the administration but from Congress.
The critics contend much of the funding was meant for clean-water programs the White House simply endorsed and repackaged as greenhouse-gas initiatives. |
