[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 82 (Thursday, June 12, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5622-S5626]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SENATE RESOLUTION 98--EXPRESSING THE SENSE OF THE SENATE REGARDING THE
UNITED NATIONS FRAMEWORK CONVENTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE
Mr. BYRD (for himself, Mr. Hagel, Mr. Hollings, Mr. Craig, Mr.
Inouye, Mr. Warner, Mr. Ford, Mr. Thomas, Mr. Dorgan, Mr. Helms, Mr.
Levin, Mr. Roberts, Mr. Abraham, Mr. McConnell, Mr. Ashcroft, Mr.
Brownback, Mr. Kempthorne, Mr. Thurmond, Mr. Burns, Mr. Conrad, Mr.
Glenn, Mr. Enzi, Mr. Inhofe, Mr. Bond, Mr. Coverdell, Mr. DeWine, Mrs.
Hutchison, Mr. Gorton, Mr. Hatch, Mr. Breaux, Mr. Cleland, Mr. Durbin,
Mr. Hutchinson, Mr. Johnson, Ms. Landrieu, Ms. Mikulski, Mr. Nickles,
Mr. Santorum, Mr. Shelby, Mr. Smith of Oregon, Mr. Bennett, Mr.
Faircloth, Mr. Frist, Mr. Grassley, Mr. Allard, and Mr. Murkowski)
submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee
on Foreign Relations:
S. Res. 98
Whereas the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change (in this resolution referred to as the
``Convention''), adopted in May 1992, entered into force in
1994 and is not yet fully implemented;
Whereas the Convention, intended to address climate change
on a global basis, identifies the former Soviet Union and the
countries of Eastern Europe and the Organization For Economic
Co-operation and Development (OECD), including the United
States, as ``Annex I Parties'', and the remaining 129
countries, including China, Mexico, India, Brazil, and South
Korea, as ``Developing Country Parties'';
Whereas in April 1995, the Convention's ``Conference of the
Parties'' adopted the so-called ``Berlin Mandate'';
Whereas the ``Berlin Mandate'' calls for the adoption, as
soon as December 1997, in Kyoto, Japan, of a protocol or
another legal instrument that strengthens commitments to
limit greenhouse gas emissions by Annex I Parties for the
post-2000 period and establishes a negotiation process called
the ``Ad Hoc Group on the Berlin Mandate'';
Whereas the ``Berlin Mandate'' specifically exempts all
Developing Country Parties from any new commitments in such
negotiation process for the post-2000 period;
Whereas although the Convention, approved by the United
States Senate, called on all signatory parties to adopt
policies and programs aimed at limiting their greenhouse gas
(GHG) emissions, in July 1996 the Undersecretary of State for
Global Affairs called for the first time for ``legally
binding'' emission limitation targets and time-tables for
Annex I Parties, a position reiterated by the Secretary of
State in testimony before the Committee on Foreign Relations
of the Senate on January 8, 1997;
Whereas greenhouse gas emissions of Developing Country
Parties are rapidly increasing and are expected to surpass
emissions of the United States and other OECD countries as
early as 2015;
Whereas the Department of State has declared that it is
critical for the Parties to the Convention to include
Developing Country Parties in the next steps for global
action and, therefore, has proposed that consideration of
additional steps to include limitations on Developing Country
Parties' greenhouse gas emissions would not begin until after
a protocol or other legal instrument is adopted in Kyoto,
Japan in December 1997;
[[Page S5623]]
Whereas the exemption for Developing Country Parties is
inconsistent with the need for global action on climate
change and is environmentally flawed; and
Whereas the Senate strongly believes that the proposals
under negotiation, because of the disparity of treatment
between Annex I Parties and Developing Countries and the
level of required emission reductions, could result in
serious harm to the United States economy, including
significant job loss, trade disadvantages, increased energy
and consumer costs, or any combination thereof: Now,
therefore, be it
Resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate that--
(1) the United States should not be a signatory to any
protocol to, or other agreement regarding, the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change of 1992, at
negotiations in Kyoto in December 1997, or thereafter, which
would--
(A) mandate new commitments to limit or reduce greenhouse
gas emissions for the Annex I Parties, unless the protocol or
other agreement also mandates new specific scheduled
commitments to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions for
Developing Country Parties within the same compliance period,
or
(B) would result in serious harm to the economy of the
United States; and
(2) any such protocol or other agreement which would
require the advice and consent of the Senate to ratification
should be accompanied by a detailed explanation of any
legislation or regulatory actions that may be required to
implement the protocol or other agreement and should also be
accompanied by an analysis of the detailed financial costs
and other impacts on the economy of the United States which
would be incurred by the implementation of the protocol or
other agreement.
Sec. 2. The Secretary of the Senate shall transmit a copy
of this resolution to the President.
Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I am submitting a sense-of-the-Senate
resolution, and joining me in the introduction of this resolution are
the following Senators: Mr. Hagel, Mr. Hollings, Mr. Craig, Mr. Inouye,
Mr. Warner, Mr. Ford, Mr. Thomas, Mr. Dorgan, Mr. Helms, Mr. Levin, Mr.
Roberts, Mr. Abraham, Mr. McConnell, Mr. Ashcroft, Mr. Brownback, Mr.
Kempthorne, Mr. Thurmond, and Mr. Burns. As I say, Mr. President, I
urge other Senators and their staffs to take note of this resolution
and to consider joining as cosponsors within the next day or so because
we welcome the support of Democrats and Republicans.
This resolution addresses some central issues regarding the
conditions for U.S. agreement to revisions to the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change. In particular, it addresses the
clear need for the participation of developing nations in the ongoing
negotiations to undertake such revisions to the global climate change
convention, first signed in Rio in 1992, at the so-called Earth Summit.
As my colleagues know, President Bush signed the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992, which was subsequently
approved by the Senate and ratified. The treaty calls on all
signatories to adopt policies and programs to limit their greenhouse
gas [GHG] emissions on a voluntary basis. The goal was to exhort
industrialized nations to attempt to scale back their emissions to 1990
levels by the end of the present decade, a goal that has not been
achieved by the U.S. nor by the vast majority of the developed nations.
Those nations that have met the voluntary goals are those like Russia,
whose economy has been in a free fall, its industries idle and its
people hurting. This is not the way that anyone wants to meet an
emissions reduction target.
This is an important negotiation attempting to address the
fundamental issues of man-created climate changes and how to limit the
adverse consequences that have been projected by recent scientific
analysis. The perceived culprits in the warming of the globe--emissions
of so-called greenhouse gases, including, particularly, carbon
dioxide--are caused partly by fossil fuel combustion. Limiting and
reducing such combustion and its resultant carbon dioxide are a
principal objective of the treaty. It is an effort which has been led
by Vice President Al Gore and he is to be highly commended for his
sustained effort and achievement in moving this multinational
negotiation along. The schedule for the negotiations to revise the Rio
Pact is to culminate in meetings in Kyoto, Japan early this December.
The administration, as a result of the disappointing results of the
voluntary goals contained in the 1992 agreement, has moved toward
supporting mandatory, legally-binding, limitations on emissions to
address the long-term effects of the greenhouse gases on the global
climate. Worrisome as the prospects of adverse climate change are for
all of us, I believe it is unfortunate that the developing world has
not seen fit to step up to the plate and assume its clear
responsibility to share in the effort being proposed by the United
States to limit and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This is most
troublesome because without the participation of the developing world,
the goals of the treaty will be largely frustrated, since the amount of
carbon dioxide which will be produced by the developing world will
exceed--get that--exceed in total, that produced by the industrial OECD
nations very soon--by the year 2015. That is not very far away. Indeed,
the amount of carbon emissions produced by China alone in that year
will exceed the amount produced by the United States. So we are talking
about the country with the greatest population in the world, China.
India is another, and India probably has 800 million people, perhaps
more. But I should emphasize that China alone, in the year 2015, which
is only 18 years away, will exceed the United States in its production
of carbon dioxide. China is rapidly accelerating her demand for
electricity, soon to exceed that of the United States, but China has
resisted all efforts to include her as a responsible party in the
renegotiation of the Rio Pact.
Mr. President, the big carbon dioxide emitters of the developing
world--including, as I have just indicated, in addition to China, the
countries of India, Mexico, Brazil, South Korea, and Indonesia--cannot
expect to continue or expand their extremely inefficient methods for
fossil fuel combustion, producing huge, growing quantities of carbon
dioxide, and at the same time insist that only the developed nations,
the so-called Annex I nations under the Treaty, agree to legally-
binding targets and schedules for limiting these gases. This is
particularly troublesome, I believe, because, first, without the
participation of the developing nations the process of climate change
will continue without much human control. Second, there are certainly
technological ways that fossil fuel combustion techniques can be made
far more efficient than at present in these nations, so that the extent
of economic sacrifice that may be required to limit greenhouse gas
emissions may not be onerous if all nations will pull together. Third,
under the Treaty, industrial facilities in the Annex I countries will
be tempted to move behind the borders of developing countries in order
to escape legally-binding controls on their greenhouse gas emissions
because that means that if the developing countries are not also on the
hook with the Annex 1 countries like the United States, industries will
be tempted to go overseas and to send their factories overseas to those
so-called developing nations that are not required, if they are not
required, to commit themselves to abide by the standards that are to be
negotiated by our Government. It would be cheaper, then, for U.S.
industries to go overseas. That means our jobs will go overseas. We
have seen too much of that already in West Virginia.
This would also frustrate the goals of the Treaty, and cause economic
distress, as I have indicated, in the Annex I countries. The developing
world should be encouraged to expand its industries in an
environmentally responsible manner, knowing that it, too, must prepare
to meet limits on greenhouse gas emissions, and not sink to the
temptation for quick and dirty development by harboring industrial
fugitives from the developed world's mandatory emissions controls.
Therefore, Mr. President, the resolution I am introducing today on
behalf of myself and Senator Hagel and the other Senators whose names I
have stated, resolves that the United States should not be a signatory
to any protocol to the Rio Pact or to any other agreement which would
``mandate new commitments to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions
for the Annex I Parties, unless the protocol or other agreement also
mandates new specific scheduled commitments to limit or reduce
greenhouse gas emissions for Developing Countries within the same
compliance period.'' In other words, what is good for the developed
goose
[[Page S5624]]
should be good for the developing gander, in that both should be
responsible for their actions if the effort to clean up the global
barnyard is to be anything other than a halfway effort. And a halfway
effort, in the final analysis, rerves nobody.
In addition, Mr. President, it is not yet clear what regulatory and
legislative initiatives may be required in the United States to
implement the binding agreement now under negotiations. Therefore, the
resolution would also require that any Treaty signed by the United
States, when it is submitted to the Senate for its advice and consent,
be accompanied by a ``detailed explanation of any legislation or
regulatory actions that may be required to implement the protocol or
other agreement and should also be accompanied by an analysis of the
detailed financial costs and other impacts on the economy of the United
States which would be incurred by the implementation of the
agreement.'' I understand that the distinguished junior Senator from
Nebraska [Mr. Hagel], Chairman of the relevant Subcommittee of the
Foreign Relations Committee will be holding hearings on this matter
beginning on June 19, and I commend him for this initiative.
This is a matter that will require substantial consensus building.
That will take time. And I am delighted that Senator Hagel will begin
those hearings in the very near future, June 19. I hope that
consideration of the resolution that we are offering today will be seen
as a contribution to that consensus building process.
Now, there may have to be some adjustments made to the verbiage that
we have chosen and I am sure that Senator Hagel and the other
cosponsors and I will be willing to consider any proposed adjustments,
be willing to sit down and talk about any changes that need to be made.
And with the hearings that Senator Hagel plans to conduct, the
opportunity will be offered to Senators to appear and make statements,
expressing their support, raising questions, offering suggestions, as I
say, or whatever. But the important thing is this. We must begin to
engage in this consensus building.
Mr. CRAIG addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The able Senator from Idaho.
Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I thank you very much.
I stand this morning to join my colleague, the Senator from West
Virginia [Mr. Byrd], in the introduction of a sense-of-the-Senate
resolution on climate change negotiation.
The Senator from West Virginia and I agree that the administration
needs to understand the Senate is very concerned about the potential
adverse consequences of the proposed changes to the U.S. Framework
Convention on Climate Change to which this body gave its consent
shortly after it was signed by President George Bush at the Rio de
Janeiro conference in 1992.
I hope this resolution will be a much needed wake-up call to the
administration about the seriousness of the Senate's views on its
current negotiating position. I do not think it was proper for this
administration to change the position of the United States from a
voluntary approach that was endorsed by the entire developed world to a
legally binding treaty to impose enforceable greenhouse gas reduction
targets by a date certain.
I am particularly concerned the administration did not consult with
Congress prior to taking this new position which I am told was reached
in the early morning hours of the last day of the Berlin negotiations.
Subsequently, the administration has not sought, and certainly not
received, consensus support from the Senate on its new approach.
The attitude of this administration toward honest scientific inquiry
is very troubling. I do not approve of using political science instead
of real science. Mr. President, let me repeat that. I do not approve of
this administration's use of political science instead of the real
science that is critically necessary when negotiating and understanding
an issue of this importance.
It is outrageous that this administration has been running around the
country and the whole world, for that matter, claiming, as Deputy
Secretary Tim Wirth has done on a number of occasions, that as far as
the scientific hypothesis that human activity is warming the planet is
concerned, ``the debate is over.''
Instead of fairly testing that hypothesis, this administration is
using its $1 billion-plus annual budget to try to prove only that
carbon dioxide is warming the planet and to discredit any studies that
might appear legitimate to the contrary.
The Earth has warmed about a degree centigrade since the depths of
the of the Little Ice Age of the early 1600's. All but a tiny amount of
that increase occurred prior to World War II before significant human
loading of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. In fact, the world's
scientists are still debating the extent, if any, to which human
emissions of carbon dioxide rather than predominantly actual causes are
actually increasing Earth temperatures.
There is agreement on one point, however: That any future change in
world temperature caused by human activity will be slight and there is
no reason to rush to a new agreement in Kyoto in December of this year.
Finally, Mr. President, it is unacceptable that this administration
has refused to admit the details of its proposal or to release any
analyses of the anticipated impact of the proposal. The administration
has not revealed to us what kinds of differences its proposal would
actually have on global temperatures.
The administration's negotiators have refused to release any of their
internal economic studies that show huge decimation in the industrial
sector of our economy. One can only assume that it is to ensure that
they will have free rein to commit the United States to whatever they
decide to do in the early morning hours of the last day of the Kyoto
conference in December. This kind of secret planning and hidden agenda
is contrary to a democracy, and, Mr. President, it is just flat wrong.
The administration should immediately start a more public debate and
a more honest consultation with the Senate, which, after all, has the
final say on whether the United States will be legally bound to any
international agreement. A great time to begin to bring this position
into the sunshine will be during the Foreign Relations Committee's
hearings scheduled for next week by my colleague and the prime
cosponsor of the resolution that is coming to the floor this morning,
Senator Hagel. So I look forward to a more open and honest airing of
the issue.
I see the Senator from West Virginia is in the Chamber and let me
again thank him for his leadership in the authoring of this very
important sense-of-the-Senate resolution on global climate change. I am
proud to be a sponsor and to work with him on this effort.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank my friend, Senator Craig, for his
comments. He is a cosponsor of the resolution which I introduce, and I
welcome his efforts and the work he is doing in support of the
resolution. And I hope that we can get additional cosponsors as well. I
am sure that he will be working to that end.
Mr. President, I see Senator Hagel on the floor. He is the chief
cosponsor of this resolution. I do not have the authority to yield to
him unless he is appearing on my time, and I will do that. I have 30
minutes at the beginning, as I understand it, so I yield such time as
he may consume from the time under my control to the distinguished
Senator, Mr. Hagel.
Mr. HAGEL. Mr. President, I am pleased to join the senior Senator
from West Virginia in cosponsoring the resolution that he has brought
to the floor this morning. As my distinguished colleague has already
noted, this resolution deals with U.S. policy on the global climate
issue. This is a very serious issue, with potentially disastrous
consequences to the United States economy. Next week I will begin, as
Senator Byrd noted, hearings in the Foreign Relations Subcommittee on
International Trade and Export Promotion on the global climate
negotiations.
Like Senator Byrd, I believe that the Senate must not simply wait
until the negotiations are completed and then respond. If we do that,
it then would be too late to exercise our constitutional responsibility
to not only give our consent to treaties but, even more important, to
give our advice to the President.
[[Page S5625]]
Next week, my subcommittee will be hearing from the Under Secretary
of State for Global Affairs, Tim Wirth. Secretary Wirth has been the
administration's chief negotiator in the U.N.'s global climate
negotiations.
I will be following that first hearing a week later with a second
hearing. We will ask fair questions, tough questions, and we will
expect honest answers.
All Americans are concerned about our environment--of course, they
are and should be--and how to ensure that it is protected for our
children and our grandchildren.
The responsibility we have as public servants, as policymakers, is to
seek the best solutions where problems exist and come to a strong and
commonsense bipartisan consensus on what is the best policy to deal
with this problem.
This resolution offers a general baseline for what we can accept as
sensible, commonsense policy.
This resolution does not address all the specific concerns many of us
have over this issue. We know that.
As the necessary debate over the global climate issue progresses over
the next few months, we will have an opportunity to hear from all
sides, just as Senator Byrd pointed out, and further open up this issue
and talk about the specifics associated with the global climate issue.
How we deal with this issue of climate control will have serious
consequences--serious consequences--for our economy, the environment,
Americans' future standard of living, energy costs, energy use,
economic growth, our global competitiveness, impact on jobs, trade,
national security and maybe, Mr. President, most important, our
national sovereignty.
All of these dynamics will be explored before the December meeting in
Kyoto, Japan, formally known as the ``Third Meeting of the Conference
of Parties for the Framework Convention on Climate Change.''
Mr. President, this is clearly a very serious issue that demands a
major national debate.
The purpose of this resolution that Senator Byrd and I are offering
today, with a number of our distinguished colleagues representing
States from all over this country with varied economies, varied
interests, is to begin that debate, to begin that debate today and to
let the world know that the U.S. Senate intends to have a very serious
and strong voice in shaping the American position on this global
climate issue.
Mr. President, thank you, and I yield back my time.
Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
Mr. HAGEL. Yes.
Mr. BYRD. The Senator made a very important point in closing his
speech. Here sit the representatives of the people in this body. Here
sit the representatives of the States. It is the only forum in this
country which represents the States. And so it is that it is important
that this body have a voice, it is important that this body has a
responsibility for oversight under the Constitution, has a
responsibility to monitor the events and proceedings and developments.
It is not my desire to kill the treaty. We are going to have to face
up to this problem. It is going to impact on our grandchildren and
their children and their children and their children. And so we have a
responsibility to face up to it now. It is not a pleasant thing to
consider, to contemplate. But that is the purpose of the resolution.
That is the purpose of the hearings the distinguished Senator will
conduct. We want to be in on the takeoff, not just on the landing. We
have a responsibility to our people, we have a responsibility to this
country and to its future. So that is why we have introduced the
legislation today, and I compliment the distinguished Senator, and I
look forward to working with him in this important, all important,
matter.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution which I
shall send to the desk may remain open for other signatories until the
close of business today.
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BYRD. How much time do I have remaining?
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator has 5\1/2\ minutes remaining.
Mr. BYRD. I thank the Chair, and I thank my colleague again. I
reserve the remainder of my time, send the resolution to the desk and
yield the floor.
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The resolution will be received and
referred to the appropriate committee.
Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I rise in support of Senator Byrd's sense of
the Senate Resolution on the issue of climate change. A few weeks ago I
was back in Kentucky and my youngest grandson, Morgan, wanted some help
on his math homework. At first we were both stumped over the list of
word problems his teacher had assigned. Then, after all those years, a
lesson one of my teachers taught me came back. She taught us to cut out
all the extraneous words in those problems. Once we'd stripped it down,
she promised we'd have a clear-cut math problem we could recognize how
to solve. It wasn't long before Morgan and I had zipped right through
those problems.
I think my colleagues will find the same method will work with the
Global Climate Change Treaty that's currently being negotiated. It
sounds complicated and impressive when you first look it over, but once
you strip away all the extraneous language, it comes down to this
simple equation. Rules benefitting the economies of developing nations
plus rules penalizing the economies of developed nations add up to a
big fat zero in net gains for the global environment.
That's because only developed nations would be legally bound by the
treaty hammered out by negotiators--the so-called Berlin Mandate.
Developing nations are off the hook.
Right now, developed nations and developing nations have about equal
levels of carbon emissions. But within five years of the deadline,
developing nations will have more than 1\1/2\ times the 1990 level of
the developed world.
So when you subtract all the half-baked environmental promises, you
find the equation is heavily weighted against America and especially
against American workers. That's because the United States will have to
make the steepest reductions and suffer the costliest and most damaging
consequences. Preliminary estimates put the loss at 600,000 jobs each
year.
And 600,000 jobs is probably a low estimate, because the treaty
creates an enormous incentive for American businesses to shift more and
more jobs overseas, to avoid the expensive emission reductions that
U.S. businesses will have to meet.
The impact in Kentucky could be especially bad. Not only would miners
working in the coalfields of Eastern and Western Kentucky suffer job
loss, but many of the businesses and factories that have created a
golden triangle in Northern Kentucky would be forced to close. And
every single Kentuckian will face higher electric bills and higher gas
prices.
But what should really make you scratch your head over this puzzler
is that when you add it all up, we won't get a cleaner environment. We
won't stop global warming. We won't even get reduced carbon emissions.
That's because every ton of reduced emissions in the United States
and other developed nations will be made up--and then some--in the
developing world.
So, here's a quick math review. You've got a treaty with devastating
consequences for the American economy. You end up with virtually no
environmental benefit. Stripped down it looks like nothing more than a
massive foreign aid package paid for with American jobs.
It's clear that many American interests are being neglected by our
negotiators and that we must come up with a better solution for the
problem of global emissions.
Time is limited for the Senate to act to make it clear that the
treaty, as currently reported, will get a failing grade. A December
signing ceremony is already set for December in Kyoto, Japan.
Mr. President, I believe my colleague, Senator Byrd's resolution is
the right method. It sets commonsense parameters for our negotiators to
work from to assure that any treaty meets the goal of reduced emissions
without penalizing one country over another.
And next time my grandson grumbles about why he has to learn things
he'll probably never use again, I'll just remind him that when you get
right down to it, even the most complicated
[[Page S5626]]
global policy problems can be solved with some simple math.
Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, I rise today to join Senators Byrd,
Hagel, and Craig to speak about the threat posed by the
administration's support of an international global climate treaty.
This is a very serious issue, and for too long it has not received the
attention it deserves. I applaud Senator Byrd for focusing attention on
this matter through his sense of the Senate resolution and I am pleased
to be an original cosponsor.
In December of this year, the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate
Change will conclude negotiations on a binding treaty to control the
emissions of greenhouse gases by the developed nations. The Clinton
administration has been pushing hard for such an agreement and intends
to implement this treaty in the United States. I would note, however,
that this treaty applies only to developed nations. Emerging nations
are not included. Countries such as China, India, and South Korea will
not pay the costs of the energy taxes or be constrained by the caps on
manmade emissions as will the United States. It will be business as
usual for these nations despite the fact that emissions of carbon
dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas, from developing nations will
shortly surpass those of the developed nations.
Despite this obvious flaw, such a treaty might yet be logical if we
knew that clear benefits would be derived as a result, but we do not.
Scientists are sharply divided as to whether the Earth is warming
because of human activity. How then can we justify supporting a treaty
which even the U.S. Department of Energy has concluded will be
devastating to the economy? How can we seriously consider any proposal
which will cost American jobs, slow economic growth, and encourage
domestic industries to move offshore when the next century's greatest
contributors of greenhouse gases will not share even the smallest
portion of this burden. Mr. President, the answer is simple: We cannot
and should not.
The United States has made dramatic improvements in pollution control
in the last two decades. A clean environment is of paramount importance
to Americans, and we will continue to work responsibly toward
protecting this Nation's air, water, and land. We must not, however,
saddle our economy with new taxes and regulations the sole purpose of
which is to limit American productivity. We cannot enter into an
agreement which will do significant harm to our economy and put us at a
competitive disadvantage relative to emerging nations when the jury is
still out on the effects that mankind may have on climate change.
If future research provides irrefutable evidence that manmade
emissions are contributing to global warming, then all Nation's should
work together in concert to identify and reduce the greenhouse gases
responsible for such a phenomenon. Today, we are far from having such
evidence, and to act without it is simply not sound policy.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
____________________