[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.

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