[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 107 (Friday, July 25, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8143-S8144]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             GLOBAL WARMING

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, we just voted earlier today 95 to 0 to 
direct the President of the United States not to enter into treaties in 
Japan dealing with global warming at this time. Those of us who care 
about the Earth on which we live want to make sure we are good stewards 
of this planet that we are blessed to have and we care about it very 
deeply.
  I have had the opportunity to serve on the Environment and Public 
Works Committee and have heard testimony from some of the Nation's most 
outstanding experts on the question of global warming. I am a new 
Senator, just having come here in January, and was very interested and 
fascinated by the possibility of trying to learn more about this 
problem that I have been reading about, as have so many Americans.
  I must admit to you that I have been somewhat surprised by a number 
of things, including a lack of unanimity among scientists, a lack of 
data among scientists, and a serious disagreement among scientists. I 
am also somewhat surprised, despite the very strong feelings of people 
who study this, that the President continues to be determined to enter 
into treaties that could adversely affect the economic well-being of 
the United States.
  Let me say first, in my simple way of thinking about this problem, a 
regulation is the equivalent of a tax. It would be no different for us 
than if we were to regulate the electric power industry and added costs 
to companies by mandating environmental controls in addition to the 
ones that they have implemented to preserve the environment for years. 
If we implement those controls, their customers are going to pay in 
terms of rate increases. Increases will be paid by the citizens who 
consume power, and every American consumes power.
  So we have to understand that a regulation that imposes a burden on 
some big company, like a power company, is really a tax on all of us. 
It is a regulation that impacts all of us. It adds to the cost of doing 
business in America. Every small business that utilizes electricity 
will have to pay for that power at a higher cost. It will make them, 
therefore, less able to compete with other people around the world. I 
think that is a fundamental principle we must not look for.

  The Atlantic Monthly recently had a most marvelous article about 
economic growth, progress, and technological advancement. Those, it 
said, are the greatest ways to fight pollution and to clean our 
environment. The areas that are most polluted, the areas that are least 
safe to live in and where people have the shortest lifespan are the 
undeveloped nations of the world. This article devastated the myth that 
progress and technological advancement imperil the environment. Indeed, 
just the opposite is the case. Improved technology and improved 
progress allow us to do more for less and improve our environment.
  We do know, though, that we are already, as a nation, facing a 
difficult challenge around the world. We are having a difficult time 
protecting the jobs of working Americans in the face of lower-wage 
nations that are taking our jobs. Ross Perot, in running for President, 
used the phrase ``a giant sucking sound,'' as he referred to jobs going 
overseas. The fact is, every day we place greater and greater burdens 
on the productive businesses in our Nation. At some point, the 
cumulation of those burdens reach a point that makes those businesses 
uncompetitive in the world and can severely damage the economic 
strength of this Nation. That is why the AFL-CIO and working unions all 
over America are questioning and opposing this treaty, because they see 
it will add one more burden to the United States and one more advantage 
to undeveloped nations who already have these low-wage rates to knock 
down and take away the productive capacity of American industry. I 
think it is a valid concern.
  Second, Mr. President, my simple mind, as I have been here, has 
caused me to think about how many treaties I see that we are entering 
into. I have this vision in my mind of Gulliver among the Lilliputians 
lying there with strings tying the giant down where he couldn't get up. 
Hundreds of little threads tied him down, and he could not move.
  We are a great nation, the greatest really on Earth, the greatest 
perhaps in the history of the world. We have great privileges and great 
requirements as a great nation. We ought not to lightly enter into 
treaties that bind us, keep us from being able to fully effectuate the 
capabilities that we have and enter into treaties with other nations, 
some of whom may not honor those treaties. It is one thing for them to 
sign up. We have seen nations sign up and say they won't use poison gas 
and then they have used poison gas, and nothing is done about it. What 
if we sign a global warming treaty and other nations who sign it do not 
comply? What will we do then? I suggest we will do nothing. We will 
honor that treaty, as we always do, because we take those things very 
seriously.
  Let me make a couple of points. The first thing that I have learned 
in our committee hearing is just how small a part of the problem we are 
facing is caused from humankind. Look at this chart. It is a remarkable 
chart--CO2 emissions, natural versus man-made.
  Eighty to eighty-five percent of emissions that cause global warming 
are supposed to be CO2. This is a big problem. 96.9 percent 
of the CO2 emissions on this Earth come from natural causes; 
things which combustion and other things do not affect. The rest of the 
world contributes 3.1 percent. The U.S. contribution is less than 1 
percent, .6 percent. If we eliminated all the production of 
CO2 in the United States, we would only make a small dent in 
the overall problem of CO2 emissions. That is why people are 
saying they are not sure what is causing global warming, if we have 
global warming at all. I think we have to know that. Those of us who 
are talking about imposing tremendous economic burdens on American 
industry place us in a position of not being able to remain competitive 
in the world, for a benefit perhaps nonexistent. I think this is a 
matter we have to consider seriously.

  Do we have global warming? That is a matter that I know is a given--
it is said. Some 2,000 scientists say it is, but many do not know why. 
There remains a lot of dispute about global warming. I am not sure what 
the real situation is. I am certain that there is some slight warming, 
but I must say that it is not clear.
  Dr. Christy, a NASA contractor and a professor at the University of 
Alabama in Huntsville, a premier university in scientific research, has 
studied satellite data for 20 years. He has been able to ascertain from 
that data what the atmospheric temperatures are around the world, not 
just on one seashore where the gulf stream may affect it or some 
prevailing winds may have affected the temperature temporarily. This is 
a global change. He has studied this over 20 years, beginning in 1979.
  Dr. Christy reached a remarkable conclusion based on his studies of 
temperature changes. As stated in his testimony before the full Senate 
Committee on Environment and Public Works, the level of the atmosphere 
he is testing should be warming, according to those who believe in the 
global warming models, because global warming caused by the greenhouse 
effect should be an atmospheric effect, but he found the atmosphere has 
not warmed. This black line reflects the temperature, and it has 
actually gone down during the almost 20 years that he studied.
  No one has contradicted that evidence. It wasn't evidence that he 
went out and gathered. It was evidence that he just took from the 
satellite information that was already available to the public, and he 
made a comprehensive study of it.
  What is interesting is, based on his information, we may not have 
global

[[Page S8144]]

warming at all. As I said, that information has not been disputed in 
any way.
  Not many years ago, the prediction was that we were going to show a 
4-degree increase in climate temperature in the next 100 years; 4 
degrees growth would be the average increase in temperature in the next 
100 years.

  Now, those numbers have dropped to 2 degrees. The experts have 
reduced those already just in the last few years to 2 degrees.
  Dr. Patrick J. Michaels, professor of environmental sciences at the 
University of Virginia and senior fellow of environmental studies at 
the CATO Institute, testified before the Senate Foreign Relations 
Committee on June 26, 1997. This is what he said:

       Critics argued some years ago, as I did, [he said] that 
     this would have to be a dramatic reduction in the forecast of 
     future warming in order to reconcile fact with hypothesis.

  In other words, he realized that the people who were predicting this 
4-degree increase were wrong, and some time ago he predicted they would 
have to modify this.

       By 1995, [he said] in its second full assessment of climate 
     change, the IPCC [the U.N. panel] admitted the validity of 
     the critics' position [his position]. When increases in 
     greenhouse gases only are taken into account, most climate 
     models produce a greater warming than has been observed to 
     date--

  In other words, we predicted a greater warming than we were actually 
seeing, than nationally has been observed.

       unless closer climate sensitivity to the greenhouse effect 
     is used.

  In other words, we were predicting too high a sensitivity to the 
greenhouse effect.
  The IPCC continued:

       There is growing evidence that increases in aerosols are 
     partially counteracting the warming.

  There are many things that are involved there.
  Dr. Michaels then added this comment. I thought it was very 
instructive, Mr. President. He said:

       I believe the secular translation of this statement is that 
     either it is not going to warm up as much as was previously 
     forecast or something is hiding the warming. I predict every 
     attempt will be made to demonstrate the latter before 
     admitting that the former is true.

  I thought it was interesting he used those words: ``I believe the 
secular translation of that document.'' I thought about why he did 
that, why he used those phrases. He is a scientist, a University of 
Virginia scientist. Why would he say that? I think he is saying that 
because he senses in many of the people who are promoting this agenda 
almost a religious bent, a commitment beyond rationality, a commitment 
beyond science, a sort of supernatural belief that we have to clean 
this Earth, and nothing we do as human beings here is healthy, and it 
is all bad. It goes beyond rationality. I tend to agree that we have 
some things that are said, that I have observed on our committee, that 
would indicate that that is true.
  Let me add one more thing before I conclude.
  The other thing we have learned is that global warming is hard to fix 
obviously if 97 percent of--by far, the No. 1 problem of greenhouse 
gas--CO2, is from natural causes. So we have a problem.
  We had testimony recently from four scientists before our committee. 
And I would like to share with you one of the exchanges that took place 
there.
  One professor thought that even though he was supporting the treaty, 
he thought we should take only modest steps at this time. And he 
believed that a significant tax on fuel and carbon products would be 
the way to do it. That is what he proposed. He said, ``I think we need 
to start moving in that direction.''
  Dr. Richard S. Lindzen was a member of that panel. He is an Alfred P. 
Sloane Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of 
Technology. When testifying before the Senate Committee on Environment 
and Public Works on July 10, 1997, Dr. Lindzen said, ``I'm saying more 
than that. I'm saying that Dale''--talking about the professor--``that 
what he's proposing, take the scenario that you expect, an increase of 
4 degrees''-- so Dr. Lindzen is saying, OK, let us assume that you are 
predicting a 4-degree increase in temperature in the next century, what 
affect would this tax, a significant tax on oil and all carbon 
products, have on our environment?

  This is what he said, ``. . . take the scenario that you expect an 
increase of 4 degrees, if we imposed his tax, that would knock the 
temperature down over 100 years to 3.95 degrees. Only five one-
hundredths of a degree would be affected by a tax to reduce that kind 
of emission of gases.''
  We are dealing with a very serious problem. I am concerned about 
American economic growth. I want the American people to have good jobs 
and be competitive in the world. I want a healthy environment. I 
believe in that. I am willing to invest some money in that. But I am 
not willing to invest money in a project that will have almost no 
effect and perhaps is dealing with a problem that may not even exist.
  We need more science, more study before we ask the people of this 
Nation to commit their resources into an effort that we could do 
somewhere else; $10 billion, $100 billion spent on this is $100 billion 
we could spend on child health care, emergency room admissions, and a 
lot of other things that we desperately need in this country.
  So, Mr. President, I appreciate the opportunity to share those 
thoughts with you. I think we are dealing with an important issue. And 
I hope that the American people will pay close attention to it as we go 
forward.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. COATS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana.

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