[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 144 (Thursday, October 23, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11019-S11022]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       THE CLIMATE CHANGE TREATY

  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, the United States is currently engaged in 
negotiating a climate change treaty. This is a negotiation that we have 
literally only just really engaged in, in the sense that we have only 
now made clear to the world what our negotiating position will be, the 
critical elements from which we will proceed. I was somewhat troubled 
this morning to hear a number of our colleagues come to the floor of 
the Senate and, frankly, either considerably misstate or considerably 
misrepresent the very straightforward words of the President yesterday 
with respect to this subject. The following is the position that the 
President articulated yesterday.
  No. 1, it is the goal of the United States to find a binding treaty 
which includes not just developed nations but developing nations as 
well.
  No. 2, the U.S. goal is a binding treaty that seeks to bring 
greenhouse gases to 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012, so as to 
minimize economic costs to the United States.
  And, finally, No. 3, the United States now will undertake policies to 
fully leverage market mechanisms, innovation, technology, and American 
ingenuity to make achieving emissions reductions less costly.
  I remind my colleagues that all of these positions are completely 
within the framework of the resolution that the Senate passed, the 
Byrd-Hagel resolution. That resolution specifically said it must 
``mandate new commitments to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions 
for the annex I parties, unless the protocol or other agreement''--and 
I want to emphasize here, ``other agreement.'' The President in his 
proposal has made allowance for the very ``other agreement'' potential 
that was contemplated in the resolution we passed. It specifically 
requires that other agreement, or the principal agreement, mandate new, 
and specific scheduled reductions for the developing countries within 
the same compliance period.
  The second requirement that the Senate passed was that whatever 
agreement we reached would not result in serious harm to the economy of 
the United States. Let me emphasize, the term is ``serious harm to the 
economy of the United States.'' Any fair reading of the President's 
remarks outlining our position would find that the President is 
completely within the framework of the Senate resolution. And yet, 
today, we really heard Senators completely misrepresenting that 
position and asserting that it is somehow outside of the Byrd-Hagel 
resolution.
  I ask unanimous consent the full text of the President's comments be 
printed in the Record so people can judge for themselves the degree 
with which we are in compliance.
  There being no objection, the remarks were ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

 Remarks by the President on Global Climate Change Before the National 
                           Geographic Society

       The President. Thank you very much. Mr. Murphy, Mr. Vice 
     President, to all of you who are here. I thank especially the 
     members of Congress who are here, the leaders of labor and 
     business who are here, all the members of the administration, 
     and especially the White House staff members that the Vice 
     President mentioned and the Secretary of Energy, the 
     Administrator of the EPA, and the others who have helped us 
     to come to this moment.
       On the way in here we were met by the leaders of the 
     National Geographic, and I complimented them on their recent 
     two-part series on the Roman Empire. It's a fascinating story 
     of how the Empire rose, how it sustained itself for hundreds 
     of years, why it fell, and speculations on what, if any, 
     relevance it might have to the United States and, indeed, the 
     West.
       And one of the gentlemen said, well, you know, we got a lot 
     of interesting comments on that, including a letter 
     referencing a statue we had of the bust of Emperor Vespasian. 
     And one of our readers said, why in the world did you put a 
     statue of Gene Hackman in a piece on the Roman Empire? 
     (Laughter.) And I say that basically to say, in some senses, 
     the more things change, the more they remain the same. 
     (Laughter.)
       For what sustains any civilization, and now what will 
     sustain all of our civilizations, is the constant effort at 
     renewal, the ability to avoid denial and to proceed into the 
     future in a way that is realistic and humane, but resolute. 
     Six years ago tomorrow, not long after I started running for 
     President, I went back to my alma mater at Georgetown and 
     began a series of three speeches outlining my vision for 
     America in the 21st century--how we could keep the American 
     Dream alive for all of our people, how we could maintain 
     America's leadership for peace and freedom and prosperity, 
     and how we could come together across the lines that divide 
     us as one America.
       And together, we've made a lot of progress in the last 
     nearly five years now that the

[[Page S11020]]

     Vice President and I have been privileged to work at this 
     task. At the threshold of a new century, our economy is 
     thriving, our social fabric is mending, we've helped to lead 
     the world toward greater peace and cooperation.
       I think this has happened, in no small measure, in part 
     because we had a different philosophy about the role of 
     government. Today, it is smaller and more focused and more 
     oriented toward giving people the tools and the conditions 
     they need to solve their own problems and toward working in 
     partnership with our citizens. More important, I believe it's 
     happened because we made tough choices but not false choices.
       On the economy, we made the choice to balance the budget 
     and to invest in our people and our future. On crime, we made 
     the choice to be tough and smart about prevention and 
     changing the conditions in which crime occurs. On welfare, we 
     made the choice to require work, but also to support the 
     children of people who have been on welfare. On families, we 
     made the choice to help parents find more and better jobs and 
     to have the necessary time and resources for their children. 
     And on the environment, we made the choice to clean our air, 
     water, and land, to improve our food supply, and to grow the 
     economy.
       This kind of commonsense approach, rooted in our most basic 
     values and our enduring optimism about the capacity of free 
     people to meet the challenges of every age must be brought to 
     bear on the work that remains to pave the way for our people 
     and for the world toward a new century and a new millenium.
       Today we have a clear responsibility and a golden 
     opportunity to conquer one of the most important challenges 
     of the 21st century--the challenge of climate change--with an 
     environmentally sound and economically strong strategy, to 
     achieve meaningful reductions in greenhouse gases in the 
     United States and throughout the industralized and the 
     developing world. It is a strategy that, if properly 
     implemented, will create a wealth of new opportunities for 
     entrepreneurs at home, uphold our leadership abroad, and 
     harness the power of free markets to free our planet from an 
     unacceptable risk; a strategy as consistent with our 
     commitment to reject false choices.
       America can stand up for our national interest and stand up 
     for the common interest of the international community. 
     America can build on prosperity today and ensure a healthy 
     planet for our children tomorrow.
       In so many ways the problem of climate change reflects the 
     new realities of the new century. Many previous threats could 
     be met within our own borders, but global warming requires an 
     international solution. Many previous threats came from 
     single enemies, but global warming derives from millions of 
     sources. Many previous threats posed clear and present 
     danger; global warming is far more subtle, warning us not 
     with roaring tanks or burning rivers but with invisible 
     gases, slow changes in our surroundings, increasingly severe 
     climatic disruptions that, thank God, have not yet hit home 
     for most Americans. But make no mistake, the problem is real. 
     And if we do not change our course now, the consequences 
     sooner or later will be destructive for America and for the 
     world.
       The vast majority of the world's climate scientists have 
     concluded that if the countries of the world do not work 
     together to cut the emission of greenhouse gases, then 
     temperatures will rise and will disrupt the climate. In fact, 
     most scientists say the process has already begun. Disruptive 
     weather events are increasing. Disease-bearing insects are 
     moving to areas that used to be too cold for them. Average 
     temperatures are rising. Glacial formations are receding.
       Scientists don't yet know what the precise consequences 
     will be. But we do know enough now to know that the 
     Industrial Age has dramatically increased greenhouse gases in 
     the atmosphere, where they take a century or more to 
     dissipate; and that the process must be slowed, then stopped, 
     then reduced if we want to continue our economic progress and 
     preserve the quality of life in the United States and 
     throughout our planet. We know what we have to do.
       Greenhouse gas emissions are caused mostly by the 
     inefficient burning of coal or oil for energy. Roughly a 
     third of these emissions come from industry, a third from 
     transportation, a third from residential and commercial 
     buildings. In each case, the conversion of fuel to energy use 
     is extremely inefficient and could be made much cleaner with 
     existing technologies or those already on the horizon, in 
     ways that will not weaken the economy but in fact will add to 
     our strength in new businesses and new jobs. If we do this 
     properly, we will not jeopardize our prosperity--we will 
     increase it.
       With that principle in mind, I'm announcing the instruction 
     I'm giving to our negotiators as they pursue a realistic and 
     effective international climate change treaty. And I'm 
     announcing a far-reaching proposal that provides flexible 
     market-based and cost-effective ways to achieve meaningful 
     reductions here in America. I want to emphasize that we 
     cannot wait until the treaty is negotiated and ratified to 
     act. The United States has less than 5 percent of the world's 
     people, enjoys 22 percent of the world's wealth, but emits 
     more than 25 percent of the world's greenhouse gases. We must 
     begin now to take out our insurance policy on the future.
       In the international climate negotiations, the United 
     States will pursue a comprehensive framework that includes 
     three elements, which, taken together, will enable us to 
     build a strong and robust global agreement. First, the United 
     States proposes at Kyoto that we commit to the binding and 
     realistic target of returning to emissions of 1990 levels 
     between 2008 and 2012. And we should not stop there. We 
     should commit to reduce emissions below 1990 levels in the 
     five-year period thereafter, and we must work toward further 
     reductions in the years ahead.
       The industrialized nations tried to reduce emissions to 
     1990 levels once before with a voluntary approach, but 
     regrettably, most of us--including especially the United 
     States--fell short. We must find new resolve to achieve these 
     reductions, and to do that we simply must commit to binding 
     limits.
       Second, we will embrace flexible mechanisms for meeting 
     these limits. We propose an innovative, joint implementation 
     system that allows a firm in one country to invest in a 
     project that reduces emissions in another country and receive 
     credit for those reductions at home. And we propose an 
     international system of emissions trading. These innovations 
     will cut worldwide pollution, keep costs low, and help 
     developing countries protect their environment, too, without 
     sacrificing their economic growth.
       Third, both industrialized and developing countries must 
     participate in meeting the challenge of climate change. The 
     industrialized world must lead, but developing countries also 
     must be engaged. The United States will not assume binding 
     obligations unless key developing nations meaningfully 
     participate in this effort.
       As President Carlos Menem stated forcefully last week when 
     I visited him in Argentina, a global problem such as climate 
     change requires a global answer. If the entire industrialized 
     world reduces emissions over the next several decades, but 
     emissions from the developing world continue to grow at their 
     current pace, concentrations of greenhouse gasses in the 
     atmosphere will continue to climb. Developing countries have 
     an opportunity to chart a different energy future consistent 
     with their growth potential and their legitimate economic 
     aspirations.
       What Argentina, with dramatic projected economic growth, 
     recognizes is true for other countries as well: We can and we 
     must work together on this problem in a way that benefits us 
     all. Here at home, we must move forward by unleashing the 
     full power of free markets an technological innovations to 
     meet the challenge of climate change. I propose a sweeping 
     plan to provide incentives and lift road blocks to help our 
     companies and our citizens find new and creative ways of 
     reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
       First, we must enact tax cuts and make research and 
     development investments worth up to $5 billion over the next 
     five years--targeted incentives to encourage energy 
     efficiency and the use of cleaner energy sources.
       Second, we must urge companies to take early actions to 
     reduce emissions by ensuring that they receive appropriate 
     credit for showing the way.
       Third, we must create a market system for reducing 
     emissions wherever they can be achieved most inexpensively, 
     here or abroad; a system that will draw on our successful 
     experience with acid rain permit trading.
       Fourth, we must reinvent how the federal government, the 
     nation's largest energy consumer, buys and uses energy. 
     Through new technology, renewable energy resources, 
     innovative partnerships with private firms and assessments of 
     greenhouse gas emissions from major federal projects, the 
     federal government will play an important role in helping our 
     nation to meet its goal. Today, as a down payment on our 
     mission solar roof initiative, I commit the federal 
     government to have 20,000 systems on federal buildings by 
     2010.
       Fifth, we must unleash competition in the electricity 
     industry, to remove outdated regulations and save Americans 
     billions of dollars. We must do it in a way that leads to 
     even greater progress in cleaning our air and delivers a 
     significant down payment in reducing greenhouse gas 
     emissions. Today, two-thirds of the energy used to provide 
     electricity is squandered in waste heat. We can do much, much 
     better.
       Sixth, we must continue to encourage key industry sectors 
     to prepare their own greenhouse gas reduction plans, and we 
     must, along with state and local government, remove the 
     barriers to the most energy efficient usage possible. There 
     are ways the federal government can help industry to achieve 
     meaningful reductions voluntarily, and we will redouble our 
     efforts to do so.
       This plan is sensible and sound. Since it's a long-term 
     problem requiring a long-term solution, it will be phased in 
     over time. But we want to get moving now. We will start with 
     our package of strong market incentives, tax cuts, and 
     cooperative efforts with industry. We want to stimulate early 
     action and encourage leadership. And as we reduce our 
     emissions over the next decade with these efforts, we will 
     perform regular reviews to see what works best for the 
     environment, the economy, and our national security.
       After we have accumulated a decade of experience, a decade 
     of data, a decade of technological innovation, we will launch 
     a broad emissions trading initiative to ensure that we hit 
     our binding targets. At that time, if there are dislocations 
     caused by the changing patterns of energy use in America, we 
     have a moral obligation to respond to those to help the 
     workers and the enterprises affected--no less than we do 
     today by any change in our economy which affects people 
     through no fault of their own.

[[Page S11021]]

       This plan plays to our strengths--innovation, creativity, 
     entrepreneurship. Our companies already are showing the way 
     by developing tremendous environmental technologies and 
     implementing commonsense conservation solutions.
       Just yesterday, Secretary Pena announced a dramatic 
     breakthrough in fuel cell technology, funded by the 
     Department of Energy research--a breakthrough that will clear 
     the way toward developing cars that are twice as efficient as 
     today's models and reduce pollution by 90 percent. The 
     breakthrough was made possible by our path-breaking 
     partnership with the auto industry to create a new generation 
     of vehicles. A different design, producing similar results, 
     has been developed by a project funded by the Defense 
     Advanced Research Products Agency and the Commerce 
     Department's National Institute of Science and Technology.
       The Energy Department discovery is amazing in what it does. 
     Today, gasoline is used very inefficiently in internal 
     combustion engines--about 80 percent of its energy capacity 
     is lost. The DOE project announced yesterday by A.D. Little 
     and Company uses 84 percent of the gasoline directly going 
     into the fuel cell. That's increased efficiency of more than 
     four times traditional engine usage.
       And I might add, from the point of view of all the people 
     that are involved in the present system, continuing to use 
     gasoline means that you don't have to change any of the 
     distribution systems that are out there. It's a very 
     important, but by no means the only, discovery that's been 
     made that points the way toward the future we have to 
     embrace.
       I also want to emphasize, however, that most of the 
     technologies available for meeting this goal through market 
     mechanisms are already out there--we simply have to take 
     advantage of them. For example, in the town of West Branch, 
     Iowa, a science teacher named Hector Ibarra challenged his 
     6th graders to apply their classroom experiments to making 
     their school more energy efficient. The class got a $14,000 
     loan from a local bank and put in place easily available 
     solutions. The students cut the energy use in their school by 
     70 percent. Their savings were so impressive that the bank 
     decided to upgrade its own energy efficiency. (Laughter.)
       Following the lead of these 6th graders--(laughter)--other 
     major companies in America have shown similar results. You 
     have only to look at the proven results achieved by companies 
     like Southwire, Dow Chemical, Dupont, Kraft, Interface 
     Carpetmakers, and any number of others in every sector of our 
     economy to see what can be done.
       Our industries have produced a large group of efficient new 
     refrigerators, computers, washer/dryers, and other appliances 
     that use far less energy, save money, and cut pollution. The 
     revolution in lighting alone is truly amazing. One compact 
     fluorescent lamp, used by one person over its lifetime, can 
     save nearly a ton of carbon dioxide emissions from the 
     atmosphere, and save the consumer money.
       If over the next 15 years everyone were to buy only those 
     energy-efficient products marked in stores with EPA's 
     distinctive ``Energy Star'' label, we could shrink our 
     energy bills by a total of about $100 billion, over the 
     next 15 years and dramatically cut greenhouse gas 
     emissions.
       Despite these win-win innovations and commitments that are 
     emerging literally every day, I know full well that some will 
     criticize our targets and timetables as too ambitious. And, 
     of course, others will say we haven't gone far enough. But 
     before the debate begins in earnest, let's remember that over 
     the past generation, we've produced tremendous environmental 
     progress, including in the area of energy efficiency, at far 
     less expenses than anyone could have imagined. And in the 
     process, whole new industries have been built.
       In the past three decades, while our economy has grown, we 
     have raised, not lowered, the standards for the water our 
     children drink. While our factories have been expanding, we 
     have required them to clean up their toxic waste. While we've 
     had record numbers of new homes, our refrigerators save more 
     energy and more money for our consumers.
       In 1970, when smog was choking our cities, the federal 
     government proposed new standards for tallpipe emissions. 
     Many environmental leaders claim the standards would do 
     little to head off catastrophe. Industry experts predicted 
     the cost of compliance would devastate the industry. It 
     turned out both sides were wrong. Both underestimated the 
     ingenuity of the American people. Auto makers comply with 
     today's much stricter emissions standards for far less than 
     half the cost predicted, and new cars emit on average only 5 
     percent of the pollutants of the cars built in 1970.
       We've seen this pattern over and over and over again. We 
     saw it when we joined together in the '70s to restrict the 
     use of the carcinogen, vinyl chloride. Some in the plastics 
     industry predicted massive bankruptcies, but chemists 
     discovered more cost-effective substitutes and the industries 
     thrived. We saw this when we phased out lead and gasoline. 
     And we see it in our acid rain trading program--now 40 
     percent ahead of schedule--at costs less than 50 percent of 
     even the most optimistic cost projections. We see it as the 
     chlorofluorocarbons are being taken out of the atmosphere at 
     virtually no cost in ways that apparently are beginning 
     finally to show some thickening of the ozone layer again.
       The lesson here is simple: Environmental initiatives, if 
     sensibly designed, flexibly implemented, cost less than 
     expected and provide unforeseen economic opportunities. So 
     while we recognize that the challenge we take on today is 
     larger than any environmental mission we have accepted in the 
     past, climate change can bring us together around what 
     America does best--we innovate, we compete, we find solutions 
     to problems, and we do it in a way that promotes 
     entrepreneurship and strengthens the American economy.
       If we do it right, protecting the climate will yield not 
     costs, but profits, not burdens, but benefits; not sacrifice, 
     but a higher standard of living. There is a huge body of 
     business evidence now showing that energy savings give better 
     service at lower cost with higher profit. We have to tear 
     down barriers to successful markets and we have to create 
     incentives to enter them. I call on American business to lead 
     the way, but I call upon government at every level--federal, 
     state, and local--to give business the tools they need to get 
     the job done, and also to set an example in all our 
     operations.
       And let us remember that the challenge we face today is not 
     simply about targets and timetables. It's about our most 
     fundamental values and our deepest obligations.
       Later today, I'm going to have the honor of meeting with 
     Ecumenical Patriarch Batholomew I, the spiritual leader of 
     300,000,000 Orthodox Christians--a man who has always 
     stressed the deep obligations inherent in God's gift to the 
     natural world. He reminds us that the first part of the word 
     ``ecology'' derives from the Greek word for house. In his 
     words, in order to change the behavior toward the house we 
     all share, we must rediscover spiritual linkages that may 
     have been lost and reassert human values. Of course, he is 
     right. It is our solemn obligation to move forward with 
     courage and foresight to pass our home on to our children and 
     future generations.
       I hope you believe with me that his is just another 
     challenge in America's long history, one that we can meet in 
     the way we have met all past challenges. I hope that you 
     believe with me that the evidence is clear that we can do it 
     in a way that grows the economy, not with denial, but with a 
     firm and glad embrace of yet another challenge of renewal. We 
     should be glad that we are alive today to embrace this 
     challenge, and we should do it secure in the knowledge that 
     our children and grandchildren will thank us for the 
     endeavor.
       Thank you very much.

  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I also point out it is true that yesterday 
the group of 77 and China proposed a 15 percent reduction in greenhouse 
gases by the year 2010 under a framework that would exempt developing 
nations. That is a proposal that would do serious harm to the U.S. 
economy. It does completely ignore the growing contributions of 
developing nations to the problem. It anticipates a command-and-control 
model that would undermine all of the opportunities for cost savings 
inherent in the market-based solutions that the President has proposed. 
I believe that is a proposal that U.S. Senators ought to oppose, and I 
am confident we would. But that is not what the President will agree 
to. That is not what the President has proposed. That is not, clearly, 
the negotiating framework within which the United States will attempt 
to approach this treaty.
  I urge my colleagues to read the remarks of the President so they 
will understand how fully it is within the framework of the resolution 
that the Senate passed. I hope my colleagues will stand back and really 
make judgments based on a fair appraisal of our negotiating position 
and ultimately what we hope to achieve in Kyoto.
  Mr. President, before I yield, I would just say it is my hope, 
obviously, we are about to be able to talk about the framework in which 
we are going to proceed on campaign finance reform. I would like to 
thank all of those parties who have worked together to try to come to 
what I think is a reasonable agreement on that.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I may proceed 
as in morning business for 20 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, reserving the right to object--of course, I 
will not object--I wonder if I could get consent to be recognized after 
the majority leader and the minority leader, who are going be 
recognized a little later? Following their recognition, I would like to 
be recognized.
  Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, I would object to that. I only can assume 
that the Senator wants to speak first. The business before us will be 
the ISTEA legislation.

[[Page S11022]]

  Mr. BYRD. Yes.
  Mr. CHAFEE. As manager, normally I would be the first, the one who 
would be recognized first, under that. I don't want to waive that.
  Mr. BYRD. I ask unanimous consent that after Mr. Chafee is 
recognized, in that order, after the two leaders, then Mr. Chafee, if I 
could be recognized?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the unanimous consent 
request by the Senator from Alabama? Without objection, it is so 
ordered. The Senator from Alabama is recognized for up to 20 minutes.
  Is there objection to the unanimous consent request by the Senator 
from West Virginia, that he would follow the Senator from Rhode Island? 
If not, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BYRD. I thank the distinguished Senator from Alabama for his 
characteristic courtesy.
  Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, at this point I yield 2 minutes of my time 
to the distinguished Senator from Idaho.

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