[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 155 (Friday, November 7, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11916-S11917]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      INTERNATIONAL CLIMATE TREATY

  Mr. MURKOWSKI. There has been an awful lot of concern relative to the 
issue of global warming, greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide emissions, et 
cetera.
  This December, representatives of 166 nations are going to meet in 
Kyoto, Japan, to broker a new international climate treaty. This treaty 
will set new emissions controls for carbon dioxide and other greenhouse 
gases.
  Unfortunately, 130 of the 166 nations, including China, Mexico, and 
South Korea, are explicitly exempt from the new emissions controls or 
any new commitments whatsoever. As a consequence, it is my opinion that 
such a treaty simply cannot work and will not be ratified by the 
Senate.
  Even if one favors strong action to curb carbon emissions, there are 
three key reasons to oppose the approach embodied in the draft treaty.
  The first reason is, selectively applied emissions limits will harm 
large sectors of our economy.
  Analysts expect even the most modest versions of the treaty to cost 
over a million and a half jobs by the year 2005, along with cumulative 
losses in gross domestic product exceeding $16 trillion from the year 
2005 to the year 2015.
  While the President claims the new global climate treaty will not 
harm the economy, the administration abandoned its internal analysis 
after their economic models predicted disaster --even when rosy 
assumptions were factored in. So bad were the results that the 
administration refused to even appear at a hearing of our Energy and 
Natural Resources Committee to comment on the treaty's economic 
impacts.
  Second, the environmental benefits of this treaty are really 
questionable, Mr. President.
  Any treaty without new commitments for developing nations will 
encourage the movement of production, capital, jobs, and emissions from 
the 36 nations subject to emissions controls to the 130 nations that 
are not.
  Actual global emissions will not decrease. Only their point of origin 
will change.
  Ironically, because of our industrial processes, which are more 
energy efficient than those found in developing nations, global carbon 
emissions per unit of production would, in my opinion, actually 
increase. In other words, we would endure economic pain for no 
identifiable environmental gain.
  Third, selectively applied emissions controls will doom any climate 
treaty that contains them.
  By an overwhelming vote of 95 to 0, this body, the U.S. Senate, 
passed a resolution in July demanding any new climate treaty contain 
new obligations--new obligations--for developing nations. At the same 
time, Mr. President, developing nations refuse to sign up to such a 
treaty. Thus, selectively applied emissions controls have become the 
so-called poison pill that is preventing the world from reasonably 
addressing the climate change issue.
  So I think it is time to be a bit pragmatic. If we want to keep a new 
climate treaty from becoming an international embarrassment, we should 
reconsider the rush to Kyoto and expand solutions that really work.
  What can really work, Mr. President?
  One is nuclear energy. One is hydropower. For instance, nuclear 
energy produces roughly a third of our electricity without significant 
emissions of carbon dioxide. Yet, President Clinton's global warming 
explicitly ignores these sources of virtually carbon-free energy.
  Even worse, Mr. President, the Clinton administration threatens--and 
has threatened numerously--to veto any nuclear waste legislation and 
continues to consider proposals to tear down hydropower dams, policies 
that endanger the carbon-free solutions that are in place today, and 
calls into question the administration's commitment to reduce our 
carbon emissions in a balanced, responsible manner.

[[Page S11917]]

  We even see the Sierra Club come out against wind power claiming that 
the windmills are some kind of Cuisinart that decimates the bird 
population.
  What does our President propose?
  It is rather interesting to reflect on where we are now because he 
has come almost full circle. The President hints at some vague notion 
of meeting our emissions targets through electricity restructuring, but 
he is very short on specifics. Perhaps the President is playing to the 
headlines today, but leaving the details to tomorrow or to the next 
administration.
  His proposal is that we, by the year 2008 to 2011, reduce our 
emissions to the level of 1990. Well, where is his administration going 
to be by that time? So they are just putting these things off as 
opposed to coming up with the mechanics that will work.
  There are, in fact, things that we can do in the context of energy 
restructuring that can help restabilize our carbon emissions. We have 
had some 13 hearings on this subject in my committee, the Energy 
Committee, and we have heard from 120 witnesses. Thus, I am prepared to 
suggest some of the specifics that the President has not suggested.
  For example, we can provide for stranded cost recovery of the more 
than 100 nuclear power reactors that together provide some 22 percent 
of our total electric power generation.
  We can provide incentives to encourage or require regions to employ a 
mix of carbon-free wind, solar, nuclear, or hydropower adequate to 
achieve a specified carbon-free emissions standard.
  We can offer a means to certify the claims of power producers who 
wish to market their power to consumers as low-carbon or carbon-free.
  And we can offer assistance for market-led investments in new 
research towards carbon-free or low-carbon energy.
  There is no shortage of policies we can pursue if we really want to 
address the issue of carbon emissions. We can be encouraged about 
recent technology breakthroughs in fuel cell technology, wind energy, 
solar technologies, and advanced nuclear plant designs.
  In the end, I think, Mr. President, American ingenuity, technological 
innovation, and common sense will produce the solutions that the U.N. 
negotiations thus far have been unable to provide.
  Finally, Mr. President, we need to employ these new technologies to 
increase energy efficiency, promote conservation, and stabilize our 
carbon emissions--but we do not need a flawed treaty that cannot get 
the job done. The climate issue is serious, but so are issues of 
equity, economic prosperity, and pragmatism.

  During the last round of negotiations at Bonn, the draft treaty got 
worse. It got worse, not better. As a consequence, we need to prepare 
ourselves and the American people for the prospect that the new treaty 
will be unworthy of support, even if you are deeply concerned about the 
increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, as I am. In other words, 
it doesn't do us any good to board a fast train, a fast train that is 
going in the wrong direction, particularly if all nations of the world 
aren't aboard.
  I yield the floor.

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