[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 160 (Thursday, November 13, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2359-E2360]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  OHIO STATE TREASURER J. KENNETH BLACKWELL ADDRESSES PROPOSED GLOBAL 
                             CLIMATE TREATY

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. STEVE CHABOT

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, November 13, 1997

  Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, I want to insert in the Record today an 
insightful speech delivered at the recent Global Change Conference here 
in Washington by Ohio's State Treasurer J. Kenneth Blackwell.
  As my colleagues know, despite considerable uncertainty about the 
significance of global warming, the Clinton administration is moving 
ahead with plans to reduce carbon emissions, or greenhouse gases in the 
United States to 1990 levels by the year 2010. The costs of achieving 
that goal, of course, will be absorbed by the American people in the 
form of higher energy costs and higher taxes.
  Mr. Blackwell very eloquently addresses the global warming issue and 
the fundamental flaws in the Kyoto Climate Change Treaty. I commend his 
speech to my colleagues.

       The Climate Treaty--The Right Answer to the Wrong Question

       As I began preparing for my part in today's discussion, I 
     recalled a remark attributed to J. Pierpont Morgan. A woman 
     is said to have approached him at a social gathering roughly 
     100 years ago and asked, ``Mr. Morgan, what is the stock 
     market going to do?''
       Morgan hesitated a moment and then gave the woman the full 
     benefit of his years of money-accumulating experience. 
     ``Madam,'' he said, ``the stock market will fluctuate.''
       If J. Pierpont Morgan had been born 100 years later and 
     specialized in climate instead of money, and if he were asked 
     now what the climate is going to do, the same answer would be 
     appropriate. ``Madam, the climate will fluctuate.''
       I do not mean to suggest by this that we can ignore the 
     possibility that this time Henny Penny may be right. The sky 
     may be warming. The seas may rise. And it would be 
     irresponsible to sit idly by doing nothing if there is a real 
     chance that all the world's coastal cities will go under 
     water in the next 50 or 100 years.
       Neither, however, do I believe it responsible to rush to 
     the binding international agreement the Administration is 
     proposing to replace the voluntary approach we agreed to in 
     Rio de Janeiro in 1992.
       The administration's proposal is a fast answer to 
     incompletely formulated questions based on inadequate data. 
     Fast answers all too often are half-baked. In this case, the 
     kindest thing we can say about the fast answer is that it is 
     not fast at all. At best, it is half fast.
       Just for starters, we do not know whether global warming is 
     taking place now. It is true that surface temperature 
     readings have gone up by about one degree Celsius over the 
     past century. Some evidence suggests that over the past 
     decade, however, modest global cooling may have occurred. At 
     this point, we simply do not know. What we do know is that 
     the Climate Treaty will not answer this question. Only time 
     and serious scientific study will produce an answer.
       If global warming is taking place, we do not know the 
     extent to which greenhouse gases may be responsible. For 
     years, climatologists believed that the sun's energy output 
     was constant, but I have read recently that some now believe 
     the solar constant may not be constant at all. Variations in 
     solar activity may well account for the one degree rise in 
     global temperature recorded over the past 100 years. This one 
     degree change may be an entirely natural progression 
     following the Little Ice Age which ended about the time Mr. 
     Morgan was sharing his wisdom on the stock market, and it may 
     well prove to be cyclical.
       Even if in the face of all the scientific uncertainties, we 
     could properly conclude that capping CO2 emissions 
     would remove the potential threat of global warming, there is 
     little reason to believe that the Administration's proposal 
     will accomplish that objective. Even its supporters concede 
     that emissions from China and India alone are likely to 
     overwhelm the proposed reductions by the U.S. and Western 
     Europe.
       Although the proposed Climate Treaty is not an answer to 
     either the objective of understanding global warming or 
     capping CO2 emissions, we can be certain that it 
     will accomplish several other objectives. I think it will be 
     helpful to consider some of them.
       First, if we want to hasten the day when the United Nations 
     will be transformed from an association of sovereign states 
     into a one-world governing body, the Climate Treaty will 
     work! Some international entity will be necessary to enforce 
     emission mandates. Many Americans bridled at the 55 mile per 
     hour national speed limit. Imagine that fast answer expanded 
     to cover all matters involving energy consumption, and 
     imagine it administered out of Geneva instead of 
     Washington, D.C. That's the path we are on if we accept 
     binding international mandates.
       Second, many people complain about the fact that combined 
     federal, state and local

[[Page E2360]]

     taxes take more of an average household's income than food, 
     clothing and shelter. The Climate Treaty will address that 
     complaint in several ways.
       Given the emission caps which would be required by the year 
     2010, and using mainstream economic assumptions, personal 
     incomes will go down. In my home state of Ohio, real income 
     per capita will drop almost 10 percent, so with no change in 
     our income tax rates, taxpayers will pay less. This will 
     squeeze the State, but we should be able to make up the 
     roughly two percent shortfall in tax revenues.
       The good news does not stop with the reduction in income, 
     and therefore income taxes. Housing and food prices will go 
     up about 10 percent, and the cost of clothing will go up 
     along with all other manufactured goods. Some skeptics will 
     argue that the increased cost of the necessities should be 
     accounted for as taxes, but we will at least have the 
     appearance of a change in the relationship of taxes versus 
     basics.
       Third, we should see some public health benefits from this 
     proposal. Service jobs are usually less hazardous than 
     manufacturing jobs, so those among the 34,000 Ohioans who 
     lose their manufacturing jobs but exchange them for service 
     jobs may thereby find work where they are less likely to 
     suffer on-the-job injuries. This may not compute, because 
     total employment is projected to fall by more than 58,000 
     jobs, but even so, workers are surely safer sitting at home 
     than going into the perilous workplace.
       And these fortunate Ohioans will be encouraged to improve 
     their health in other ways. Many will almost certainly choose 
     to exercise more, at least during the winter, because their 
     household energy bills will be nine hundred to eleven hundred 
     dollars higher, so they will have to keep moving to stay 
     warm. With food costs up nearly ten percent, meat consumption 
     should go down, still another benefit.
       Fourth, increasing the cost of gasoline by fifty cents a 
     gallon will surely reduce exposure to highway accidents. If 
     people cannot afford to drive, they are less likely to be 
     hurt as long as they do not walk on the road.
       I would like to wrap up my remarks with a political 
     comment. With the benefit of 20-20 hindsight, it is clear 
     that President George Bush made at least two mistakes in his 
     presidency, both having to do with the timing of major 
     events. First, he should not have won the Gulf War so long 
     before he had to run for re-election--the 1992 outcome would 
     quite likely have been different if he had still had his 
     post-war approval ratings in the 90's. Second, he should not 
     have signed on to the Democratic Party's tax increase so 
     close to the election. President Clinton certainly learned 
     from that mistake!
       But on the global warming subject, President Bush was right 
     on the money in 1992 when he agreed to voluntary, not 
     mandatory, CO2 caps, and to continued scientific scrutiny of 
     the warming phenomenon to see what future action would be 
     indicated, what action would work, and what action would be 
     worth what it cost.

     

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