[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 43 (Monday, April 20, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3240-S3246]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       U.N. GLOBAL CLIMATE TREATY

  Mr. HAGEL. Mr. President, last month the U.N. global climate treaty 
became available for the formal signatures of those countries who 
reached

[[Page S3241]]

agreement in Kyoto, Japan, in December. President Clinton has not 
signed the treaty. There is speculation, however, that he may sign the 
treaty this week.
  Today we remind the President that the U.N. global climate treaty 
does not meet the standards clearly established by the U.S. Senate in 
its 95-0 vote last year on the Byrd-Hagel resolution, Senate Resolution 
98. The President should not sign any treaty until that treaty complies 
with Senate Resolution 98 in its entirety.
  The administration completely ignored the strong position of the 
Senate when it agreed to this treaty last December.
  I led the Senate observer group delegation to Kyoto, Japan, in 
December. After Vice President Gore came to Kyoto and instructed our 
negotiators to show ``increased flexibility,'' the doors were thrown 
open and the objective became very clear. The objective was: Let us get 
a deal at any cost. The clear advice of the U.S. Senate and the 
economic well-being of the American people were abandoned under 
pressure from the U.N. bureaucrats, international environmentalists and 
the 134 developing countries that were not even included--not even 
included--in the treaty. The United States of America was the only 
Nation to come out of these negotiations worse than it came in. In 
fact, there was no negotiation in Kyoto; there was only surrender.
  When the Senate voted last year on the Byrd-Hagel resolution, it was 
very clear as to what the resolution said.
  First, it directed the President not to sign any treaty that placed 
legally binding obligations on the United States to limit or reduce 
greenhouse gas emissions unless--unless--and I quote directly from S. 
Res. 98 passed last year by this body 95-0--

       . . . unless the protocol or agreement also mandates new 
     specific scheduled commitments to limit or reduce greenhouse 
     gas emissions [for all nations] for Developing Country 
     Parties within the same compliance period.

  Meaning simply that if this was a global problem, it required a 
global solution. All nations had to be bound by legally binding 
mandates, not just the United States and the other developed nations. 
The message was simple. There was no ambiguity. This was not the 
administration's nebulous definition of ``meaningful participation'' 
for developing countries. This word of the Senate was quite clear.
  The Kyoto Protocol does not include a single developing nation. The 
Kyoto Protocol agreed to by the United States in December does not 
include a single developing country; 134 developing nations, including 
China, Mexico, India, Brazil, and South Korea, many of whom compete 
fiercely--fiercely--with the United States for trade opportunities, are 
completely exempt from any obligations or responsibilities for reducing 
greenhouse gas emissions.
  During a recent hearing in the Foreign Relations Committee, 
Undersecretary of State Stuart Eizenstat, the lead U.S. negotiator in 
Kyoto, admitted the administration failed on this account. Secretary 
Eizenstat said--and I quote the Undersecretary--``You're absolutely 
right; we did not get binding commitments [from any] developing 
countries.''

  The second requirement of the Byrd-Hagel resolution speaks directly 
to the impact this treaty would have on the American people. And it, 
too--it too--fell victim in Kyoto. Senate Resolution 98 stated that the 
President should not sign any treaty which ``. . . would result in 
serious harm to the economy of the United States.''
  The Kyoto Protocol would legally bind the United States to reduce our 
greenhouse gas emissions to 7 percent below 1990 levels by the years 
2008 to 2012. It even goes much further than the President's own bottom 
line that he personally announced last October when President Clinton 
pledged he would not accept a baseline below 1990 levels in greenhouse 
gas emissions, and he said there must be ``meaningful participation'' 
from all developing countries.
  Numerous independent economic studies predicted serious economic harm 
even if the administration had held to its position that it enunciated 
last October. These studies found job losses in the range of over 2 
million, large increases in energy costs, a 50-cent increase in gas 
prices per gallon, a drop in economic growth rates of more than 1 
percent a year, and major American industries being driven out of 
business or driven out of the United States--industries like steel, 
aluminum, petroleum refining, chemicals, iron, paper products, and 
cement.
  That is why American agriculture, American labor, American business 
and industry and many consumer groups have all united in opposition--in 
opposition--to this treaty. Yet, our negotiators in Kyoto--the ones who 
were supposed to be looking out for the American people--agreed to a 
treaty that would have had an even more devastating impact on the U.S. 
economy and on the lives of the American people.
  The administration's recent anemic attempt to develop an economic 
analysis showing ``minimal'' harm to the U.S. economy is laughable. It 
is truly laughable. No models, no numbers, no percentages, no 
economics. It is laughable. It is based on fabrication and vapor, on a 
wildly optimistic assumption--as an example, China, India and Mexico 
agreeing to the binding commitments in this treaty. That is nonsense, 
Mr. President. These very nations blocked language in Kyoto, Japan, 
last year that would have allowed developing countries to even 
voluntarily--voluntarily--undertake the obligations of this treaty. 
They will never agree to binding commitments, and have so stated.
  Even from an environmental standpoint, the Kyoto Protocol is a 
failure. This Wednesday is Earth Day, and some will undoubtedly attempt 
to hold up this treaty as an example of a significant accomplishment to 
help our environment. The truth is, this treaty is so flawed that it 
will do virtually nothing to slow the growth of manmade greenhouse 
gasses in the atmosphere. Even if one accepts the validity of the 
science on global warming, which is still uncertain and at best 
contradictory, this treaty would do nothing to stop any of these 
emissions. The Kyoto Protocol excludes the very developing nations who 
will be responsible for more than 60 percent of the world's manmade 
greenhouse gas emissions early in the next century.
  China will be the world's largest emitter of manmade greenhouse 
gasses by the year 2015. On February 13 of this year, the Washington 
Post reported, ``But even if the accord is ratified and fully 
implemented, it would barely dent the world's output of manmade 
greenhouse gasses * * * .'' This treaty makes no sense. It is folly, 
complete folly.
  Yet, the administration has made it clear that President Clinton 
intends to sign this treaty at some point during the period it is open 
for signature between now and next March. The administration has also 
made it very clear that it understands the treaty has no chance of 
ratification in the Senate and that it intends to withhold this treaty 
from Senate consideration. The President claims that the treaty is, in 
his words, ``a work in progress.'' This leaves people with the mistaken 
impression that the treaty remains under negotiation and that 
objectionable parts of the treaty can be negotiated away before it is 
submitted to the Senate. Mr. President, this is not the case. This is 
not the case. Why would anyone sign a legally binding treaty they 
consider a work in progress? That is complete nonsense.
  This treaty cannot be amended until it goes into force, and even 
then, only by a three-quarters vote of all countries that have become 
party to the protocol. The 134 developing countries that would not even 
voluntarily sign on to this, which are not bound by any emissions 
limits, make up more than the three-quarters of the world's nations. 
Hence, they control any amendment to this treaty. The countries that 
have no obligations in this treaty are the very nations that dictate 
and enforce its terms. This is outrageous.
  My coauthor of S. Res. 98, Senator Byrd of West Virginia, said 
recently on the floor of the Senate that the Kyoto Protocol did not 
meet either of the Senate standards laid out in the Byrd-Hagel 
resolution. Senator Byrd said, ``I hope that the President will not 
sign his name to the protocol at this point * * * I am concerned that 
if the President signs this protocol at this point, it will compromise 
his flexibility in dealing with the developing countries over the next 
year.''

[[Page S3242]]

  Senator Byrd is absolutely correct. It makes no sense to sign a 
flawed treaty, thereby giving away our leverage and our negotiating 
strength. If the President believes this treaty is good enough to sign, 
it should be good enough, Mr. President, to submit to the Senate for an 
honest and open debate. The American people have a right to know 
exactly what obligations the United States would have under this 
treaty.
  Members of the Senate and the House will remain actively engaged in 
this issue. Oversight hearings will continue. We will continue to hold 
hearings this year to ensure that the administration does not attempt 
to implement this treaty or any part of this treaty prior to Senate 
ratification through Executive order, budget fiat, or regulatory 
action.
  During the Foreign Relations Committee hearing in February, I asked 
Secretary Eizenstat about any attempts to implement this treaty prior 
to Senate ratification. He replied, ``We have no intention through the 
back door or anything else, without Senate confirmation, of trying to 
impose or take any steps to impose what would be binding restrictions 
on our companies, on our industry, on our business, on our agriculture, 
on our commerce, or on our country until and unless the Senate of the 
United States says so.'' That is Secretary Eizenstat.
  Mr. President, we will hold the Clinton administration to its word. 
Recent news reports, however, have brought to light a very dishonest 
attempt by the EPA to impose carbon emissions caps through the 
deregulation of the electric industry. I was glad to see that the 
administration dropped this nonsense from its final electric 
deregulation proposal. There will be no implementation of this treaty 
before ratification by the Senate of the United States.
  The Senate's bottom line, as represented in the unanimous 95-0 vote 
on S. Res. 98, remains unchanged. The U.S. Senate will not support the 
ratification of the Kyoto treaty because it does not include binding 
commitments by the developing nations and does serious harm to the U.S. 
economy.
  This has become an economic treaty, not an environmental treaty, and 
it is a bad treaty for America. So bad that it will not be ratified by 
this body.
  Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, Wednesday is Earth Day--a good time to 
reflect on our responsibilities to preserve and protect the environment 
that we will pass on to our children and grandchildren.
  I have six children, and, at last count, eleven grandchildren. I 
obviously care about the environment they will grow up in.
  I am encouraged by the fact that the air we breathe and the water 
that flows though America's rivers are far cleaner today than they were 
on the first Earth Day in 1970. You might not know that is the case if 
you listen exclusively to the gloom and doom pronouncements of many 
institutional environmental groups.
  Sometimes, these groups place my name on a list or issue a ``report 
card'' on my voting record that might lead one to believe that I do not 
care about the environment. This is, of course, nonsense. You cannot 
have eleven grand kids at the center of your life while working to 
shortchange the environment.
  Having said that, I must join my colleagues in reporting to the 
Senate that Vice President Gore returned from Kyoto with a climate 
treaty so fatally flawed that it will never be ratified by the Senate 
or enter into force. Nor should it.
  While the climate issue must be taken seriously, the Senate would be 
shirking its constitutional responsibilities if it were to ratify a 
treaty that is so blatantly unfair, economically burdensome, and of no 
benefit to the environment.
  The unfairness of the treaty lies mainly in its exclusion of 
``developing'' nations such as China, India, South Korea and Mexico. 
Emissions from these nations will exceed ours in about 15 years, and 
their exclusion will only encourage the shift of manufacturing (and 
resulting emissions) from the nations subject to controls to the 
nations that are not. Thus, global emissions would not decrease. Since 
developing nations are less energy-efficient than we are, emissions 
might even increase. Under the treaty there would be no global 
environmental gain--but America would suffer economic pain.
  According to the respected economic firm Wharton Econometrics, the 
Kyoto Treaty would reduce Gross Domestic Product by more than $2,000 
per household in 2010--and $30,000 per household between 2001-2020. 
Moreover, 2.5 million Americans would lose their jobs. Since the 
climate change problem will one day be addressed through technological 
innovation fostered in a healthy economic environment, the last thing 
we want to do is adopt a treaty that would create a national economic 
decline reminiscent of the oil shocks of the 1970s.
  If we are truly concerned about carbon emissions, we will revitalize 
nuclear energy and hydropower--our only large-scale, base-load sources 
of carbon free electricity. Nuclear energy generates 22% of our 
electricity, and hydropower adds an additional 11%. Solar and wind 
energy, in comparison, fill one-tenth of one percent of our total 
energy needs. Although solar and wind energy will grow, the immutable 
laws of physics limit that growth to just a few percent. Presidential 
initiatives to place solar panels on a million roofs around the country 
may have symbolic value, but what is the administration doing to 
promote nuclear and hydropower--the carbon-free emission sources that 
can really make a difference?
  Unfortunately, the President opposes the nuclear waste bill that has 
passed the Senate twice by a wide, bipartisan margin. Any failure to 
address the nuclear waste issue will result in the premature closure of 
nuclear power plants, whose capacity will be replaced with carbon-
emitting, fossil-fuel plants.
  Bruce Babbitt aspires to be the first Interior Secretary to tear down 
hydropower dams. Additionally, other dams around the country are 
endangered by a cumbersome regulatory process that can make it cheaper 
to tear down the dam and purchase fossil-fuel generated power rather 
than endure the ordeal of relicensing before the Federal Energy 
Regulatory Commission.
  On the international energy front, administration policy is in 
opposition to China's Three Gorges hydroelectric project--the 
alternative to which is thirty six new carbon-belching 500 megawatt 
coal plants. Is this part of a consistent carbon reduction strategy? In 
an intellectual contortion that defies common sense, Administration 
energy policy is anti-nuclear and anti-hydropower while professing to 
be anti-carbon. To appreciate that, one only needs to read the 
President's Climate Initiative unveiled last October. Nuclear energy 
isn't even mentioned, and hydropower is explicitly discounted in the 
document's exclusive discussion of ``non-hydro'' renewable energy.
  What is the President's answer? The President's strategy is to push 
the issue off to someone else's watch. The Kyoto Treaty doesn't require 
carbon reductions until the year 2008.
  Meanwhile, by agreeing to a fatally flawed treaty in Kyoto, the Vice 
President revealed his own Achilles' heel--he can't say no to any 
environmental cause, even if it directly harms U.S. interests and jobs 
here at home. Kyoto has exposed that weakness, and now it is the 
Senate's Constitutional responsibility to ensure that a bad treaty will 
never be ratified.
  Ninety-five Senators rarely agree on anything--but they agreed with 
passage of the Byrd-Hagel resolution that any climate treaty must be 
globally applied, without harm to our economy. In the case of the Kyoto 
treaty, the President failed to take our advice--so he cannot expect to 
receive our consent.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. ENZI. I have just returned from a very enjoyable time of 
traveling around Wyoming, attending town meetings, going to school 
classrooms, pounding a little bit on a Habitat for Humanity house.
  When I left Wyoming, it was snowing. But the folks in Wyoming 
understand that if there hadn't been a little bit of global warming, we 
would be under about 300 feet of ice. So they may not be as concerned 
as perhaps some other places in the world, but I want to talk today a 
little bit about the global warming treaty as well. I went to the 
treaty conference in Kyoto. I went

[[Page S3243]]

with Senator Hagel and a couple of other Senators. The purpose of our 
trip was to convey the importance of the Byrd-Hagel resolution.
  We went over there to talk about a resolution that passed this Senate 
95-0. That is a pretty clear message, and it was also a very simple 
message. The developing nations have to participate in the treaty and 
the treaty cannot result in serious harm to the U.S. economy. I have to 
say the treaty fails. It is unfair. The benefits are unclear. The costs 
are unknown, and the administration is unresponsive to our requests for 
information.
  Kyoto was titled ``a global warming'' conference, but I have to say 
it was an economic conference disguised as an environmental conference. 
While we were over there, we got to meet with the Chinese delegation. 
The Chinese, by the year 2010, will be the world's largest polluter, 
unquestionably. We wanted to know what they intended to do about that. 
They said nothing, they are a developing nation. We asked them what 
their definition was of a ``developing nation'' so that we would know 
when they would no longer be a developing nation. They said, ``We will 
always be a developing nation.'' We asked them if they would do 
voluntary restraints on their pollution. They said no. We asked, How 
about voluntary restraints at some future unspecified date? I don't 
know how you can make any negotiation looser than that. Their answer 
was no.

  We also got to hear from some of the island nations that are refusing 
to be a part of any voluntary restraints. Island nations. We are 
talking about nations that, if global warming is true, the polar icecap 
will melt and their island will be inundated with water; they will 
disappear as a country. They said they would not be a part of it, that 
they were a developing nation and they didn't need to do it. To me, 
that is the best evidence that there isn't global warming.
  There is no consensus on global warming. Some scientists argue that 
the carbon dioxide in global warming is even good. The important thing 
is that we are already doing more than others. We are doing more 
without recognition. We are doing more without penalties. We are doing 
more because it is the right thing to do. But this was an economic 
conference disguised as an environmental conference. It was a 
conference where we lose.
  I remember an incident in the Northwest, near my home up in 
Washington, where we got concerned about the spotted owl, that it was 
headed for certain extinction. We halted the Northwest logging 
industry. We put an entire industry and its employees out of work. Our 
national forests were left unmanaged, and they are now a big tinderbox; 
they burn whenever lightning strikes. It is not very good stewardship 
when we are wasting what we have. After all this, we have discovered 
that this timid little bird has been building nests in billboards by 
the highways and they are undisturbed by the passing cars and trucks.
  A part of our economy moved to other countries where they don't have 
the environmental laws. Logging moved to Siberia. Russian loggers are 
tearing down 10 million acres of forest each year. In our effort to 
save the spotted owl, we have wiped out the Siberian tiger. We have to 
be careful with the consequences of what we are promoting.
  The Vice President believes we can get rid of coal and use clean 
energy, like wind. I have to tell you, there are few places that are 
windier than the little belt that goes across southern Wyoming. It is 
up in the high plains, where the wind doesn't have any trees to block 
it. We have tried some wind experiments there. They built a generator, 
only to have the wind velocity blow the rotors off. I asked the 
environmentalists, what about wind energy, what is the potential for 
that? It only makes up one-third of 1 percent of our country's energy 
use at the present time. Their response was that it will kill the bald 
eagles; the eagles will fly into the generators and get chopped up. Not 
a good solution. I asked about water. Well, water changes the nature of 
the fish that use it, if we use it for hydraulic power. Nuclear power--
we don't even have to talk about nuclear power and the problems 
supposed to be caused by it and the way that we haven't met our energy 
requirements for the storage of nuclear waste.
  The biggest thing that disturbed me about the Kyoto trip was that we 
went there without the data we requested. Before we went to Kyoto, we 
made it clear that there was information which we were certain any good 
negotiators would be gathering to use for their case. We still haven't 
gotten that. When we went over there, we talked about a 1990 date and 
maintaining the levels that we had in 1990. Our negotiators allowed the 
other countries to relax the criteria they had already agreed to 
while we made ours more difficult. Marvelous negotiating. They never 
did answer the questions about the kind of administration that would be 
necessary, the kind of bureaucracy that we build internationally, what 
kind of regulations, and to whom the United States would be subject. We 
didn't talk about the pollution topic, and that is going to be 
involved.

  I do remember, from some of the discussion of the Chinese, that they 
had a solution for penalties. There ought to be penalties for those 
developing nations that could not meet their criteria, and their idea 
was that the penalties then would be distributed to those developing 
nations on the basis of population. Now, there is negotiation.
  Numbers. We still don't have numbers. I put in an amendment last year 
on the foreign operations spending bill. It asked for the numbers that 
the administration has been collecting on global warming: How many 
American jobs would be lost with the treaty? How much will it cost the 
taxpayers to pay for Federal programs? What Federal programs will be 
needed? We haven't received an answer. Apparently, none of the agencies 
involved can say how much they are going to spend on climate change.
  This lack of accountability is a disgrace. The taxpayers should be 
outraged. Maybe we ought to sic some of those IRS auditors on the 
Office of Management and Budget until we get the numbers we asked for a 
year ago. Nobody knows exactly how much will be needed, where it is 
going, or what the purpose of it will be. Now, according to the numbers 
I am reading, that ought to be about a $6 billion to $10 billion 
violation of the Government Performance and Results Act.
  Yes, we have a law that says that the Government agencies are 
supposed to tell us what they are doing. Here is the important part. 
They are supposed to tell us how we can tell if it is getting done. And 
then it is supposed to be reflected in their budgets so that we can see 
that what they said they were going to do will get done within the 
constraints of the money that is there. Somewhere the numbers have to 
be available for what global warming--no, for what the administration's 
proposal of anti-economic development will cost us.
  It is time for the administration to tell us exactly how much, how it 
is going to be done, if there will be incentives or just penalties, how 
will it administer it and give a little bit of credit to those that are 
already working the problem without the international treaty. Americans 
have a right to know where their tax dollars are going. This last week, 
the American people spent their tax dollars, sent their tax dollars, 
will be audited on their tax dollars. It is time that we audit the 
Federal Government on the use of those tax dollars and hold them to the 
95-0 treaty that protects American jobs, and make sure that if we say 
we are going to do a job, we are able to do the job. We owe it to the 
American people.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. CRAIG addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho is recognized.
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, it is great to be back from our recess and 
once again to convene the Senate in the work of the citizens of this 
country.
  Mr. President, let me, first of all, recognize my colleague from 
Nebraska and my colleague from Wyoming and, for the record, praise them 
for the leadership they have demonstrated on the most critical issue 
that we address here on the floor this morning. Senator Hagel has 
become the Senate's leader, along with Senator Byrd of West Virginia, 
on this issue of climate change and trying to convince the 
Administration, and I think some of our critics, that the course this 
Administration

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pursues is not only unrealistic, it really is unjustified. Both Senator 
Hagel and Senator Enzi, as was recognized by the Senator from Wyoming, 
were in Kyoto to watch as this Administration negotiated and began to 
work on some form of protocol.
  I think we three Senators join on the floor this morning proud that 
during this century our Nation has developed into the strongest 
economic and military power ever to exist on the face of the Earth. Our 
democratic system of government, which ensures unparalleled freedom for 
its citizens, is the envy of the world. All of us in this body are 
entrusted with the responsibility to protect and enhance that very 
stature.
  Because I feel so strongly about that responsibility, it is with the 
most chilling concern that I comment today on the President's 
contemplated signing of the Kyoto Protocol on Global Climate Change. 
Despite grave bipartisan warnings from the Congress since the 
conclusion of the U.N. Global Climate Summit in Kyoto, the President 
insists on committing our country to an agreement that I believe 
threatens our way of life; indeed, it threatens the heart of our 
Nation's power--and the American economy.
  I, like many of my Senate colleagues, am confounded as to why the 
President is contemplating signing this agreement. I can only hope that 
it is not simply misguided loyalty to the Vice President, who every 
American knows is the main protagonist in this ill-conceived campaign 
to avoid what he calls ``an imminent environmental holocaust'' caused 
by global warming.
  Let me repeat those words. Catch the flavor and the emotional ring of 
``an imminent environmental holocaust.'' If anybody stood on the street 
corner of America and spoke with those terms, surely they would catch 
the attention of some. When the Vice President speaks in those terms, 
he catches the attention of many. There is only one problem with that 
kind of rhetoric. Few, if any, scientists today believe that the world 
is facing an environmental holocaust from global warming, much less an 
imminent one.
  In fact, as more and more American scientists review the available 
data on global warming, it is becoming increasingly clear that the vast 
majority believe the commitments for reduction of greenhouse gas 
emissions made by the Administration in the Kyoto Protocol is an 
unnecessary response to an exaggerated threat--``to an exaggerated 
threat'' that the Vice President himself is caught up in making. 
Indeed, just today more than 15,000 scientists, two-thirds with 
advanced academic degrees, released a petition they signed urging the 
United States to reject the Kyoto Protocol. The petition, expressly 
states that:

       There is no convincing scientific evidence that human 
     release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases 
     is causing or will cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's 
     atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate.

  Mr. President, why must the United States be a party to an agreement 
that will substantially and negatively affect our economy, change our 
way of life, and potentially weaken our ability to maintain the world's 
most powerful military without sufficient scientific evidence of 
impending doom--sufficient scientific evidence of impending doom? I 
submit that this Administration has yet to adequately answer that 
question. The President of the United States, over anyone else in our 
country, must answer that question.
  Even if we were to ignore the scientific evidence and assume that the 
world is facing an imminent environmental problem, this agreement does 
nothing to avoid the threat. Bert Bolin, a Swedish meteorologist and 
the outgoing chairman of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate 
Change, recently said that ``[t]he Kyoto conference did not achieve 
much with regard to limiting the buildup of greenhouse gases in the 
atmosphere.''--The Washington Post, February 13, 1998
  Therefore, I ask again: Why is the President going to sign this 
agreement, which, if ratified in its current form, will raise the costs 
for nearly everything in a typical American budget, in both the short 
term and long term?
  The Administration has attempted to relieve our economic concerns 
with a superficial analysis that presents a simplistic view of how 
American industry can adapt to new economic challenges and includes 
assumptions about the success of emission trading proposals that are 
untested in the international arena. This so-called economic analysis 
is contained in a 20-page paper by Janet Yellen, the Chairman of the 
President's Council of Economic Advisers, submitted as testimony to the 
House Commerce Committee and the Senate Committee on Agriculture, 
Nutrition, and Forestry.
  However, in testimony recently given before the Senate Agriculture 
Committee examining the Kyoto Agreement, Mary Novak, senior vice 
president of a respected economic forecasting forum --you have heard of 
them--called Wharton Econometrics Forecasting Associates, well-known 
worldwide for its expertise, stated that the Administration's economic 
analysis of the impact of the Kyoto Agreement is terribly flawed--not 
possibly flawed, not flawed in limited ways, but terribly flawed. Ms. 
Novak predicted that the total U.S. cost of meeting the Kyoto Agreement 
would be $250 billion, or a loss of 3.2 percent of gross domestic 
product. In addition, Ms. Novak stated that about 2.5 million jobs 
would be lost, and the annual expense per family would exceed $2,700 a 
year.
  If the Senate of the United States were, at this moment, 
contemplating an income tax increase that would increase the average 
family's taxes by $2,700, and if we passed it, very few, if any, of us 
would withstand the public outcry, let alone the voters at the ballot 
box in November. Yet, this President, because he thinks he can hide it 
through the processes of time and the procedure of international 
agreement, is proposing just that. That is what the WEFA says--an 
annual expense per family to exceed $2,700.
  Mr. President, if this administration were sincere about reducing 
greenhouse gas emissions, we would have seen in the President's budget 
proposal strong support for an array of reliable electric energy that 
we all know has a benign impact on the very environment that we all 
cherish and want to protect. Conspicuously absent from the President's 
Climate Change Technology Initiative was any support for nuclear or 
hydroelectric power. In fact, the President and the Vice President are 
hostile to nuclear and hydroelectric power. This very Administration 
has initiatives that will ultimately grind nuclear energy generation to 
a halt and would restrict us from any further development of hydro, let 
alone maintaining the status quo. Yet, both of these sources of power, 
as we know, do not produce one single molecule of greenhouse gas 
emissions into our atmosphere. Indeed, it is hard to imagine a cleaner 
source of power than falling water, or nuclear fission.
  What about the sincerity of this Administration's commitment to our 
Nation's global competitiveness?
  I was watching television yesterday catching the news shows and talk 
shows discussing the American economy. Many pundits were concerned 
about the aggressiveness of the stock market. Well, concerned, yet 
happy; but will this happiness last? We are surely concerned about the 
economics of the Pacific rim at this moment; and, nearly every 
economist on these shows were talking about the power of the current 
economy of the United States, how it pulls other economies with us, and 
that we continue to expect growth in the coming year; growth of about 
2.5 percent, growth very similar to the kind we had last year. And, 
while we are talking about that, while we recognize that our 
competitiveness in the global environment drives the global market, we 
have an Administration that is tinkering around with the idea of 
restricting the ability of our country to lead economically and to help 
out all other nations of the world with their own economic problems.
  Mr. President, our Nation's agricultural industry is one of several 
industries that will be adversely affected by the requirements of the 
Kyoto Agreement. American agriculture has evolved with the rapid 
adoption of new technology; it is both highly capital and energy 
intensive. Energy use in both direct and indirect ways, including the 
fuel and lubricants for machinery and vehicles, the natural gas used to 
dry crops and pump irrigation water, and the electricity used in a wide 
variety of ways, has caused the American agricultural economy to be the 
most competitive and the most

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productive in the world. We use fertilizer and pesticides, all 
containing large energy components. For these reasons, our agricultural 
system is very sensitive to the kinds of changes the Vice President and 
the President are proposing. American farmers buy $166 billion worth of 
inputs and services, sell about $212 billion worth of products and 
services, and receive just about $54 billion in cash income to cover 
costs and provide incentives for future investment. Moreover, American 
agriculture is deeply integrated into the world economy and depends on 
more than $60 billion in export sales--the fastest growing market for 
our food and our fiber products.

  That is just one example of an economy in this country that helps set 
the pace for the world.
  The Kyoto Agreement would cause fertilizer prices to go up, and while 
the President says carbon taxes are not a part of his plan to meet the 
treaty's requirements, the administration intends to pressure fossil 
fuel prices through other ways that would have the impact of burdensome 
tax increases. One of the results of the Administration's approach to 
compliance will be higher costs for diesel fuel for trucks and 
tractors.
  It takes no genius to understand what that means: Increased costs for 
farmers, which translates into increased costs for food and finished 
goods at the grocery store. In addition, since most products are 
delivered by diesel-powered trucks, nearly every item in nearly every 
store in America will cost more. And all of this will be done by an 
Administration that pursues a policy which it has no strong scientific 
or economic basis or logical reason to pursue.
  One of the many potential tragedies of this treaty would be the 
higher cost of food, not just for those who can afford it but for those 
who cannot. And remember our Judeo-Christian ethic as a country, the 
hundreds of millions of dollars of food we send around the world to 
poor nations, to starving people. Could we afford to send more if it 
cost more? I doubt it. And yet that is exactly what the President 
proposes.
  According to Data Resources, Inc., another respected economic 
forecasting firm, 37 percent of American households have less than 
$20,000 after-tax income and spend about 21.2 percent to more than 100 
percent of after-tax income on food. For these families, the impact of 
America's compliance with the Kyoto Agreement would be severe and very 
negative.
  Mr. President, I believe this will be the first time in the history 
of our country that a President has allowed foreign interests to 
control and to limit the growth of the American economy.
  Let me repeat that for the record because I believe, after our 
research, that is a pretty profound statement, not just coming from me 
but coming from the historic records of our country, that this would be 
the first time in our history that an American President has allowed 
foreign interests to control and limit the growth of the American 
economy. Never before have we allowed foreign interests to dictate the 
amount of energy Americans can use.
  The Kyoto Agreement requires Americans to cut energy use by the year 
2010 to 7 percent below what it was using in 1990. That was just 8 
years ago.
  This weekend, I was at a special school out in Idaho, a collection of 
bright young kids. They are developing an electric car. They are going 
to race it next week in a race in north Idaho, an electric car. But 
guess what. You have to use nuclear hydrocarbons to generate the 
electricity that goes in the battery that powers the car that creates 
no pollution.
  Get the message. No matter where you turn, whether it is fueling the 
cars for the great urban areas of our country that might be powered by 
electricity in the future, that electricity still has to be generated. 
And a lot of bright people are trying to accomplish that, so we can 
reduce that kind of impact on our environment. And yet, Mr. President, 
you are denying the ability to generate the energy by suggesting that 
we progressively reduce our ability to consume.
  Mr. President, to illustrate the emissions requirement of the 
Agreement, Jay Hakes, head of the Energy Information Administration--a 
statistical arm of the Department of Energy--said in February testimony 
before the House Science Committee: ``A 7 percent reduction [below 
baseline levels under the agreement] for energy-related carbon 
emissions alone would require a reduction of about 550 million metric 
tons of carbon in 2010, or about 31 percent,'' below current 
projections. According to EIA data, the mark of 550 million metric tons 
is greater than the total carbon emissions produced by electricity 
generation in the United States for 1990 or 1996 which were 477 million 
metric tons and 517 million metric tons, respectively.

  So let me say to all Senators and to the American people, tonight, 
walk around your house. Think about the light fixture you have just 
turned on, the appliance you have just turned off, the telephone device 
you might make a call on, or the computer you will sit down to, to 
communicate anywhere in the world. Many of these things you have added 
to your home since 1990. Look at the car you drove home from work. And 
to the farmer who is out there on the plains and the farmlands of 
America this very hour, that marvelously efficient diesel tractor that 
is pulling the plow and the drill to plant the crop that creates the 
abundant harvest that feeds not just the people of America but the 
people of the world. All of those tools are a product of energy. In 
fact, Americans today are consuming more energy as the economy 
continues to grow, and we will need to consume more. We will need to 
turn on our lights and our computers. We will need our cars. In the 
future, they will be better and they will be cleaner, but they still 
must consume energy.
  The Administration knows this protocol is seriously flawed. In a news 
conference held in Kyoto, Japan, on December 8, 1997, Vice President Al 
Gore acknowledged: ``We've said from the beginning that, in order to 
send an agreement to the Senate, we must have meaningful participation 
by key developing countries.'' We now know that developing countries 
did not sign the agreement. Is it fair to let these countries off the 
hook while we Americans are subject to such stringent requirements?
  Here's what Stephen L. Miller, President of the Center for Energy and 
Economic Development had to say about the Kyoto Treaty: ``The proposed 
Kyoto treaty is like a card game where the deck is stacked. American 
workers are being dealt a losing hand through the negotiating process. 
In the end, there will be no real environmental benefit and America's 
working families will be forced to pay higher energy and consumer costs 
while we export U.S. jobs to countries that are exempted from action 
under the Treaty.''
  So let us call once again upon our President to incorporate in this 
agreement developing nations, growth nations like China, Mexico, and 
India, that have simply walked away because they cannot be a part of an 
agreement that would cut back on the opportunity they are trying to 
offer their citizens.
  Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, sign something that is a winning 
agreement for America. Sign something that promotes our economy, that 
promotes the environment of the world. Sign something that all 
countries of the world can agree with. Please do not turn us away from 
the kind of economic growth and development that all of our citizens 
expect and demand. There is simply no compelling reason for our 
government at this time to force Americans to take preventive measures 
of uncertain competence against a problem that may or may not lie in 
the Earth's future.
  The Administration carries a heavy burden of persuasion that the 
CO2 compliance measures contained in the Kyoto Agreement are 
worth the sacrifice it will require of the American people. We here in 
the Senate must, and will, ensure that our nation's global economic 
competitiveness, our nation's military readiness, and our way of life, 
are not compromised merely to advance misguided political agendas.
  It bears repeating--the Kyoto Agreement is flawed. It is based on 
politic science and not lab science. And it is only through sound lab 
science that we, working collectively together with our colleagues 
around the world, will produce a better world.
  Once again, I thank my colleague from Nebraska for recognizing the 
importance of this special order this morning as we talk about global 
climate change and its importance to our

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country and to our friends and neighbors around the world.
  I note the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Hagel). The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the Senate is in morning business; is that 
not correct?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
  Mr. DORGAN. And the minority leader has 1 hour under his control?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
  Mr. DORGAN. I ask unanimous consent to yield myself 15 minutes of the 
hour.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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