[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 146 (Wednesday, October 14, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12482-S12483]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  EIA COST ESTIMATES ON GLOBAL WARMING

  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, we have been talking about the budget and 
the way that the President of the United States wants to spend Social 
Security--the surplus. I want to talk to you about that in another 
line--the way that the White House wants to raise your taxes, and the 
way they are going to do it in November in a very subtle way. I am 
going to talk to you about jobs--your jobs--and the effort that is 
underway by the White House to shift your job overseas. The White House 
has been denying that. I know that the Energy Information 
Administration confirms it, and how we will not only shift your job 
overseas, but we are going to charge more for everything that you buy.
  Let me explain how this works. The new Energy Information 
Administration estimate is very important for a couple of reasons. It 
proves that the White House is using funny numbers on global warming. 
In my opinion, it also points out that we are spending a lot of time 
debating the details of a treaty that is fundamentally flawed. I have 
always said that something not worth doing at all is not worth doing 
well. The administration has already bought the global warming treaty, 
and now we are trying to figure out how to pay for it. We are trying to 
figure out how to make it work. It is as if we decided to sink the 
mother ship and now we need to figure out the cheapest way to rescue 
all of the people.
  Mr. President, it is easy. Don't sink the ship. Sink the treaty. It 
is like saying that the Titanic is going down and we need to reorganize 
how the deck chairs are placed.
  I came to the floor in July and raised serious doubts about the 
numbers that were dreamt up by the Council of Economic Advisers. The 
council chairman, Janet Yellen, has testified twice that Kyoto would 
cost American families somewhere between $70 and $110 per year. I don't 
know how you feel about it, but the people in Wyoming think that $70-
odd to $110 per year more for Government taxes is a lot. But I want to 
point out that the independent economists put those costs as high as 
$2,100 per year per household. That is a pretty good, hefty tax. And it 
is a $2,000 difference from what the administration is saying that it 
will amount to.
  I have tried to get the real numbers on this before. I have been 
stonewalled by the White House. Then I finally got some numbers that 
were rather unintelligible. I asked questions about them. I got a 
letter from the White House Counsel's Office that said that public 
disclosure of the real terms would set an unfortunate precedent that 
could chill the free flow of internal discussions essential to 
effective executive decisionmaking.
  In other words, the White House can't really share the numbers with 
us because we, the Congress, would have a chilling effect on policy-
making? That is our realm. We need to have the data on which to 
operate. And the White House is the one in charge of providing that 
data.
  We have a credibility gap. We have a credibility gap with the 
administration.
  I think it is interesting to compare the cost estimates from the 
White House with the cost estimates from the independent Energy 
Information Administration, part of the administration. The White House 
says the annual average increase in household energy would be $70 to 
$110.
  I have a little chart. This shows a few of the studies that have been 
done on global warming. The red line is the administration. You will 
notice that all of them that have been done are on the very bottom 
level. This is the one that says it is only going to cost you $70 to 
$110 a year. The blue line is the Energy Information Administration, 
part of the administration. This blue line, you will notice, appears at 
the top of the list. That is what they say it is going to cost you --
$335 to $1,740 per year per family.
  The White House says gasoline would only go up to $1.31 a gallon. The 
Energy Information Administration says $1.91 a gallon.
  How about fuel oil? That is something our friends in the Northeast 
worry about. The White House says, ``Don't worry, it will only go up to 
about $1.17 a gallon.'' The Energy Information Administration says it 
will go up to $1.90 a gallon. Who do you want to believe? The 
administration's low numbers or the administration's high numbers? You 
are the one paying the bill; which one would you trust?
  I wanted you to know what kind of assumptions the Council of Economic 
Advisers used. How did they get things to look so rosy? It turns out 
they brought the cost down using two tricks. Their own internal report 
said they had to figure out some way to bring down the cost or it would 
not be feasible. They already bought the treaty, now they have to 
figure out why they bought the treaty. They want the American people to 
think they got a good deal for you.
  The two tricks they use are electricity deregulation and emissions 
trading. That is how they make it seem to cost less, even though I 
thought we wanted to deregulate electricity to save the people back 
home money. What we are going to do is deregulate it and use that money 
to pay for the global warming treaty. I guess now we

[[Page S12483]]

need to go back and tell them that the money is already spent if we 
deregulate, and it has to be deregulated because we have to spend the 
money. That seems to happen a lot around here.
  Then the emissions trading scheme, that one takes the cake. Each of 
the cost estimates I have seen include a range of credit trading 
scenarios. The assumption is the more credits we can buy, the cheaper 
it will be to meet our Kyoto commitments. That is the assumption: The 
more we buy, the cheaper it gets. That is like going to the mall and 
saving money by taking advantage of as many sales as you can. You still 
spend the money.
  The Energy Information Administration says the credits will cost us 
$70 to $350 a term. In people terms, that is 15 cents to 70 cents a 
gallon of gas, up to an 80 percent increase in your electrical bill. 
And we thought deregulation would save us some money.
  The range is as a result of not knowing how many countries will 
participate. If we have to buy all our credits only from Europe and 
Russia, they are going to be very expensive. That puts us in the $350-
per-ton range. If we get countries like China and India to sell us 
their emission credits, we can get that cost down to $70. That is the 
assumption.
  Do you know why they will sell us theirs for so low a price? They 
don't have any ceiling. Last year I went to Kyoto. I got to meet with 
the Chinese delegation. By the year 2012 they are going to be the 
biggest polluters in the whole world and they will not be a part of the 
treaty. Why not? They are a developing nation. They cannot be put under 
those constraints. I asked them when they would be done being a 
developing nation. They said, ``Never.'' Good negotiating. They even 
developed a fine system so that if we pollute, we get fined, and the 
money goes to, guess who, the developing nations. They get the money 
that way.
  Now there is another scheme--sell credits. We buy the right to 
pollute from China and the developing nations. They will sell it to us 
for just $70 a ton because they have no limit. They are not really 
selling a quantity. They can sell as many units as they want. They are 
already polluting; they can continue to pollute. Good deal for us? That 
is what the White House says we can do. We will pay China so we can 
have the right to drive our cars and turn on our lights. We will pay 
China so we can drive when we want to and where we want to. Just pay 
China and you can turn on all your Christmas lights whenever you want. 
They will already have the jobs.
  In theory, China will limit its own emissions at some future level. 
In the meantime, they will sell us permits, in theory. In theory the 
whole world would participate and we would reduce the growth of carbon 
emissions and save the Earth from certain devastation--in theory.
  I got to meet with those nations that are island nations; if global 
warming happens, they will be inundated by water. They are not going to 
be a part of the treaty. If this were a real problem and your country 
was going to be inundated by water, wouldn't you sign the treaty? 
Wouldn't you push every nation in the world to sign the treaty? I can 
tell you, they are not, which tells you what they think about global 
warming.
  It is a way to get jobs. It is a way to sell emission credits. The 
whole world is not participating and the Earth will not be saved 
because the treaty will not reduce carbon emissions. In fact, we cannot 
even get the developing world to abide by copyright treaties, what 
makes anybody think they will abide by an emissions treaty even if they 
sign it? Oh, no, the joke will be on us. It will be on the American 
people. We are planning to pay China for a piece of paper that says, 
``We reduced our emissions by 1 ton so you can increase yours by 1 
ton.'' And we will pay them for that right. That is what it says.
  What are we going to do if they just take the money and keep on 
polluting? And they have assured us they would. Are we going to send in 
troops and demand our money back? The Energy Information Administration 
has pointed out that this treaty would cost American families between 
$350 and $1,740 per year. That is what the private economists have been 
saying. And it will eliminate jobs.
  I urge my colleagues to get a copy of this report and read it. In 
November the administration will go to Buenos Aires, Argentina, to 
continue negotiations on the Kyoto treaty. They plan to work out 
emissions trading enforcement provisions. These are two critical parts 
of how this treaty will hurt American families. People need to be 
mindful of this process. People need to protest this process. Now is 
the time, not during the negotiations, not after the President has 
signed and sent a treaty here that we have already said, 95 to 0, does 
not meet the requirements for the economy in the United States, that it 
is just selling our economy.
  A study conducted by DRI-McGraw-Hill estimated Kyoto could cost us 
1.5 million jobs. Charles River Associates put that figure as high as 
3.1 million jobs by 2010.
  Even the Argonne National Laboratory, pointed to job losses in a 
study on the impact of higher energy prices on energy-intensive 
industries. Argonne concluded that 200,000 American chemical workers 
could lose their jobs. All of the American aluminum plants could close, 
putting another 20,000 workers out of work. Cement companies would move 
another 6,000 jobs overseas. And nearly 100,000 U.S. steel workers 
would be out of work.
  Americans have a right to know what is going on, even if the Office 
of White House Counsel does not think so. They should have a chance to 
see who is playing with their livelihoods.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Jeffords). Under a previous order, the 
Senator from Ohio is recognized for 20 minutes.
  Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, let me first congratulate my colleague 
from Wyoming for a very eloquent and very thoughtful statement about a 
very serious issue, a very serious problem.

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