[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 112 (Friday, August 3, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8894-S8896]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CAP AND TRADE APPROACH TO CLIMATE CHANGE
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I rise with my friend and colleague from
Connecticut to express our concerns on a subject that is at the
forefront of the many issues of global concern, climate change. The
science surrounding this issue has come increasingly into focus, and
Senator Lieberman and I believe that it is time to take action.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I also am pleased to rise to join my
friend and colleague from Arizona, Senator McCain, in making this call
for consideration of the development of an economy-wide cap-and-trade
system to control our emissions of greenhouse gases. Senator McCain and
I have been discussing the need to develop such legislation for some
time, and upon our return from recess, we plan to discuss with leaders
from each sector of our economy to discuss what commitments they can
make to curb our growing problem of global warming without seriously
harming our economy.
At this point, I invite Senator McCain to comment on his views on the
subject.
Mr. McCAIN. Over the past year, the Commerce, Science, and
Transportation Committee has held several hearings on the various
scientific reports from the National Academy of Science and the
International Panel on Climate Change, IPCC. These reports conclude
that air temperatures are, in fact, rising. The IPCC report states that
there is new and stronger evidence that most of the observed warming
over the past 50 years is attributable to human activities. We continue
to see throughout the world the melting of glaciers, the dying of coral
reefs, and rising ocean temerpatures.
The agreement reached last week in Bonn, Germany on the Kyoto
Protocol means that the rest of the world is moving forward to address
this important problem. Given the fact that the United States produces
approximately 25 percent of the total greenhouse gases emissions, the
United States has a responsibility to cut its emissions of greenhouse
gases. The United States must realize that when it comes to the
climate, there are no boundaries. Therefore, climate change is an
global problem and must be resolved globally.
The current situation demands leadership from the United States. In
accordance with the agreement reached last week, there is going to be a
world marketplace for carbon reductions, a marketplace that rewards
improvements in energy efficiency, advances in energy technologies, and
improvements in land-use practices--and we are running the risk that
America is not going to be part of it.
The risks that climate change poses for businesses have now
increased. In addition to the risk of unpredictable impacts of global
warming, and of unpredictable regulation of greenhouse gas emissions,
American companies now face the risk of being left out of the global
marketplace to buy and sell emission reductions.
While U.S. businesses are gaining experience with voluntary programs
and are recognized as the world's experts in
[[Page S8895]]
this area, they are increasingly recognizing that purely voluntary
approaches will not be enough to meet the goal of preventing dangerous
effects on the climate system. Increasingly, businesses confronting
these risks see sensible regulation of carbon dioxide and other
greenhouse gases as necessary and inevitable. Clearly, they prefer the
cap-and-trade approach.
In a July 23 editorial in the Wall Street Journal, a cap and trade
program was discussed as one of the incentive-based market strategies
that has been developed as an alternative to traditional fiat-based,
``nanny-sez-so'' regulation. The editorial further states that `` a cap
and trade program will result in more abatement from those firms who
can do it at relatively lower costs and less abatement from those firms
who can only do it at relatively higher costs. The net will be the same
amount of overall pollution reduction, but achieved at lower cost than
would obtain under traditional regulation.''
As usual, industry is ahead of government in this area. Many
companies have already started trading programs either within their
company or as members of partnerships to meet pre-determined levels.
Not only are these companies meeting their environmental goals, they
are also realizing it on a profitable basis. We all know that improved
efficiencies mean improved profitability.
The 1990 Clean Air Act's acid rain emissions trading program for
limiting sulfur dioxide has shown that there can be top-down limits on
pollutants and not endanger the economy. The key is unleashing the
power of markets to find the most innovative, cost-effective ways of
meeting those top-down limits. That's what a cap-and-trade system does
best. Deploying the power of a marketplace to pursue the least
expensive answers is a unique and powerful American approach to the
threat of climate change.
In 1994, the Arizona Public Service (APS), an Arizona public utility,
entered into an agreement with the Niagara Mohawk, a New York utility,
and the US Department of Energy to swap carbon dioxide and sulfur
dioxide credits. APS had reduced its sulfur dioxide emissions below
levels mandated under the 1990 Clean Air Act. Niagara Mohawk had
reduced its carbon dioxide emissions below the level of its voluntary
commitment. APS exchanged its sulfur dioxide allowances issued under
the Clean Air Act's acid rain program for Niagara Mohawk carbon dioxide
emissions reductions that APS could then use to help meet its
commitment to DOE to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. After receiving
the sulfur dioxide allowances, Niagara Mohawk donated them to an
environmental organization to be retired. The cost savings achieved
through this plan were used to fund new domestic and overseas projects
designed to create additional carbon dioxide reductions.
However, we should not be deceiving ourselves. Designing a cap and
trade system is not an easy task. Critical decisions will have to be
made as to the design and implementation of such a system. These
decisions will ultimately affect some industries more than others. I
would hope that the government can work hand-in-hand with industry to
make this happen should a decision be made to pursue a cap and trade
program.
A comprehensive cap on America's greenhouse gas emissions, paired
with an allowance trading system, can encourage innovation across the
full range of opportunities for reducing emissions. That would provide
businesses with the regulatory certainty and flexibility they need to
confront the climate challenge successfully. Industry has repeatedly
said that if Government sets the rules, they will take them from there
and make it work.
Trading helps to establish a market value per unit of greenhouse gas.
This can be especially helpful as corporate decisions are made on major
investments in new technologies. The market value will allow them to
make a real comparison by which to consider purchasing new credits for
the markets or investing in technologies and capital improvements.
We also have to recognize that the international system for
addressing climate change is evolving. Only a few years ago, many of
America's trading partners were reluctant to accept market-based
solutions. But now they have embraced them, and the global marketplace
for greenhouse gas cap-and-trade is beginning. A national cap-and-trade
system could give America the business valuable experience they will
need to remain competitive with other companies in countries where
greenhouse emissions trading is moving forward. We can expand trade
opportunities through a new marketplace for the environment.
Given this developing international market, it also makes sense to
ensure that what we do domestically can be integrated and recognized on
the international level. Ultimately, we need to make sure that the
emissions reductions our companies, our farmers, and our foresters
produce are fully recognized and fully tradable in the emerging global
greenhouse gas marketplace.
I think it is clear that a cap and trade program is a good idea
worthy of further consideration by the U.S. Senate. I look forward to
working with Senator Lieberman and others who have expressed a
willingness to consider this type of approach to address this problem
of global climate change.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to rise to join my
colleague, Senator McCain, in advocating an economy-wide cap-and-trade
system to control our emissions of greenhouse gases.
I have been extremely troubled by the failure of our government to
engage on this crucial issue. Last Monday, 180 nations agreed to take
historic action against global warming by agreeing to the Kyoto
Protocol. One did not. We are the one. I believe this failure abdicates
the United States' position as a leader in environmental affairs and
places U.S. industry at risk.
We now have general scientific agreement that climate change is a
problem we must face. Early this year, the United Nation's
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its Third Assessment
Report on global warming. According to this panel of expert scientists,
unless we find ways to stop global warming, the Earth's average
temperature can be expected to rise between 2.5 and 10.4 degrees
Fahrenheit during the next century. Such a large, rapid rise in
temperature will profoundly alter the Earth's landscape in very
practical terms. Sea levels could swell up to 35 feet, potentially
submerging millions of homes and coastal property under our present-day
oceans. Precipitation could become more erratic, leading to droughts
that would aggravate the task of feeding the world's population.
Diseases such as malaria and dengue fever could spread at an
accelerated pace. Severe weather disturbances and storms triggered by
climatic phenomena, such as El Nino, could become more routine.
As the IPCC report reminds us, this threat is being driven by our own
behavior. Let me quote the scientists directly, ``There is new and
stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50
years is attributable to human activities.'' There is no doubt that
human-induced emissions are warming the planet.
After receiving the IPCC's dire report, the White House requested and
received a second opinion from the National Academy of Sciences. The
NAS confirmed the findings of the IPCC. Let me quote:
The IPCC's conclusion that most of the observed warming of
the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase
in greenhouse gas concentrations accurately reflects the
current thinking of the scientific community on this issue .
. . . Despite the uncertainties, there is general agreement
that the observed warming is real and particularly strong
within the past twenty years.
By going forward with the Kyoto Protocol even without the United
States, the world has taken a giant stride forward in response to this
pressing problem. That agreement will create a worldwide market in
greenhouse gas reductions, using market forces to drive environmental
gains. Unfortunately, because the United States did not participate,
U.S. interests were virtually ignored in crafting the final deal. In
the end, I believe that not just our environment but our economy will
suffer as a result.
For example, let's say a multinational corporation is faced with the
need to invest in new, more efficient technology, and has the choice of
installing it in the United States or overseas. Under the Kyoto
Protocol, the corporation will be able to receive valuable credits for
making those efficiency gains--and therefore reducing
[[Page S8896]]
its greenhouse gas emissions. Those credits will be worth cold, hard
cash in the world market that will be established under the treaty. In
contrast, the United States currently has no system by which the
company will gain credit for the gains. The result will be that more
efficient, more competitive technology will be driven overseas.
The agreement in Bonn also has probably made millions of dollars in
U.S. investment worthless. A number of our large corporations have
invested heavily in forest conservation on the assumption that they
would receive credit for these forests' ability to pull carbon out of
the atmosphere. In Bonn, however--without the U.S. at the table--credit
for forest conservation was written out of the agreement.
After the agreement at Bonn, it will take a lot of work to convince
the other nations of the world to reopen the negotiations to U.S.
participation.
We can begin by creating a credible domestic system that can work in
parallel with the Kyoto Protocol so the United States remains in tune
with the remainder of the world as we move forward. Such an approach
must move beyond our laudable but inadequate voluntary efforts. As we
saw with the Rio Treaty, which former President Bush supported and the
Senate ratified in 1992, voluntary programs unfortunately do not work.
Instead, Senator McCain and I believe that we need a set of standards
requiring action. We need an economy-wide cap and trade approach. In
contrast to the current international agreement, such a system will
take the interests of the United States into account.
I also believe having such a system in place will much better enable
us to negotiate an acceptable international agreement with the Kyoto
participants when the U.S. does come back to the table. If we do not
have our own domestic cap-and-trade system, our companies will be years
behind the rest of the world in operating within the system and
therefore disadvantaged when we join an international agreement.
The bona-fides of a cap and trade approach are impressive. I was
involved in the drafting of the cap-and-trade program in the Clean Air
Act to reduce acid rain--one of the most successful environmental
programs on the books. Recent reports from the CBO and the Resources
for the Future espoused such an approach. Progressive companies such as
British Petroleum have greatly reduced their greenhouse emissions by
using their own internal cap-and-trade markets. And no less authority
than the Wall Street Journal has endorsed such an approach to address
our climate problems, stating that the Bush Administration should
``propose a domestic cap-and-trade program for carbon dioxide that
could, of course, be easily expanded to Canada and Mexico.'' It would
be a giant step forward if the Bush Administration would make such a
proposal to the next international meeting on climate change in
Marrakesh, Morocco during October.
If we adopt a cap and trade system, we will create a market by which
corporations will receive valuable credits for efficient investments.
We also will create a market by which corporations can receive credit
for the laudable investments they have made to date. And we will
unleash the power of that market to drive the United States back into
its leadership position in the international effort to avoid the worst
effects of one of the most serious environmental problems the world
community has ever faced.
I look forward to working with Senator McCain when we return in
September as we meet with environmentalists and representatives of the
various sectors of our economy who are currently generating greenhouse
gases. We will ask them to help us fashion a cap and trade system that
will work.
Together we can and will meet this historic test and protect our
children and grandchildren, and all who follow on the Earth, from the
real dangers of an overheated planet.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to print the Wall Street
Journal editorials in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Review & Outlook
Emissions Impossible?
While Genoa burned--a topic we take up at greater length in
the space below--bureaucrats in Bonn continued to fiddle with
a dead treaty, the Kyoto Protocol on global warming. Japan
and Europe appear more determined than ever to resuscitate
the treaty without the United States. At the risk of sounding
flippant, we ask: Why bother?
The whole idea behind Kyoto is puzzling at best, outrageous
at worst. Why require the nations of this planet to spend the
hundreds of billions of dollars necessary to reduce carbon
dioxide and other emissions when we don't even know if the
earth's climate is getting permanently hotter or if that
temperature change is caused by human activity or if that
change is even dangerous?
Why, indeed. Except that if new and more sophisticated
research proves that human-generated greenhouse gases are a
menace to civilization as we know it, then it is better to
start now to control them and far better to do so in the most
cost effective fashion. And that's why we harbor a certain
fondness for one part of the Kyoto treaty--emissions trading.
Emissions trading--part of a package called ``cap-and-
trade''--is one of the incentive-based market strategies that
has been developed as an alternative to traditional fiat-
based, nanny-sez-so regulation. The idea is simple: a lower
level of pollution is agreed upon and targeted; permits
reflecting that level are issued, or even sold, to polluters;
firms that produce emissions below their targets can sell
their excess permits to firms that exceed their targets.
Firms have a straightforward incentive to come up with
emission-reducing innovations because they can keep the
financial rewards of their innovation through reduced
abatement costs, reduced payments for emission permits and/or
selling unneeded permits.
Thus, by providing flexibility and financial incentives,
cap-and-trade program will result in more abatement from
those firms who can do it at relatively lower cost and less
abatement from those firms who can only do it at relatively
higher cost. The net will be the same amount of overall
pollution reduction, but achieved at lower cost than would
obtain under traditional regulation.
And cost is really mega-important. Consider the tab if--as
mandated by Kyoto--the U.S. had to reduce its carbon dioxide
emissions 7% below its 1990 levels by 2012. Without the
ability to buy permits from other countries, compliance would
have to be achieved mainly by switching from coal-fired
plants to natural gas plants, resulting in the premature
retirement of tens of billions of dollars of capital stock,
the zooming of energy costs throughout the economy, and the
loss of millions of jobs. According to the Energy Information
Administration, the cost could be as much as 4% of GDP.
Now, however, consider the cost if the U.S. could meet its
targets by buying permits from other countries. In a scenario
offered back in 1998 by the Clinton Administration's Council
of Economic Advisors, if the U.S. buys permits for its
``excess'' emissions--so that if doesn't have to reduce by
very much its own emissions--the cost would be only 10% of
GDP.
If you doubt these estimates--and we agree that the models
they are based on are technically complex--then how about a
real-life example? Look no further than the fabulously
successful cap-and-trade program for sulfur dioxide. The
program, which was started in the U.S. in 1995 as part of the
effort to cut the emissions that cause acid rain, saves about
$700 million annually compared with the cost of traditional
regulation and has been reducing emissions by four million
tons annually. When the program is fully implemented,
sometime over the next couple of years, cost savings should
be as much as $2 billion a year--that's twice as much as
originally estimated by the EPA.
In fact, the idea of emissions trading to reduce pollution
has proved so attractive that some firms--which are under no
legal obligation to cut greenhouses gases--have begun to set
up programs for internal trading of permits. For firms
interested in external trading, there are already several
``precompliance'' markets where permits can be traded across
companies and across national borders.
So, who needs Kyoto? While whatever number of government
bureaucrats are filling the air in Bonn with carbon dioxide,
the private sector is going ahead with its own cap-and-trade
solutions. Not surprisingly, European leaders would rather
bureaucrats control the ebb and flow of private sector
emissions and have bad mouthed cap-and-trade proposals in the
past. Recently, however, even the Euros are beginning to see
the light.,
President Bush got it exactly right when he dissed Kyoto.
And after Kyoto is pronounced dead in Bonn, the Bush
Administration should propose a domestic cap-and-trade
program for carbon dioxide that could, of course, be easily
expanded to Canada and Mexico. And then to Latin America. And
then the world.
____________________