[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 125 (Friday, September 29, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10663-S10664]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  GLOBAL WARMING REDUCTION ACT OF 2006

  Ms. SNOWE. Mr. President, I rise today as the lead cosponsor for the 
Kerry-Snowe Global Warming Reduction Act of 2006. Six years into the 
21st century, global warming should be on a trajectory toward solutions 
. . . international and domestic policies confronting climate change 
should already be in place. We believe that our bill will ultimately 
lead to decisive action to minimize the many dangers posed by global 
warming by calling for an 85 percent reduction of greenhouse gas 
emissions no later than 2050. Thankfully, Senator Kerry and I are not 
working in a policy vacuum as the United States is a party to the 1992 
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which has the 
objective of stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the 
atmosphere at a level that would prevent ``dangerous anthropogenic 
interference'' with the climate system.
  The risks associated with a temperature increase above two degrees 
centigrade are grave, including the disintegration of the Greenland ice 
sheet, which, if it were to melt completely, would raise global average 
sea level by approximately 23 feet, devastating many of the world's 
coastal areas and population centers. The Intergovernmental Panel on 
Climate Change projects that temperatures will rise between 1.4 to 5.8 
degrees centigrade, or 2.5 to 10.4 degrees fahrenheit, by the end of 
the century, under a range of expected emissions trends.
  The Kerry-Snowe bill will map out the way to stabilization through a 
cap and trade system for major sectors of our society and establish the 
climate reinvestment fund consisting of amounts collected from carbon 
auctions of allowances and civil penalties. The fund will be used for 
investment in clean energy research and technology. The bill also 
provides for a research and development program on global climate 
change and abrupt climate change research. We also call for a renewable 
portfolio standard requiring 20 percent of electricity from renewable 
electricity by 2020, and an updated Renewable Fuel Standard and E85 
infrastructure requirements of 10 percent by 2020.
  The act also contains vehicle greenhouse gas emission standards for 
cars and light-duty vehicles as well as medium and heavy-duty vehicles. 
Importantly, our bill includes a resolution expressing the urgent need 
for the administration to reengage in international climate 
negotiations.
  I do not come lightly nor lately to the climate change issue. That is 
why, this past year, when asked by three major independent think 
tanks--the Center for American Progress in the United States, the 
Institute for Public Policy Research in the U.K. and the Australia 
Institute--I accepted the co-chairmanship of the high level 
International Climate Change Taskforce--the ICCT--to chart a way 
forward on climate change on a parallel track with the Kyoto Protocol 
process. This led me to meetings both in Washington and London with my 
Cochair, the Rt. Honorable Stephen Byers of the U.K. for the 
international, cross-party, cross-sector collaboration of leaders from 
public service, science, business, and civil society from both 
developed and developing countries.
  We set out a pathway to solve climate change issues in tandem 
collaboratively finding common ground through recommendations that are 
both ambitious and realistic to engage all countries, and, critically, 
including those not bound by the Kyoto Protocol and major developing 
countries. Our ICCT report, ``Meeting the Climate Challenge,'' 
recommends ways to involve the world's largest economies in the effort, 
including the U.S. and major developing nations, focusing on creating 
new agreements to achieve the deployment of clean energy technologies 
and a new global policy framework that is both inclusive and fair. Like 
the Kerry-Snowe legislation, the ICCT Report calls for the 
establishment of a long-term objective of preventing global average 
temperature from rising more than 2 degrees centigrade.
  The taskforce arrived at the 2 degrees centigrade temperature 
increase goal on the basis of an extensive review of the relevant 
scientific literature that shows that, as the ICCT Report states:
       Beyond the 2 degrees centigrade level, the risks to human 
     societies and ecosystems grow significantly. It is likely, 
     for example, that average temperature increases larger than 
     this will entail substantial agricultural losses, will 
     greatly increase the numbers of people at risk of water 
     shortages, and widespread adverse health impacts.

  Our ICCT Report goes on to say that:

       Climate science is not yet able to specify the trajectory 
     of atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases that 
     corresponds precisely to any particular global temperature 
     rise. Based on current knowledge, however, it appears that 
     achieving a high probability of limiting global average 
     temperature rise to 2 degrees centigrade will require that 
     the increase in greenhouse-gas concentrations as well as all 
     the other warming and cooling influences on global climate in 
     the year 2100, as compared with 1750, should add up to a net 
     warming no greater than what would be associated with a 
     CO2 concentration of about 400 parts per million 
     (ppm).

  The Kerry-Snowe bill reverses the growth of greenhouse gas emissions 
starting in 2010 and then progresses to more rapid reductions over 
time, out to 2050, meant to protect against a temperature rise above 2 
degrees centigrade, which is predicted to mean that global atmospheric 
concentrations of carbon dioxide will not exceed 450 parts per million. 
The bill gets the US on the right track, but at the same time avoiding 
any negative impact on our economy.
  Achieving success for our policy imperatives means disabusing 
skeptics and opponents alike of cherished mythologies that 
environmental protection and economic growth are mutually exclusive. 
The irony is both are actually increasingly interdependent and will 
only become more so as the 21st century progresses. Robust companies 
dedicated to reducing emissions are proof-positive ``going-green'' 
represents a burgeoning sector of our economy, not the drain and 
hindrance we've been led to believe for so many years.
  And to their credit the most progressive U.S. companies have reduced 
emissions even further than required in climate bills offered in the 
Congress to date. In an act of economic acumen, they are hedging their 
bets by adopting internal targets--and, these companies are saving 
money by reducing their energy consumption and positioning themselves 
to compete in the growing global market for climate-friendly 
technologies. Any cost-conscious CFO or forward-thinking CEO for that 
matter should admit that to prevent pollution now will most certainly 
cost less than cleaning it up later.
  And the economics of prevention and stewardship resonate more when 
you consider property that erodes because of rising sea levels, farm 
land that fails to yield crops and becomes barren and arid, and revenue 
opportunities squandered because of dwindling fishing stocks caused by 
hotter temperatures. These represent real costs to the bottom line not 
to mention irreparable damage to our health and quality of life.
  Mr. President, temperatures are rising to levels the earth has not 
experienced for more than a thousand years. The snows of Kilimanjaro 
are melting so fast that they may completely vanish in 15 years. 
Alaska's average temperature has increased nearly five and a half 
degrees over the past 30 years and explains melting permafrost, sagging 
roads, and dying forests. A Peruvian glacier in the Andes Mountain, as 
reported by The Washington Post, is receding at a rate of 360 yards per 
year, up from a recession rate of just four

[[Page S10664]]

yards per year for most of the 1960s and 70s. There is the massive 
decline in coral reefs critical to sea life worldwide. And in my state 
of Maine, softwood trees--the heart of our papermaking industry--and 
sugar maple trees that spur a large tourist industry are in danger of 
moving northward over the next 50 years, along with our annual potato 
crop worth approximately $110 million.
  We obviously do not have time in this Congress to debate the Kerry-
Snowe bill, but we plan to use our bill as a marker to start the debate 
in the 110th Congress. The United States Congress is fully capable of 
enacting policies that change our climate for the better and guarantee 
a better quality of life for the generations to follow.

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