[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 49 (Wednesday, March 21, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E594-E595]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      THE SAFE CLIMATE ACT OF 2007

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. HENRY A. WAXMAN

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, March 20, 2007

  Mr. WAXMAN. Madam Speaker, I am pleased today to join over 125 of my 
House colleagues in reintroducing the Safe Climate Act.
  As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently announced, 
the fact that the planet is warming is now unequivocal. And the human 
role in this is no longer in debate.
  The planet is at a crossroads, and it is time for us to choose to 
act.
  I originally introduced this legislation just 9 months ago today.
  At that time, I discussed how there are different approaches that can 
be taken to climate legislation. Some bills seek a symbolic recognition 
of the problem. Others are premised on what may be politically 
achievable in the near term.
  The Safe Climate Act was drafted on a different premise: It reflects 
what the science tells us we need to do to protect our children and 
future generations from irreversible and catastrophic global warming. 
The bill has aggressive requirements to reduce emissions of greenhouse 
gases. But the reality is, these are the reductions that scientists say 
we need to achieve to preserve a safe climate for future generations.
  No one had yet proposed legislation that aimed to solve the climate 
crisis, and I wasn't sure how my colleagues and others would respond to 
this proposal.
  However, in just 9 months, there has been remarkable progress in 
building consensus on this approach.
  During the last Congress, I was pleased that 113 members decided to 
cosponsor my legislation. I was particularly delighted that Minority 
Leader Nancy Pelosi decided to endorse the bill.
  Then in January of this year, a coalition of environmental groups and 
companies joined together in calling for emission reductions that are 
consistent with the reductions required by my legislation. This 
coalition, calling itself the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, is made 
up of Alcoa, BP America, Caterpillar Inc., Duke Energy, DuPont, 
Environmental Defense, FPL Group, General Electric, Lehman Brothers, 
the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Pew Center on Global Climate 
Change, PG&E Corporation, PNM Resources and the World Resources 
Institute. And many others, including such diverse entities as states, 
American workers, small businesses, religious congregations and 
outdoors enthusiasts, are all urging comparable levels of emissions 
reductions.
  All of these groups recognize an important truth--global warming is 
the greatest environmental challenge of our time, and we have a short 
window in which to act to prevent profound changes to the climate 
system. Unless we seize the opportunity to act now, and act decisively, 
our legacy to our children and grandchildren will be an unstable and 
dangerous planet.

  The science clearly tells us what we need to do--we must reduce 
emissions of greenhouse gases, starting now and continuing over the 
next few decades. To achieve this, we have to grow our economy into a 
new and cleaner future. It's simply too late for legislative baby 
steps.
  I have been working to address the threat of global warming for many 
years. Over 10 years ago, the science and the threat of global warming 
were clear. That's why I introduced the Global Climate Protection Act 
of 1992, which would have frozen U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide at 
1990 levels. But Congress failed to act.
  Now our understanding of global warming has only grown stronger. 
We're actually experiencing the effects of climate change today. And 
they are not good.
  As the earth warms, its ice is melting. From the glaciers in Glacier 
National Park, to the snows of Kilimanjaro and the Larson B iceshelf in 
Antarctica, ice that has been here since the last ice age is 
disappearing or already gone. Accordingly, sea levels will rise, posing 
enormous challenges for our coastal communities. The permafrost 
supporting towns and roads in Alaska is melting rapidly, and the summer 
sea ice in the Arctic Ocean is diminishing each year. These are changes 
we can see with our own eyes.
  The seasons are changing--maple sugar producers in Vermont are 
tapping trees earlier, plants are flowering earlier, and birds are 
migrating earlier. These changes are happening across the globe. And 
with warmer weather come bugs that are no longer being killed by the 
winter cold, such as the beetles that are destroying forests across the 
Southwest and Alaska.
  The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently confirmed that 
we have already observed climate-related changes in extreme weather 
including droughts, heavy precipitation, heat waves and the intensity 
of tropical cyclones. The year 2005 broke hurricane records, and 
America experienced the devastating results of just a few such storms 
with Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
  The scientists have been proven right about global warming, over and 
over again, across the planet. We should start listening to them.
  Now they are telling us that we have about 10 years to act to avoid 
being locked into irreversible global warming on a scale that will 
transform the planet. The scientists have identified a global 
temperature rise of just 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit as enough to produce 
undeniably dangerous consequences, such as 20 feet or more of sea level 
rise, which would flood large parts of Florida and New York City, as 
well as huge population centers in other countries. And scientists have 
calculated the quantity of atmospheric greenhouse gases that would very 
likely cause such a temperature rise. The nations of the world must 
keep greenhouse gases below that level to avoid irreversible dangerous 
global warming.
  The United States emits more greenhouse gases than any other country 
in the world--about 20 percent of the total worldwide. We simply cannot 
avoid catastrophic global warming without substantial cuts in U.S. 
emissions. Of course, every nation will have to do its part.

[[Page E595]]

According to the best science, under any plausible scenario of future 
international actions to stabilize the climate, the United States will 
eventually need to reduce its emissions by about 80 percent.
  Fortunately, we have some time to get there, as long as we start 
reducing our total emissions now. And that's what the Safe Climate Act 
does. It caps U.S. emissions in 2010, and then gradually reduces them 
by just 2 percent per year until 2020. This gives us over a decade to 
deploy the cleaner technologies that we already have but aren't using 
much, such as hybrid vehicles and wind power. After 2020, emissions 
must fall under the legislation by roughly 5 percent per year, as more 
advanced technologies, such as biofuels from waste materials and 
capturing carbon dioxide from power plants, become widely available.
  The Safe Climate Act reduces emissions through a flexible, market-
based emissions trading program, as well as complementary requirements 
for cleaner cars and more electricity from renewable energy and 
efficiency. The Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of 
Energy would oversee these programs nationally, while States would 
retain their authority to act on the State level. In effect, the Safe 
Climate Act sets the targets and then unleashes market forces and 
American ingenuity to solve the problem.
  This sounds ambitious, and it is. But it is also completely doable, 
once we decide to act. Look at what we've already achieved. In just 
over 30 years, from the passage of the Clean Air Act in 1970 to 2002, 
the total air pollution from all automobiles was reduced by over 60 
percent. We achieved these reductions even as the total number of 
vehicle miles traveled increased by 160 percent and GDP grew by 166 
percent.
  From 1990 to 1996, in just 6 years, we ended production of key 
chemicals destroying the Earth's protective tropospheric ozone layer 
and shifted to substitutes. Those chemicals had been widely used 
throughout the economy in applications from air conditioning and 
refrigeration to solvents and fire suppression.
  In each case, entrenched industries told Congress that changes of 
these magnitudes would be impossible to achieve without massive 
economic dislocation. And in each case, they were wrong.
  Our Nation has made dramatic advances in technology that have 
transformed our lives. We can do it again in developing new innovations 
for transportation and energy production. The Safe Climate Act will 
give the market the incentives necessary to unleash American ingenuity 
and solve the problem.
  We've ignored the threat of global warming for almost too long, but 
we still have an opportunity if we act now. I urge my colleagues to 
join me in cosponsoring this critically important bill, and I urge the 
committee of jurisdiction to consider it without further delay. We must 
face and overcome the challenge of global warming, and the Safe Climate 
Act is the way to do it.

                          ____________________