    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush (2002, Book I)]
    [February 14, 2002]
    [Pages 226-231]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

     Remarks Announcing the Clear Skies and Global Climate Change
    Initiatives in Silver Spring, Maryland
     February 14, 2002

         Thank you very much for that warm welcome. It's an honor to join
    you all today to talk about our environment and about the prospect of
    dramatic progress to improve it. Today I'm announcing a new
    environmental approach that will clean our skies, bring greater health
    to our citizens, and encourage environmentally responsible development
    in America and around the world.
         Particularly, it's an honor to address this topic at NOAA, whose
    research is providing us with the answers to critical questions about
    our environment. And so I want to

    [[Page 227]]

    thank Connie for his
    hospitality, and I want to thank you for yours, as well. Connie said he
    felt kind of like Sasha Cohen; I thought for a
    minute he was going to ask me to talk to his mother on his cell phone.
    [Laughter]
         I also want to tell you one of my favorite moments is to go down to
    Crawford and turn on my NOAA radio to get the weather. I don't know
    whether my guy is a computer or a person--[laughter]--but the forecast
    is always accurate, and I appreciate that. I also want to thank you for
    your hard work, on behalf of the American people.
         I appreciate my friend Don Evans's
    leadership. I've known him for a long time. You're working for a good
    fellow if you're working at the Commerce Department or at NOAA. And I
    want to thank Spence Abraham and Christie
    Todd Whitman for their service to the
    country as well. I've assembled a fabulous Cabinet, people who love
    their country and work hard. And these are three of some of the finest
    Cabinet officials I've got.
         I want to thank Jim Connaughton, who
    is the Chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality. He's done a
    fabulous job of putting this policy together, the policy that I'm about
    to explain. But before I do, I also want to thank some Members of
    Congress who've worked with us on this initiative. I want to thank Bob
    Smith and George Voinovich, two United States Senators, for their leadership in
    pursuing multipollutant legislation, as well as Congressmen Billy
    Tauzin and Joe Barton. And I want to thank Senator Chuck Hagel and Larry Craig for their
    work on climate issues. These Members of Congress have had an impact on
    the policies I am just about to announce.
         America and the world share this common goal: We must foster
    economic growth in ways that protect our environment. We must encourage
    growth that will provide a better life for citizens, while protecting
    the land, the water, and the air that sustain life.
         In pursuit of this goal, my Government has set two priorities: We
    must clean our air, and we must address the issue of global climate
    change. We must also act in a serious and responsible way, given the
    scientific uncertainties. While these uncertainties remain, we can begin
    now to address the human factors that contribute to climate change. Wise
    action now is an insurance policy against future risks.
         I have been working with my Cabinet to meet these challenges with
    forward and creative thinking. I said, ``If need be, let's challenge the
    status quo. But let's always remember, let's do what is in the interest
    of the American people.''
         Today I'm confident that the environmental path that I announce
    will benefit the entire world. This new approach is based on this
    commonsense idea, that economic growth is key to environmental progress,
    because it is growth that provides the resources for investment in clean
    technologies. This new approach will harness the power of markets, the
    creativity of entrepreneurs, and draw upon the best scientific research.
    And it will make possible a new partnership with the developing world to
    meet our common environmental and economic goals.
         We will apply this approach first to the challenge of cleaning the
    air that Americans breathe. Today I call for new clean skies legislation
    that sets tough new standards to dramatically reduce the three most
    significant forms of pollution from powerplants, sulfur dioxide,
    nitrogen oxides, and mercury. We will cut sulfur dioxide emissions by 73
    percent from current levels. We will cut nitrogen oxide emissions by 67
    percent. And for the first time ever, we will cap emissions of mercury,
    cutting them by 69 percent. These cuts will be completed over two
    measured phases, with one set of emission limits for 2010 and for the
    other for 2018.

    [[Page 228]]

         This legislation will constitute the most significant step America
    has ever taken--has ever taken--to cut powerplant emissions that
    contribute to urban smog, acid rain, and numerous health problems for
    our citizens. Clean skies legislation will not only protect our
    environment, it will prolong the lives of thousands of Americans with
    asthma and other respiratory illnesses, as well as with those with heart
    disease. And it will reduce the risk to children exposed to mercury
    during a mother's pregnancy.
         The clean skies legislation will reach our ambitious air quality
    goals through a market-based cap-and-trade approach that rewards
    innovation, reduces cost, and guarantees results. Instead of the
    Government telling utilities where and how to cut pollution, we will
    tell them when and how much to cut. We will give them a firm deadline
    and let them find the most innovative ways to meet it. We will do this
    by requiring each facility to have a permit for each ton of pollution it
    emits. By making the permits tradeable, this system makes it financially
    worthwhile for companies to pollute less, giving them an incentive to
    make early and cost effective reductions.
         This approach enjoys widespread support with both Democrats and
    Republicans, because we know it works. You see, since 1995 we have used
    a cap-and-trade program for sulfur dioxide pollution. It has cut more
    air pollution--this system has reduced more air pollution in the last
    decade than all other programs under the 1990 Clean Air Act combined and
    by even more than the law required. Compliance has been virtually 100
    percent. It takes only a handful of employees to administer this
    program, and no one had to enter a courtroom to make sure the reductions
    happened. Because the system gives businesses an incentive to create and
    install innovative technologies, these reductions have cost about 80
    percent less than expected. It helps to keep energy prices affordable
    for our consumers. And we made this progress during a decade when our
    economy and our demand for energy was growing.
         The clean skies legislation I propose is structured on this
    approach because it works. It will replace a confusing, ineffective maze
    of regulations for powerplants that has created an endless cycle of
    litigation. Today, hundreds of millions of dollars are spent on lawyers,
    rather than on environmental protection. The result is painfully slow,
    uncertain, and expensive programs on clean air. Instead, clean skies
    legislation will put less money into paying lawyers and regulators, and
    money directly into programs to reduce pollution to meet our national
    goal. This approach, I'm absolutely confident, will bring better and
    faster results in cleaning up our air.
         Now, global climate change presents a different set of challenges
    and requires a different strategy. The science is more complex; the
    answers are less certain; and the technology is less developed. So we
    need a flexible approach that can adjust to new information and new
    technology.
         I reaffirm America's commitment to the United Nations Framework
    Convention and its central goal, to stabilize atmospheric greenhouse gas
    concentrations at a level that will prevent dangerous human interference
    with the climate. Our immediate goal is to reduce America's greenhouse
    gas emissions relative to the size of our economy.
         My administration is committed to cutting our Nation's greenhouse
    gas intensity, how much we emit per unit of economic activity, by 18
    percent over the next 10 years. This will set America on a path to slow
    the growth of our greenhouse gas emissions and, as science justifies, to
    stop and then reverse the growth of emissions.
         This is the commonsense way to measure progress. Our Nation must
    have economic growth, growth to create opportunity, growth to create a
    higher quality of life for our citizens. Growth is also what pays

    [[Page 229]]

    for investments in clean technologies, increased conservation, and
    energy efficiencies. Meeting our commitment to reduce our greenhouse gas
    intensity by 18 percent by the year 2012 will prevent over 500 million
    metric tons of greenhouse gases from going into the atmosphere over the
    course of the decade. And that is the equivalent of taking 70 million
    cars off the road.
         To achieve this goal, our Nation must move forward on many fronts,
    looking at every sector of our economy. We will challenge American
    businesses to further reduce emissions. Already, agreements with the
    semiconductor and aluminum industries and others have dramatically cut
    emissions of some of the most potent greenhouse gases. We will build on
    these successes with new agreements and greater reductions.
         Our Government will also move forward immediately to create world-
    class standards for measuring and registering emission reductions. And
    we will give transferable credits to companies that can show real
    emission reductions. We will promote renewable energy production and
    clean coal technology, as well as nuclear power, which produces no
    greenhouse gas emissions. And we will work to safely improve fuel
    economy for our cars and our trucks.
         Overall, my budget devotes $4.5 billion to addressing climate
    change, more than any other nation's commitment in the entire world.
    This is an increase of more than $700 million over last year's budget.
    Our Nation will continue to lead the world in basic climate and science
    research to address gaps in our knowledge that are important to
    decisionmakers. When we make decisions, we want to make sure we do so on
    sound science, not what sounds good but what is real, and the United
    States leads the world in providing that kind of research.
        We'll devote $588 million towards the research and development of
    energy conservation technologies. We must and we will conserve more in
    the United States. And we will spend $408 million toward research and
    development on renewables, on renewable energy. This funding includes
    $150 million for an initiative that Spence Abraham laid out the other day, $150 million for the Freedom
    Car Initiative, which will advance the prospect of breakthrough zero-
    emission fuel cell technologies.
         My comprehensive energy plan, the first energy plan that any
    administration has put out in a long period of time, provides $4.6
    billion over the next 5 years in clean energy tax incentives to
    encourage purchases of hybrid and fuel cell vehicles, to promote
    residential solar energy, and to reward investments in wind, solar, and
    biomass energy production. And we will look for ways to increase the
    amount of carbon stored by America's farms and forests through a strong
    conservation title in the farm bill. I have asked Secretary
    Veneman to recommend new targeted incentives for
    landowners to increase carbon storage.
         By doing all these things, by giving companies incentives to cut
    emissions, by diversifying our energy supply to include cleaner fuels,
    by increasing conservation, by increasing research and development and
    tax incentives for energy efficiency and clean technologies, and by
    increasing carbon storage, I am absolutely confident that America will
    reach the goal that I have set.
         If, however, by 2012, our progress is not sufficient and sound
    science justifies further action, the United States will respond with
    additional measures that may include broad-based market programs as well
    as additional incentives and voluntary measures designed to accelerate
    technology development and deployment.
         Addressing global climate change will require a sustained effort
    over many generations. My approach recognizes that economic growth is
    the solution, not the problem, because a nation that grows its economy
    is a nation that can afford investments and new technologies.
         The approach taken under the Kyoto Protocol would have required the
    United

    [[Page 230]]

    States to make deep and immediate cuts in our economy to meet an
    arbitrary target. It would have cost our economy up to $400 billion, and
    we would have lost 4.9 million jobs. As President of the United States,
    charged with safeguarding the welfare of the American people and
    American workers, I will not commit our Nation to an unsound
    international treaty that will throw millions of our citizens out of
    work.
        Yet, we recognize our international responsibilities. So in addition
    to acting here at home, the United States will actively help developing
    nations grow along a more efficient, more environmentally responsible
    path. The hope of growth and opportunity and prosperity is universal.
    It's the dream and right of every society on our globe. The United
    States wants to foster economic growth in the developing world,
    including the world's poorest nations. We want to help them realize
    their potential and bring the benefits of growth to their peoples,
    including better health and better schools and a cleaner environment.
         It would be unfair--indeed, counterproductive--to condemn
    developing nations to slow growth or no growth by insisting that they
    take on impractical and unrealistic greenhouse gas targets. Yet,
    developing nations such as China and India already account for a
    majority of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, and it would be
    irresponsible to absolve them from shouldering some of the shared
    obligations.
         The greenhouse gas intensity approach I put forward today gives
    developing countries a yardstick for progress on climate change that
    recognizes their right to economic development. I look forward to
    discussing this new approach next week when I go to China and Japan and
    South Korea. The United States will not interfere with the plans of any
    nation that chooses to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. But I will intend to
    work with nations, especially the poor and developing nations, to show
    the world that there is a better approach, that we can build our future
    prosperity along a cleaner and better path.
         My budget includes over $220 million for the U.S. Agency for
    International Development and the global environmental facility to help
    developing countries better measure, reduce emissions, and to help them
    invest in clean and renewable energy technologies. Many of these
    technologies, which we take for granted in our own country, are not
    being used in the developing world. We can help ensure that the benefits
    of these technologies are more broadly shared. Such efforts have helped
    bring solar energy to Bangladesh, hydroelectric energy to the
    Philippines, geothermal electricity to Kenya. These projects are
    bringing jobs and environmental benefits to these nations, and we will
    build on these successes.
         The new budget also provides $40 million under the Tropical Forest
    Conservation Act to help countries redirect debt payments towards
    protecting tropical forests, forests that store millions of tons of
    carbon. And I've also ordered the Secretary of State to develop a new
    initiative to help developing countries stop illegal logging, a practice
    that destroys biodiversity and releases millions of tons of greenhouse
    gases into the atmosphere.
         And finally, my Government is following through on our commitment
    to provide $25 million for climate observation systems in developing
    countries that will help scientists understand the dynamics of climate
    change.
         To clean the air and to address climate change, we need to
    recognize that economic growth and environmental protection go hand in
    hand. Affluent societies are the ones that demand and can, therefore,
    afford the most environmental protection. Prosperity is what allows us
    to commit more and more resources to environmental protection. And in
    the coming decades, the world needs to develop and deploy billions of
    dollars of technologies that generate energy in cleaner ways. And we
    need strong economic growth to make that possible.

    [[Page 231]]

         Americans are among the most creative people in our history. We
    have used radio waves to peer into the deepest reaches of space. We
    cracked life's genetic code. We have made our air and land and water
    significantly cleaner, even as we have built the world's strongest
    economy. When I see what Americans have done, I know what we can do. We
    can tap the power of economic growth to further protect our environment
    for generations that will follow. And that's what we're going to do.
         Thank you.

      Note:  The President spoke at 2:05 p.m. in the Science Center at the
    National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In his remarks, he
    referred to NOAA Administrator Conrad ``Connie'' C. Lautenbacher, Jr.;
    and Sasha Cohen, figure skater, 2002 U.S. Olympic team. The President
    also referred to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
    Change and the Kyoto Protocol to the convention.