[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
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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.
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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
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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
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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.
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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.