[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 38, Number 7 (Monday, February 18, 2002)]
[Pages 232-236]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
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 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]

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     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.
     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

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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 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

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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 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

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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.
     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.