|
Congress
comes to grips with global warming |
||
|
The
dam has broken, and a flood of global-warming bills has come pouring
out of the U.S. Congress. At least three of the bills now in Congress have provisions strong enough to gain some ground against the problem. And of these, two bills– one in the House of Representatives, and one in the Senate– are the strongest.
|
||
|
Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) introduced the
Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act (S. 309) in the Senate this
past January. The measure has 19 co-sponsors and currently is in the
Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works. The Safe Climate Act of 2007 (H.R. 1590) was introduced this March by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA). His bill is virtually identical to S. 309 and has garnered 140 co-sponsors in the House. Higher average temperatures, rising sea levels, stronger and more frequent hurricanes, melting glaciers– the signs that global climate is rapidly changing are increasing steadily. And the scientific consensus is that human beings and their burning of fossil fuels are the chief cause. Yet, since 1990 U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases have risen by 15.8 percent. Global warming is harming forests worldwide. In turn, destructive forest practices are exacerbating the warming. When California forests are clearcut, for example, their ability to remove carbon from the atmosphere and store it is lost. Tropical rainforests are being burned at an alarming rate to clear the land for agriculture. This can be a triple loss. Not only do the trees release CO2 when they are burned, but also their carbon storage function is destroyed. And cattle ranches are big contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. An emerging scientific consensus holds that to keep average temperatures from rising catastrophically, the world must reduce human-caused emissions by at least 80 percent from 1990 levels by 2050. The bills sponsored by Boxer, Sanders and Waxman would go further than that. They would enforce reductions in greenhouse gases of two percent a year, beginning in 2010, to ensure that global average temperatures will not increase by more than 3.6 degrees F. They would limit the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide– the gas primarily responsible for global warming– to 450 parts per million. These bills would accomplish this by cutting greenhouse gas emissions in the United States– from cars, trucks, buses, electric power plants, and any industry that pumps these gases into the atmosphere. The ultimate goal of the legislation is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in this country by 83 percent below 1990 levels by the year 2050. S. 309 and H.R. 1590 both encourage the development of new technology to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, such as “geologic sequestration” of carbon dioxide (capturing and storing it underground). These new technologies also can provide new jobs. The bills also promote a cap-and-trade approach, which sets a limit on the amount of greenhouse gases that can be emitted without penalty, awards credits to polluters that stay under this limit, and allows them to sell their unused credits. Cap-and-trade may not be the best way to curtail greenhouse gas emissions in the long run. Government could create more credits in response to industry pressure, for instance, causing credit inflation and reduced effectiveness. Misuse of pollution credits could well result in emissions staying stuck at current levels, even though the need to lower them is urgent. But if these and other problems with cap-and-trade can be satisfactorily corrected, it may prove helpful beyond its gaining buy-in from industry. WHAT YOU CAN DO: Call or write Sen. Dianne Feinstein and ask her to support S. 309. Sen. Dianne Feinstein One Post Street, Suite 2450 San Francisco, CA 94104 Phone (415) 393-0707 Fax (415) 393-0710 Also call your representative and urge him or her to support Rep. Henry Waxman’s Safe Climate Act, H.R. 1590. Contact information for your representative can be found at: http://thomas.loc.gov/ When you write your letters to Sen. Feinstein and your representative, be sure to mention the problems inherent in cap-and-trade proposals, and urge that these issues be resolved before the legislation reaches its final form. |
FORESTS FOREVER San
Francisco |