Bush set to tackle global warming, The Boston Globe - January 22, 2007
Karl Thidemann
Plan to reduce emissions expected in State of Union
By Rick Klein, Globe Staff
The Boston Globe - January 22, 2007
WASHINGTON -- President Bush this week is prepared to unveil what his
aides have billed as a bold new national strategy to confront global
climate change and work toward energy independence, even as Democrats
push their own, more aggressive approach to the issue.
In previewing the State of the Union address the president will
deliver tomorrow, administration officials have strongly hinted that
Bush would outline steps the government will take to reduce emissions
of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, which most scientists
believe contribute to global warming.
The White House has refused to discuss details in advance of the
president's speech, though many in Congress and the energy industry
expect it to include raising fuel-economy standards for automobiles,
more support for renewable energy sources, and efforts to control
emissions at utility plants and other big polluters.
The commitment to addressing global warming marks a shift for the
White House, which critics say has consistently tried to undermine
scientific evidence of the link between air pollution and disturbing
trends in the environment.
Still, White House officials point out that Bush is highly skeptical
of mandatory, economy-wide caps on carbon dioxide emissions, citing
the president's preference for market-based incentives as a solution
to the problem.
That's not enough for many members of Congress, who argue that the
time for voluntary programs has passed and that only swift, dramatic
actions can avert catastrophic consequences. House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi bluntly warned the president on Friday that lawmakers will act
on global warming, with or without his help.
"The science of global warming and its impact is overwhelming and
unequivocal," said Pelosi, a California Democrat. "We want to work
with President Bush on this important issue in a bipartisan way. But
we cannot afford to wait."
White House press secretary Tony Snow said the president plans to use
his speech to link the national security imperative of developing
alternative energy sources to the need to improve the environment.
Bush, Snow said, believes that market-based mechanisms such as tax
credits and other incentives can encourage clean-energy innovations
that can reduce the nation's dependence on foreign oil.
"There are plenty of opportunities out there to encourage people to do
the right things," Snow said. "Carrots tend to work better than
sticks."
But some congressional Democrats and environmental activists doubt the
president's pledges on energy.
In all six of his previous State of the Union addresses, Bush has
committed to work toward energy independence, yet the nation imported
about 60 percent of its oil from abroad last year -- up from 53
percent when Bush won office in 2000, according to the Department of
Energy.
Last year, Bush drew headlines with his declaration that "America is
addicted to oil." But the budget request he submitted to Congress a
few weeks later cut $100 million from federal energy conservation
programs.
Bush, a former oilman, has long had close ties to the oil and gas
industry, and his energy policies have focused heavily on promoting
domestic oil drilling, including exploration in the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.
"In the past, there's been some head-turning rhetoric, but
head-in-the-sand proposals," said Gene Karpinski, president of the
League of Conservation Voters. "From our perspective, you can talk the
talk all you want, but if you don't have mandatory proposals in place,
you're not making progress. That's the ultimate test."
Though talk of the president even acknowledging a human impact on
climate change would once have stirred optimism among
environmentalists, the political landscape has shifted significantly
in the past few months.
A growing number of states have taken major steps to reduce greenhouse
gas emissions, including Massachusetts, where Governor Deval Patrick
last week rejoined a seven-state regional effort that includes
penalties on polluters.
A consortium of major environmental groups has teamed up with a group
of industry powerhouses -- including Alcoa, General Electric, DuPont,
and Duke Energy -- in calling for federal action on requiring
reductions in emissions.
The Democratic takeover of Congress, meanwhile, has brought a reversal
in the attitudes of members of leadership toward climate change.
Senator Barbara Boxer , who has called global warming "a potential
crisis of a magnitude we've never seen," is now chairwoman of the
Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee. The California
Democrat replaced Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, a Republican who
famously called global warming "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on
the American people."
In the House, Pelosi is signaling her commitment to the issue by
creating a committee to deal exclusively with climate change and
energy independence. She has charged the committee with helping to
draft legislation that the House can approve by July 4.
Pelosi's choice to head that committee, Representative Edward J.
Markey of Malden, has advocated a much tougher approach to global
warming than anything Bush has espoused, including mandatory emissions
caps and significantly higher fuel mileage standards for vehicles.
And it is not just Democrats who are pushing global warming.
Senator John McCain of Arizona, a 2008 GOP presidential front-runner,
is pushing a measure to cap greenhouse gas emissions at 2000 levels
economy-wide. His co sponsors include Senator Barack Obama of
Illinois, a rising star among Democrats who is exploring a run for
president, and Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, an
independent who is an influential moderate voice in Congress.
"The president really has to move, or this issue will have moved right
past him," Markey said. "I doubt that the president is going to
suddenly embrace a set of policies he rejected for six years. But he
has to deal with the reality that the Congress is making this one of
the highest priorities for this country."
Despite the intensifying pressure from lawmakers, some White House
allies say they don't expect Bush to make major policy changes.
Representative Joe Barton of Texas, the top Republican on the House
Energy and Commerce Committee, said that he expects the president to
add fresh "nuances" to his energy policy but that Bush would not risk
economic damage with drastic pollution reducing measures.
"The expectation may exceed the reality," Barton said of the State of
the Union address. "He's what I would call a common-sense
environmentalist, who wants to keep our economy strong and protect our
environment. I don't think that you're going to see any great change
in his position."
Barton said that if Democratic leaders tried to push an extreme
approach toward confronting global warming with mandatory caps that
are unreasonable for businesses, they would quickly learn that they
don't have the votes to make their proposals law.
"You're going to make energy and environmental policy on the middle --
you're not going to make it on the extremes," he said.
But environmental groups and many Democrats say Bush can show his
commitment to tackling global warming if he institutes a mandatory
emissions cap that applies to the entire US economy, and forces
automakers to make more efficient cars and sport utility vehicles.
Mandatory limits are at the heart of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol
international agreement to curb greenhouse gas emissions -- a treaty
on which the United States backed out shortly after Bush took office
in 2001.
"We've tried voluntary for a very long time, and emissions just keep
going up," said Joseph Romm, a former Clinton administration Energy
Department official who published a book this month on global warming.
"If you have the problem, you have to embrace the one viable solution:
Putting a cap on emissions."
The specifics of Bush's plan aside, the biggest impact could come in
sparking a new dialogue between the administration and congressional
Democrats on energy policy, after years in which the two sides have
viewed each other skeptically.
"Nothing is going to happen on this unless it is done on a
collaborative effort," said Frank Maisano, an energy industry
spokesman in Washington.
(c) Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
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