Senators urge Bush to back policies to reverse climate change

Senators urge Bush to back policies to reverse climate change

Washington (Platts)--30Jun2006

Forty US Senators are urging President Bush to take a leadership role and
advance policies that would reverse the nation's trend toward activities that
advance climate change and support congressional efforts to reduce industry
emissions that lead to global warming.

Marking the anniversary of the Senate's passage of a resolution calling
for a federal mandate to "slow, stop and reverse" greenhouse gas emissions,
the bipartisan group of senators told the president that they continue to
support mandatory controls to reduce these emissions within 10 years.

"The difficulty and cost of averting the environmental and economic
effects posed by global warming increases with every year that the US fails to
implement a carbon emission policy," the senators wrote Bush. "Leading US
scientists now warn that we must begin reducing global warming pollution from
today's levels within 10 years in order to avoid the worst effects of global
warming."

Inaction is encouraging the construction and development of power plants
and other industrial facilities without regard to climate change, they said.

The Bush administration opposes mandatory caps on greenhouse gases and
developed a voluntary program to decrease industry greenhouse gas intensity by
18% by 2012 in its stead. Greenhouse gas intensity is the ratio of greenhouse
gas emissions to economic output.

Maine Republican Susan Collins, chairwoman of the committee on homeland
security and governmental affairs; Democratic Whip Dick Durbin of
Illinois; Rhode Island Republican Lincoln Chafee and Florida Democrat Bill
Nelson helped to draft the letter that was sent to Bush.

The full Senate has yet to consider legislation sponsored by Senators
John McCain and Joe Lieberman, who both signed the letter, for an economy-wide
cap on carbon dioxide. But Arizona Republican McCain and Lieberman, a Democrat
from Connecticut, earlier this year vowed to push the bill to a floor vote
this year.

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