Gore urges US Congress to reach 'meaningful solution' on climate

Washington (Platts)--21Mar2007

Former US Vice President Al Gore told a joint hearing of two House panels
Wednesday that there is a "sense of hope in this country that this Congress
will rise to the occasion and a present meaningful solution" to the problem of
global warming.

He called on Congress to rise above "partisanship and reach across the
aisle and do what history is calling upon all of us to do."

The US is the "natural leader of the world, and the world faces a true
planetary emergency," Gore said in his opening statement to a joint hearing of
the House Energy and Science committees.

Gore said the US should immediately freeze carbon dioxide emissions and
start on a path towards reducing CO2 emissions 90% by 2050. He also
recommended a reduction of the federal tax on earnings and shifting the tax
burden on wages to a carbon tax.

Gore said he favors the Kyoto Treaty, "but I understand the name has
been demonized." Rather than try to fight a rearguard action trying to ratify
Kyoto, the next administration should work to develop an even tougher
cap-and-trade treaty, effective in 2010, including a provision to make "China
and India a part of the effort."

He also called for a moratorium on the construction of new coal-fired
power plants that do not capture and store their carbon emissions.

Gore said he would deliver to Congress 516,000 emails sent to his web
site calling on the two houses to adopt legislation "that will address this
crisis."

Representative Ralph Hall, Republican-Texas, the only member who chose to
make an opening statement before Gore spoke, said the demands for mandatory US
actions to combat global warming represent an "all-out assault on all forms of
fossil fuels and all forms of nuclear energy."

Americans "won't be cajoled, frightened or bullied into a dangerous world
that would leave us without reliable energy supplies," Hall said. "Pro-Kyoto
self-styled experts never mention the [economic] cost" of controlling carbon
emissions, he added.

--Gerald Karey, gerry_karey@platts.com