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 Editorials | Environmental | November 2007 
Despite "Historic" Vote, Groups Say Climate Bill Needs Improvement
 Latoya Irvine & Jim Snyder - The Hill
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 |  | It's a big step forward, but the challenge now is to improve the bill as it advances.
- Emily Figdor |  | |
Environmental advocates used terms like "historic," "milestone" and "turning point" to describe a split Senate subcommittee's vote on Thursday in favor of a bill that would impose for the first time a cap on greenhouse gas emissions.
Underscoring the steep challenges facing the measure, however, several green groups also expressed reservations about components of the bill, which was written with an eye on easing the pain for key sectors of the economy as they work to cut emissions.
"It's a big step forward, but the challenge now is to improve the bill as it [advances]," said Emily Figdor, director of the federal global warming program of U.S. PIRG, the federation of state Public Interest Research Groups.
Their concern focused on the distribution of free emissions allowances and the use of carbon offsets to help companies meet emissions targets. Both could delay emissions reductions.
"Under the bill, a company could theoretically meet nearly its entire 2020 pollution-reduction requirement through offsets," U.S. PIRG said in a statement.
A Senate Environment and Public Works subcommittee on private sector solutions to global warming approved the bill in a 4-3 vote. It followed weeks of negotiations led by Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and John Warner (R-Va.), who chair the panel.
Lieberman acknowledged in his opening statement that the bill would not satisfy everyone. But he said Congress needed to act quickly before a climate change "tipping point" is reached and damaging effects of climate change become irreversible.
The bill would require emissions reductions from electric utilities, transportation and industrial economic sectors. Under the bill, emissions would have to be reduced by 19 percent of 2005 levels by 2020 and 63 percent by 2050.
Lieberman said the "substantial reduction" of greenhouse gas emissions is "in range" of what scientists say is needed to avoid catastrophic warming effects.
But Lieberman's fellow Senate Independent, Bernie Sanders of Vermont, criticized the bill for not going far enough. He had previously introduced a bill that calls for an 80 percent reduction in emissions.
Sanders voted against the bill Thursday, as did Sens. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) and Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), albeit for different reasons. Barrasso and Isakson both expressed concerns over the economic impacts of the bill.
Lieberman himself said it was "hard to imagine" the measure would not cost emitting industries "hundreds of billions of dollars over time."
But he said Congress had no choice to act given the consequences of global warming.
Lieberman was joined by Sens. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Warner, who voted by proxy because he is in the hospital recovering from a leg infection.
Countering complaints that the bill gives emitters free allowances to help them meet their targets, Lieberman said such "subsidies" are needed to protect the economy and jobs on an issue that is likely to present significant technical challenges. Techniques to sequester carbon dioxide from coal, which now accounts for 50 percent of the electricity consumed in the United States, are still largely unproven.
"We have to find a balance point" between the economy and the need to make emissions reductions, Lieberman said.
Jeremy Symons, executive director of the National Wildlife Federation's global warming program, said the vote Thursday marked a "turning point" in the climate debate.
"The train left the station today," he said. |
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