State AGs Bash Bush with Climate Action Report
Attorneys General from eleven States sent a letter to President George W. Bush on July 17 calling on him to propose mandatory reductions in carbon dioxide emissions. They based their case on the administrations Climate Action Report 2002, which was sent to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in May.
The letter details a number of possible impacts of global warming for which there is little or no scientific evidence, but which are mentioned in Climate Action Report 2002. The chapter in that report on the impacts of climate change was based on the scientifically-discredited National Assessment, which was prepared by the Clinton Administration but later disavowed by the Bush Administration.
The Attorneys General note that several States have already passed legislation to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, but add that “state-by-state action is not our preferred option.” Instead, they favor a federal cap-and-trade program. The letter also states that they are considering litigation to force federal action. Attorneys General from California, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Maine, Alaska, and Vermont signed the letter.
Petitions Filed with Federal Agencies Based on Climate Action Report
The Bluewater Network, the environmental pressure group which wrote the bill passed by the California legislature to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from new vehicles, has filed petitions with at least four federal agencies demanding that they begin to prepare for the impacts of climate change predicted by the administrations Climate Action Report 2002. Petitions dated June 27 were filed with the National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Forest Service, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Now that serious adverse impacts of global warming have been acknowledged officially by the administration, the Bluewater Network argues that these agencies are required by law to take these impacts into account in their resource protection policies and planning.
The petition to the Forest Service, for example, asks the service to, “Initiate a no tree-cut policy for all national forests, to sequester carbon, retain ground and forest moisture, and protect wildlife and ecosystems that are dependent on these resources.” The Network is apparently unaware that a nearly-no-cut policy has been in effect since the early 1990s, which has led to catastrophic fires over tens of millions of acres in 2000 and 2002.
It should be mentioned that the Bluewater Network is a project of the Earth Island Institute. Gar Smith, editor of the Earth Island Institutes Journal, published a long commentary on September 13, 2001, in which he explained that the real reasons for the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were “World Trade and U.S. Militarism.”
He also claimed that, “If we were to redirect our economy to operate on clean renewable energy…we would not only be on the path to mitigating climate change, we would also be on the path to eliminating one of the major causes of terrorism.”
Davis Signs CO2 Bill
As anticipated, California Governor Gray Davis signed “ground breaking legislation” on July 22 to cut carbon dioxide emissions. Davis wrote in and op-ed, “The federal government and Congress, by failing to ratify the Kyoto treaty on global warming, have missed their opportunity to do the right thing. So it is left to California, the nations most populous state and the worlds fifth largest economy, to take the lead” (Washington Post, July 22, 2002).
The law will require the California Air Resources Board to design policies to “achieve a maximum feasible reduction of greenhouse gases” from cars and trucks by 2005. Davis noted that the “vigorous lobbying campaign by automakers was successful in Congress and nearly stalled Californias carbon emission law, but common sense prevailed.”
Eron Shosteck, a spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, told the Washington Post (July 22, 2002) that the law will directly harm consumers. “You cant make one car for California and another car for Washington, D.C.,” he said. “California motorists are going to be extremely angry when they find they are going to lose access to SUVs, trucks and minivans.” Shosteck also noted that, “there are already 50 models that get more than 30 miles per gallon,” and “consumers dont want them. High mileage cars sit on dealer lots and dont sell.”
New York Assemblyman Thomas DiNapoli (D) immediately announced that he plans to introduce legislation that would direct New York to adopt Californias standards. “Global warming and greenhouse gases pose serious health and economic risks,” DiNapoli said. “By acting now, we are acting responsibility to limit the pollutants that directly contribute to global warming and the degradation of air quality” (Detroit News, July 23, 2002).
Congress Looks at Kyoto and National Assessment
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and Foreign Relations Committee held a joint hearing on the Kyoto Protocol and other international environmental treaties on July 24. Christopher C. Horner, counsel to the Cooler Heads Coaliton and senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, testified along with, John Turner, assistant secretary of State, James Connaughton, chairman of Council on Environmental Quality, Maurice Strong, chairman of Canadas Earth Council Institute, and John Dernbach of the Widener University School of Law. Their written testimony is available at http://epw.senate.gov.
On July 25, the House Energy and Commerce Committees Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations will hold a hearing on scientific shortcomings of the National Assessment on the impacts of climate change. Testimony will be available at http://energycommerce.house.gov.
CO2 Dumping: Are They Joking?
Environmental pressure groups are succeeding in their efforts to stop scientific experiments with long-term deep-ocean sequestration of carbon dioxide. On July 2, an international consortium gave up on its application to 5,000 gallons of liquefied CO2 into ocean 3,000 feet below the surface off the island of Kauai in Hawaii. The purpose was to determine its dispersal and effects on ocean chemistry.
Jeff Mikulina, director of the Hawaii chapter of the Sierra Club, told the San Francisco Chronicle (July 2, 2002), “We are encouraged that carbon dioxide dumping did not find a warm reception among Hawaii residents. This experiment was hatched by the fossil fuel industry to allow them to continue their polluting ways.”
And Greenpeace has objected to a similar experiment proposed by the Norwegian Institute for Water Research, claiming that CO2 would fall under an international treaty prohibiting dumping of industrial waste (Greenwire, July 3, 2002). According to a Greenpeace spokesman, “The sea is not a dumping ground. Its illegal to dump nuclear or toxic waste at sea, and its illegal to dump CO2 the fossil fuel industrys waste.”