Tackle Climate Change; Don’t Hurt the Economy

Environmentalists and other supporters are calling the Senate’s failure last week to advance global warming legislation a missed opportunity. In that it would have been the beginning on the part of the United States to tackle the worldwide problem, they are right.

Nonetheless, Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., said international observers would be gratified that the measure he co-sponsored received support from a majority of the Senate. The bill, which aimed to reduce total U.S. carbon emissions associated with global warming by nearly 70 percent by 2050, died when supporters could not get the 60 votes needed to bring the measure to the floor for a vote.

Sen. John Warner, R-Va., another major sponsor of the climate-change legislation, was resigned to defeat when he said, “I’ve done the best I can.” He gave one last pitch to Senate Republicans to join his bill to drastically reduce U.S. emissions from power plants, oil refineries and automobiles. But it was for naught.

Republicans argued the regulatory bill would increase already high gas prices, cause economic upheaval and amounted to little more than a transfer of wealth on a massive scale through the bill’s signature cap-and-trade program. President Bush had vowed to veto the bill if Congress had approved it.

Lieberman, however, was not discouraged. “I think people around the world are going to be greatly encouraged by the fact that 54 members of the U.S. Senate are saying they want to support a real response to global warming.”

The Climate Security Act was the most ambitious legislation on global warming ever taken up in Congress. It would have cut carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 from power plants, refineries, factories and transportation.

Its sponsors said the mandatory reductions are essential to put the United States in a leadership role in global attempts to head off dangerous climate change.

The measure’s targets are more modest than those set by the Kyoto Protocol, the international agreement on global warming. The United States is the only major industrialized nation to reject the Kyoto agreement.

Carbon dioxide, which contributes to the climate-warming greenhouse effect, is emitted by burning fossil fuels.

A coalition of environmental groups also looked at the legislation’s defeat with an optimistic eye. The vote, they said, “sets the stage for a new president and Congress to enact strong legislation that will more effectively build a clean energy economy and prevent the worst consequences of global warming.” The groups included the Environmental Defense Fund, National Wildlife Federation and Natural Resources Defense Council.

The statement accused lawmakers allied with the coal and oil industries of blocking progress on the measure.

Supporters have also pointed out that both presumptive presidential candidates are in favor of the legislation, which would provide leadership from the White House that has been missing in the global warming debate. Sens John McCain, R-Ariz., and Barack Obama, D-Ill., both sent letters to the Senate indicating support for the legislation.

Warner, who is retiring from the Senate this year, said at the opening of the debate on the bill that “to do nothing is not an option.” He is right. Let’s hope that a new Senate and a new president will take up the fight against global warming in a serious way that will produce the desired results of reducing carbon emissions into the atmosphere.

But they need to do so in a way that will not harm the $13 trillion American economy.