Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I rise as a cosponsor of the bipartisan amendment proposed by Senators HAGEL and PRYOR to add a climate change title to the Energy bill. I commend them for their leadership on this very important issue.
Man's relationship with the world's climate has long been a focus of scientists and policymakers. Thirty years ago, there was great concern about global cooling, as evidenced by articles in Science Digest in February, 1973, entitled ``Brace Yourself for an Ice Age'' and Time Magazine in June, 1974, entitled ``Another Ice Age?''
Today, many are worried instead about global warming, with claims that urgent and dramatic actions are needed to avoid catastrophic impacts. As the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Clean Air, Climate Change, and Nuclear Safety Subcommittee, I have spent a great deal of time studying this issue, as our committee has held numerous hearings on climate change.
The chairman of the committee, Senator Inhofe from Oklahoma, has spent countless hours personally examining climate change science. He has recently given several speeches on the Senate floor, pointing out serious flaws in the four principal beliefs underlying what some call a consensus on global warming. His work points out very clearly that we are far from a consensus and many questions remain.
I am hopeful today he will take the floor some time to go into more of the details on that, as he has in the past.
Despite the scientific debate, the issue of global warming and proposals to address this perceived threat have received a lot of attention lately in the Senate. On one side of this debate, there are proposals to create a mandatory domestic program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, such as the amendment that will be proposed by Senator McCain, to my understanding, and I strongly urge my colleagues to vote against this amendment.
It is my understanding that the amendment, according to Charles Rivers Associates, which analyzed its provisions, would cause the loss of 24,000 to 47,000 Ohio jobs, in 2010, and energy-intensive industries to shrink by 2.3 to 5.6 percent in 2020. We are talking about manufacturing industries, energy-intensive manufacturing and chemical and many others.
The McCain amendment will put coal out of business by forcing fuel switching to natural gas. This might even be why some organizations are pushing this amendment. Last year, I was shocked to read that a Sierra Legal Defense Fund staff lawyer said:
In general, our long-term objective is to make sure that coal-fired plants get closed.
This is an unacceptable outcome for my State and our Nation. Nearly 90 percent of Ohio's electricity comes from coal. For the Nation, it is about 50 percent. Companies depend on this low-cost energy to compete in the global marketplace. We do not live in a cocoon. Companies are moving overseas because of increased health care costs, litigation costs, and energy costs are also a major factor.
According to a recent survey of industrial executives, the No. 1 barrier to U.S. manufacturing growth in the coming year is high energy prices. It becomes even more costly for companies to operate in this country when you consider the new air quality standards for ozone and particulate matter. States and localities have yet to fully understand how difficult and expensive it will be to come in compliance with the standards.
Over the last decade, the use of natural gas in electricity generation has risen significantly, while domestic supplies of natural gas have fallen.
That is why we are trying to do something about more natural gas in this Energy bill. The results are predictable: Tightening supplies of natural gas, higher natural gas prices, and higher electricity prices.
Because of this situation, U.S. natural gas prices are the highest in the developed world. Families that use natural gas to heat their homes, farmers that use it to make fertilizer, and the manufacturers who use it as a feed stock are getting hammered due to these higher costs.
The chemical industry's 8-decade run as a major exporter ended in 2003 with a $19 billion trade surplus in 1997 becoming a $9.6 billion deficit.
So we have lost the chemical industry for all intents and purposes because of the high cost of natural gas.
The President of one major pharmaceutical company that employs 22,000 people in the United States called me recently and said unless we do something about natural gas prices, his company will be forced to move many of its operations overseas.
The bottom line is, if you kill coal with a mandatory cap on carbon, you force more people to go to natural gas to produce electricity. We just add to the crisis that we already have.
The energy bill tries to address this crisis, but the amendment we are going [Page: S6886] to be getting later on would reverse those efforts and cause an even worse situation than what exists today. The U.S. has a responsibility to develop a policy that harmonizes the needs of our economy and our environment. These are not competing needs. A sustainable environment is critical to a strong economy, and a sustainable economy is critical to providing the funding necessary to improve our environment.
If we kill the golden goose, we will not have the money for the technology to do the things that we need to do, to improve the environment. A carbon cap--and that is what we are going to be hearing more about--means fuel switching, the end of manufacturing in my State, enormous burdens on the least of our brethren, and moving jobs and production overseas.
It is already happening. We have a $162 billion trade deficit with China and almost all of it is in the manufacturing area. These are people who are moving out because of the high cost of producing here in the United States.
Ironically, a carbon cap, a cap on carbon, as I say, is going to have a dramatic negative impact on our manufacturing. A couple of years ago, when Senator Jeffords was promoting a bill that would put a cap on carbon, I said to him: Senator, those jobs that you are killing in Ohio are not going to Vermont. They are going to China, and they are going to go to India.
I have also discussed this issue twice with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has made climate change one of the focuses of the upcoming G8 meeting. I think he understands that Kyoto is not working, and we need to do something else.
Furthermore, many of the countries that did ratify the Kyoto treaty are not expected to meet their commitments. According to a Washington Times article of May 16 entitled ``Broken Promises, Hot Air,'' 12 of the 15 European Union countries are currently 20 to 70 percent above their emissions target levels.
I think the Senator from Idaho mentioned earlier in his remarks that the Italians have basically said they are not going to be able to meet their commitments that they made when they signed the Kyoto treaty.
So last week I became a cosponsor of three pieces of legislation that comprehensively address climate change by focusing on tax incentives, technology development, and international deployment.
The amendment that we have proposed today contains the domestic and international proposal. It does not include the tax incentives because the Energy bill now includes an amendment by the Finance Committee to add over $14 billion, over 10 years, in tax incentives.
I will only briefly explain the amendment since it has been explained by colleagues. It proposes the adoption of technologies that reduce greenhouse gas intensity by creating a Climate Coordinating Committee and Climate Credit Board to assess, approve, and fund projects. Addressing climate change must be accomplished through the development of new technologies, as there currently is no technology available to capture and control carbon dioxide emissions.
Many people today are promoting combined gas--integrated gas combined cycle technology, which will reduce NOx and SOx and deal with mercury. The fact of the matter is, in terms of greenhouse gases, it does not get the job done.
Second, the amendment focuses on the notion that all nations must be part of this effort. It directs the Department of State to work with the top 25 greenhouse gas-emitting developing countries to reduce their greenhouse gas intensity. It also promotes the export of greenhouse gas intensity reducing technologies.
I really think, if this amendment to the Energy bill is agreed to, it is something the President, when he goes to the G8 meeting, can refer to in terms of its importance, getting everybody at the table to start to do something realistic about the problem of greenhouse gases.
I am concerned that the very nature of this amendment is misleading; that is, that we are adding a climate title to the Energy bill, which means that maybe it does not address climate change. This is not true.
I commend Senators DOMENICI and BINGAMAN for putting together a bipartisan energy bill that deals with climate change in several ways. In other words, the underlying bill already deals with climate change.
First, the bill provides research and development funding for long-term zero- or low-emitting greenhouse technologies. These include fuel cells, hydrogen cells, coal gasification--with the greatest potential to capture and control carbon dioxide emissions.
Second, the bill includes extensive provisions to increase energy conservation.
Third, the bill promotes the use of nuclear power, which is emissions-free power. There is no greenhouse gas with nuclear power.
I restate this for my colleagues: The Energy bill already addresses climate change. For all those concerned about climate change, the underlying bill deals with it. The Hagel-Pryor amendment simply adds to these provisions. Let me restate this for my colleagues: This bill, without any amendments, including ours, addresses climate change.
Some might be further misled to think that our country is currently not doing anything because the Energy bill does all of this to address a climate change. However, this is far from the truth. In fact, our Nation is taking so many actions on this front that I am going to try to run through them very quickly. In other words, we are doing an enormous amount in our country in terms of greenhouse gases and dealing with this whole issue of carbon emissions.
The President established a climate change policy to reduce the greenhouse gas intensity of our economy by 18 percent over the next 10 years through voluntary measures. This is more than most of the countries involved in the Kyoto Protocol. Unlike the rest of the world, we are on target to meet our goal--not like the Europeans, 12 to 70 percent away from meeting their goals.
We have the Climate VISION Partnership which involves 12 major industrial sectors and the members of the Business Roundtable who have committed to work with Cabinet agencies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the next decade.
We have the climate leader's program, an EPA partnership encouraging individual companies to develop long-term comprehensive climate change strategy. Sixty-eight corporations are already participating in the program.
The administration's budget for 2006 is $5.5 billion for extensive climate change technology and science programs and energy tax incentives.
The United States is also taking a lead internationally--and again, we get no credit. There is $198 million included in the President's fiscal year 2006 budget for international climate change.
