STEVEN CHU: Chu is one of four top officials pushing climate and energy legislation in the U.S. Senate.
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Four top Obama administration officials urged the Senate today to pass sweeping climate and energy legislation that builds off momentum created last month by the Democrat-led House.
Testifying before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, the four emphasized the threats from climate change and how reducing greenhouse gas emissions would help the U.S. economy bounce back from a historic recession.
"Denial of the climate change problem will not change our destiny," said Energy Secretary Steven Chu, moments after describing the recorded loss of half the summer Arctic polar ice cap since the 1950s, fast-rising seas and the prospect of a more than 10-degree-Fahrenheit increase in global air temperatures.
"A comprehensive energy and climate bill that caps and then reduces carbon emissions will," Chu added. "America has the opportunity to lead a new industrial revolution of creating sustainable, clean energy. We can sit on the sidelines and deny the scientific facts, or we can get in the game and play to win."
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson also pushed the Senate committee to act on an issue that sits atop the president's domestic and international agenda.
Jackson, for example, insisted that public opinion is on the side of Congress passing climate legislation that reduces U.S. dependence on foreign oil and also sparks long-term economic growth.
"That is what the president wants, that's what I want," Jackson said. "I believe many senators want the same thing. Please consider the Environmental Protection Agency a partner in this effort to get America running on clean energy. And please, please keep up the momentum."
EPW Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) intends to release legislation that builds off the House-passed climate bill within the next two weeks, her aides say. A markup is also slated for either later this month or in early August, though the committee's seven Republicans are sending few signals that they plan to cooperate.
Sen. Kit Bond of Missouri, for example, stacked all of the different iterations of the House climate bill on the desk in front of the witnesses -- what he said was 6,706 pages in all. The four-term Republican then questioned Boxer's plan to work from a House bill that few have had a chance to read.
"What needles are the majority trying to hide in the haystack?" Bond said.
Several of the other Republicans urged Boxer to write a more expansive bill that promotes domestic energy production.
"Why are we ignoring the cheap energy solution to global warming, which is nuclear power?" argued Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee.
Republicans also demanded that Boxer hold more hearings on the specific legislative text she plans to hold a vote on. "We've got to have something in front of us," said the committee's ranking Republican, Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma. "The question arises, when will we see the bill that you intend to mark up?"
Boxer replied that she had always planned to accommodate Republican requests for legislative hearings on the climate bill, though she did not give exact dates.
Six Senate committees are expected to play a role in crafting the climate and energy bill, including Boxer's panel. The others: Agriculture; Commerce, Science and Transportation; Energy and Natural Resources; Finance; and Foreign Relations.
Click here [pdf] to read the Senate EPW Committee Republicans' letter seeking more legislative hearings.
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17 Comments
Add CommentThe 4 Obama administration officials "emphasized the threats from climate change and how reducing greenhouse gas emissions would help the U.S. economy bounce back from a historic recession."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLet's get the facts straight. Investments to produce more green energy (which costs more than conventional energy) and carbon caps will lower our standard of living. It is inevitable. If we have more expensive energy, consumers and businesses have less to spend on other things. More of their income will go to energy. Therefore green energy and cap and trade will not help the U.S economy bounce back from a historic recession. The problem is too much debt, and additional spending will not help that problem.
If we don't hurry someone might actually READ the legislation. Then they'd either faint or - just maybe - feel responsible for the devastation they will bring to our economy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis "rush through thousands of pages of legislation" that bend the US economy beyond the breaking point is socialists employing the method of "break the system by increasing the welfare rolls" designed in the '60s. The purpose is the same fascist/socialist control of industry.
CO2 is the new Jew. Now the shirts are green instead of brown. But the end is the same.
If you have to ram legislation through, maybe that should tell you something about the quality of the legislation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut they can't stop now, Al Gore and Kofi Anan have already picked out their new beachfront properties on Maui....all to be paid for by selling carbon credits or ... carbon taxes which really means paid for by you and me...
The eco-romantics have been duped again. Stalking horses for the next sub-prime mortgage mess.
Good work guys and gals.
Simplistic right wing retorts ignore the reality that the world is changing and we have to act, or react. I'm weary of subsidizing the petroleum industry so they can pour billions into the middle east so we can send our children over there to secure the continued petro flow. If we had invested our Iraq dollars into clean energy, we'd have already started collecting returns on US built, US operated energy/job systems. $7/gal gas...here we come!!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIngoglia,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow exactly are you "subsidizing" the petroleum industry? The only subsidies flowing into energy are going to the ethanol producers (over $5 per BTU, which is more than the market price of natural gas at less than $4/BTU) and to solar and wind. These energy sources would be dead without government subsidies, since they are not economical, costing anywhere between 1.5x and 3x conventional sources. And, the petroleum industry actually pays taxes.
I say, give people a choice but ditch the subsidies. If you want to buy solar at 3x the price of coal, go ahead. Or ethanol at 2 - 3x the equivalent price of gasoline be my guest.
I didn't think so. Perhaps your group of simplistic left wingers can take a course in economics, so you can contribute to the debate in a substantive way.
It does not matter if you believe in climate change caused by humanity or not. What I believe everyone can agree on is; we need high paying jobs and we need to stop paying big bucks for energy. Now is the time to exploit space power and resources. Sunlight is available in high Earth orbit 24/7, 365 days a year. We have had the technology since the late 60’s to transmit via microwave all the energy we could ever use, to Earth, from orbit. The material for constructing the space end of the system is available on the near Earth asteroids and the Moon. We the people need the government to fund the project just as the government funded World War II. Our survival as a people with liberty was threatened by mad men with weapons during WWII. Today our survival is threatened by mad men with oil. If we as a people shrink from the task at hand we will lose our liberty.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat the country really needs right now is education and information. The public needs to be informed of the pros and cons of these eco-bills the senators wish to pass. I can see the concerns from both sides, those who think it's a waste of money and resources and those who think that it is the right course of action to take. The bottom line is, we cannot do nothing, and we all have to agree on that; otherwise, further action will be hindered and time will run out.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBe very
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBe very suspicious of bills thousands of pages long passed in a hurry and don't allow any more 300+ page additions at the last minute. Recent emergency measures like the stimulus bills amounted to a pile of rejected legislation swept up off the floor and passed without deliberation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd if you thought the financial markets with all their "derivatives", junk bonds and other worthless assets were bad, wait until they start trading those abstract, no-see-um carbon credits back and forth!
Let's start with conservation, efficiency and self-sufficiency in an energy policy then tackle the greenhouse & CO2 stuff carefully and scientifically without all the panic and hype.
"Jackson, for example, insisted that public opinion is on the side of Congress passing climate legislation that reduces U.S. dependence on foreign oil and also sparks long-term economic growth."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat is Jackson on? Economic growth is unsustainable on a finite planet. Targeting long term economic growth is another way of saying, "I want to trash the planet". The economy is a subset of the biosphere, not the other way around. And the biosphere is limited. The more we take from it to fuel economic growth, the less of it there is for us to live on.
In the short term, only higher energy prices and/or lower growth will curb CO2 emissions. We saw that in 2006 & 2008 when U.S. emissions actually declined.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn the medium run we need to build more nuclear power plants. The French get 78% of their electricity from nukes. Surely we can get above the 20% we now have.
If you are against nuclear power, BTW, it indicates that either you really do not believe that global warming is a problem or you are just really craven.
In the long run, we can shift into renewables, but in the long run we are all dead anyway.
Broadnax:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree. Nuclear is likely the only real option, but the eco-romantics have blacklisted it as well.
But it is their religion and they can declare "heretic" or "impure" and ex-communicate any form of energy that they want.
It doesn't mean that we have to listen to them though.
I also think it's important for people to look at the backlash that is occurring in the province of British Columbia, Canada, which has implemented a $0.75/gallon carbon tax on gasoline. It's not going over well, and the plan is to keep increasing the tax with it ultimately doubling.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnyone in favor of this? Read'em and weep; this is what Barry and his buddies have in mind for you and me.
And Chu and Jackson disagree. What a laughingstock. The two top hand picked bureaucrats.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo much for the "consensus".
Nukes are the only way out of both the energy and the climate crisis at a fraction of the cost of all other alternatives using technology that already exists and can be mass produced. A massive effort building hundreds of nukes every year at a cost of less than two cents a kilowatt hour would have us off GHG's within ten years. It would be largely financed by eliminating foreign oil imports.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNot going to happen though without some major climate crisis. Our politicians are doing nicely thank you stuffing their pockets with grateful Big Coal/ Big Oil campaign donations while telling the folks about all those wonderful wind, alcohol. and solar plants they are building.
Sethdayal:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou had my attention until you began to regurgitate the eco-fascist party line. The reality is that the Climate Industrial Complex (CIC) sucks up massive amounts of tax payer dollars and spits out dubious and spurious reports without regard for truth and spends the balance on lobbyists and campaign donations to make sure the taps don't run dry.
The amount the CIC spends on propaganda makes "Big Coal" or "Big Oil" look like a Ma and Pa hardware store trying to compete with Wal-Mart.
You only have to look on this website to see that it is true; who are the biggest most consistent advertisers? The CIC.
How many Pro-AGW articles appear in Sciam? Hundreds of them. How many questioning AGW? The odd one, but in fairness, SCIAM is getting better. They actually published 3 articles in the past two years questioning AGW, all of those in the past three months. And I would have loved to see the fights around the editorial table that allowed those to happen.
Sciam is so pro-AGW it's embarrassing, but they can't afford to bite the hand that feeds them.
If we, humans, can advance our technology enough to sufficiently recycle the nuclear waste that results from using nuclear power, then yes, nuclear power is the answer. However, as of now, that nuclear waste is a hazard to us all. We can hide them deep in the mountains or underground, but it's still there. France is on the right track. However, we still have a long ways to go technologically until nuclear power is a safe alternative fuel.
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