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CEQ chief urges Congress to avoid 'simpleminded' emissions bills
BY DARREN SAMUELSOHN, GREENWIRE, 11/14/06
Democrats leading the next Congress should avoid "simpleminded" global warming legislation that places mandatory limits on heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions, President Bush's top environmental adviser said today.
Speaking to reporters at an event hosted by the U.S. Energy Association, White House Council on Environmental Quality Chairman Jim Connaughton said past measures introduced on Capitol Hill would cause more harm than good for the environment.
"We still have very strong reservations about overarching, one-size-fits-all mandates for carbon because of some fairly dramatic unintended consequences that would flow from the proposals that have been floated so far," he said.
Connaughton predicted a "job shift, an economic loss and you probably will have made the environmental situation worse, not better" if measures from such lawmakers as Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) or Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) are passed.
"We need to be very careful about the design of some of these strategies," Connaughton added. "I think they have been relatively simple-minded so far and have failed to take into account what I really think are unintended consequences. They haven't been thought through enough."
The Democrats' legislative strategy on climate change remains unclear. Boxer, the incoming chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said last week she would craft federal legislation modelled after her home state's new law limiting greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by 2020.
Waxman, the chairman-to-be of the House Government Reform Committee, has drafted a similar bill but may not be in a position to move it because he is not in charge of the primary committee with jurisdiction over climate policy. Environmentalists tracking the policy debate predict House and Senate floor votes on climate change next year should Democrats try to move broader energy legislation.
In his give-and-take with reporters, Connaughton insisted the Bush administration's approach to climate change is a more practical one that addresses rising U.S. emissions without hurting the economy. He touted new U.S. Energy Information Administration data released today that shows a 0.6 percent increase in actual greenhouse gas emissions in 2005. That compares with a 1 percent annual average from 1990 to 2005.
Greenhouse gas intensity, which measures U.S. emissions compared to economic growth, fell 2.5 percent in 2005. That is an improvement over the 1.9 percent annual average from 1990 to 2005, Connaughton said.
Headed into this week's lame-duck session of Congress, Connaughton urged lawmakers to approve legislation that opens up the outer continental shelf to oil and gas exploration. He did not pick the House or Senate versions of the bill as a favorite.
The CEQ chief also said a pending nuclear agreement between the United States and India would have significant effects on climate change.
For the 110th Congress, Connaughton urged the new Democratic majority to give the Bush administration the authority to set corporate average fuel efficiency standards.
House Democrats have accused the administration of claiming inaccurately that it lacks authority to raise CAFE standards without congressional approval.
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