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“PRESIDENT BUSH'S CLEAR SKIES PROPOSAL” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the Senate section on pages S850 on Feb. 14, 2002.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
PRESIDENT BUSH'S CLEAR SKIES PROPOSAL
Mr. ENZI. Mr President, I rise to speak in support of the President Bush's Clear Skies proposal that he announced earlier today. The president's proposal is a plan that would use our nation's greatest resource, the ingenuity of our private industries, to ensure our children and grand children can inherit, not just a healthy environment, but a healthy economy as well.
The President has made this possible by giving industries a clear target to reduce emissions but will allow them to find the means and the method to reach those targets without following the traditional command and control environmental policies that have proven to be such a big failure in the past.
The goals are not going to be easy to reach. His proposal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 18 percent over the next ten years is going to require Industry stretch if it is going to measure up to the President's yardstick. But the goals are attainable, and, more importantly can be reached without bankrupting rural communities that rely on energy development, or by hurting those people who will suffer most by rising energy prices--people like seniors or low income families who could be forced to chose between paying their heating bills or buying food.
I also want to applaud the President for his willingness to reach out to developing nations to help work with them in developing a truly global effort to address global warming.
I have had the privilege of representing the United Senate at a number of Global Warming Conferences, starting with Kyoto, Buenos Aires, Seattle and more recently at the Hague. Those meetings provided me an opportunity to meet with global warming experts and representatives from other nations to discuss the role of the U.S. Senate in ratifying any treaty signed as a result of the United Nations negotiations.
Based on a 1997 Byrd-Hagel resolution, that passed the Senate on a final vote of 95 to 0, my message at each conference has included two important mandates that the Senate feels must be present in any global agreement affecting the United States. First, developing countries currently excluded from the framework protocol must be included in any final agreement; and second, the agreement could not result in serious harm to the United States' economy.
This is an issue that I have also been privileged to work on in my new capacity as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where last year we passed an amendment proposed by my distinguished colleague from Massachusetts, Mr. Kerry, to the Department of State Reauthorization Act that encouraged the President to do exactly what he has done today. The President's new proposal reengages the United States as major player in the international global warming debate, this time not as the country that will bank roll all of the programs, but as a leader that will show other nations the way to improve the environment without destroying the economy.
Under the President's proposal, US companies will be able to invest in technologies to offset greenhouse gas emissions without fearing that they will not get credit for their innovations, or that they will have even greater or more difficult requirements imposed on them because of their voluntary effort. They will no longer have to worry that they will be penalized for having done the right thing.
Once again, Mr. President, I applaud the President Bush for his proposal and for his vote of confidence in the people of the United States. American know-how and ingenuity has fueled the technological advances we are already using today to make steady improvements in air and water quality. The President hit the nail right on the head when he said that it is our strong economy that makes it possible for us to make those necessary technological advances.
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