Contact: Jim DiPeso, (253) 740-2066
Senator John McCain (R-AZ) has boldly stepped where the Bush administration fears to tread by offering sensible legislation to combat global warming, said REP America, the national grassroots organization of Republicans for environmental protection.
McCain and Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) have announced bipartisan legislation that employs market-based tools to cap and reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that are heating up the global climate.
"Finally, someone in Washington DC is exercising the thoughtful leadership we urgently need to combat the threat global warming poses to our environment, economy, and long-term security. We're not surprised that someone is John McCain, who has never been afraid to tackle the big issues of our time," said Jim DiPeso, REP America policy director.
The McCain-Lieberman bill would require greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generation, petroleum refining, commercial, and other industrial activities to be capped at 2000 levels by 2010, falling to 1990 levels by 2016.
"The bill would rely on 'cap-and-trade,' a proven, market-based tool that rewards companies for implementing the most effective, low-cost projects for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Companies would receive salable credits for beating the targets," DiPeso said.
The time for action is now. "The evidence for global warming is coming thick and fast. Temperature records show that 2002 will be the second-warmest year on record. New NASA studies show that summer ice in the Arctic is shrinking faster than anyone expected. University researchers recently documented the disruptive impacts that warmer temperatures are having on wildlife. The problems will only get worse, especially if the Bush administration's passive, do-nothing approach prevails," DiPeso said.
The risks of doing nothing about global warming are real and growing. A hotter climate will have spinoff consequences worldwide, including more destructive weather, more illness from heat waves and hot-weather disease, coastal property lost to rising sea levels, and destruction of forests by heat, pests, and fire.
Even more serious, scientists are concerned that rising greenhouse gas levels could push the global climate system past a tipping point triggering sudden, catastrophic impacts, such as shutdown of ocean circulation patterns that, ironically, could plunge North America and Europe into a prolonged deep freeze.
"Such risks are reason enough to take prudent, responsible actions now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But even if the DC slow coaches still refuse to believe the global warming science, they should still support global warming solutions. Through energy efficiency and advanced clean energy technologies that cut greenhouse gas emissions, we can also lower energy bills, create new industries and new jobs, and reduce our dangerous dependence on foreign oil," DiPeso said.
