McCain, Lieberman Push New, Centrist Approach to Reduce U.S. Global Warming Pollution; New Legislation to be Introduced Today

1/8/2003

From: Jeremy Symons of the National Wildlife Federation, 202-939-3311

WASHINGTON, Jan. 8 -- Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) are expected to unveil new, bipartisan legislation to reduce U.S. emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases responsible for global warming at a congressional hearing today. The hearing will be held in Russell Senate Office Building, room 253, at 2:30.

The Senators have been working with both industry and conservation groups such as the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) in an attempt to craft an approach that provides responsible environmental leadership while also establishing a flexible, efficient framework that meets the needs of American businesses. Senator McCain is expected to seek to move the legislation forward as the new chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee.

"This effort to solve global warming puts to rest all the excuses for doing nothing: This bill is bipartisan, it achieves environmental goals by encouraging innovation and American ingenuity, and its flexible approach is supported by industry," said NWF President Mark Van Putten. "This is an opportunity for Congress to provide responsible environmental leadership where the White House has failed."

The legislation sets national emissions goals that will reduce U.S. global warming pollution but allow industry the flexibility to apply solutions wherever they are most effective, whether it's designing cars that waste less gasoline or building cleaner power plants. The legislation holds industry accountable for meeting the bill's national emissions goals in order to ensure environmental progress, but it creates a flexible emissions trading system to encourage innovation and cost savings.

"Senators McCain and Lieberman are showing common sense, bipartisan leadership to solve global warming when the environment needs it most," said Van Putten. "We are already beginning to see the environmental impacts of global warming coast to coast, from coral reef bleaching in the Caribbean to the loss of treasured pine forests in coastal Alaska.

"Each year we procrastinate makes the problem harder to solve. Each year we fail to take action, the United States emits a large and increasing amount of greenhouse gases that, once emitted, will remain in the atmosphere and trap heat for decades or even centuries, contributing to the predicted rapid pace of climate change," he added.

The importance of this new effort to solve global warming is underscored by two new scientific studies published in the current edition of Nature that provide compelling evidence from around the nation and the world that global warming is already affecting plants and animals at an alarming pace. The new research, which draw from a wide body of scientific studies covering more than one thousand species of plants and animals, is particularly alarming since average global temperatures have increased by only one degree Fahrenheit over the past century, but are expected to increase by three to ten degrees Fahrenheit over the course of this century if we fail to take action now.

The nation's largest member-supported conservation education and advocacy group, the National Wildlife Federation unites people from all walks of life to protect nature, wildlife and the world we all share. The Federation has educated and inspired families to uphold America's conservation tradition since 1936.