Historic bill in Senate to fight warming California law a model for new measure

A bipartisan group of senators, borrowing heavily from California's efforts to fight climate change, fired the starting gun on what's expected to be a long global-warming debate in Congress with a proposal for limits on greenhouse gases affecting every major segment of the nation's economy.

Lawmakers, industry groups and environmentalists have waited months for the bill, which was introduced Thursday by Sen. John Warner, R-Va., and Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut.

The bill, expected to be the centerpiece of the Senate's efforts to address climate change, would cap emissions and gradually reduce them using a market-oriented cap-and-trade system in which allowances to emit greenhouse gases would be bought and sold.

"Today will be remembered as a turning point in the fight against global warming," said California Sen. Barbara Boxer, chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

The bill requires cuts in carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases from electric utilities, transportation and manufacturing, accounting for about 75 percent of U.S emissions.

The bill would cap greenhouse gases at the 2005 emission level starting in 2012 and gradually reduce them to 1990 levels - a 15 percent reduction - by 2020. The measure requires deeper cuts over the long term: a 65 percent reduction from 1990 levels by 2050.

"The goal should be to keep the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere below 500 parts per million," Lieberman said. "That will avoid what (scientists) describe as a high risk of severe global warming impacts here in the United States ... but also around the world."

The bill would not pre-empt tougher climate rules enacted by states like California and would offer incentives to states that act early.

California enacted the first economy-wide limits on greenhouse gases last year; initial regulations are set to take effect in 2010. The law, AB32, intends to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by 2020. California and a dozen other states also are battling in court and with the Bush administration to cut vehicle emissions of greenhouse gases.

Warner acknowledged that the new limits would burden industry and taxpayers. But he said less painful approaches - like the Bush administration's call for voluntary cuts - would not be enough to meet the global threat of climate change.

"The basic difference between the administration's approach and our approach is that we feel voluntary will not achieve the goals, the leadership that the United States of America simply must take ... to join the other nations of the world," Warner said.

Environmentalists mostly praised the bill as a good first step, though some groups said the emissions cuts were not deep enough. Some scientists estimate that reductions of 80 percent below 2000 emissions levels will be needed to avoid the worst impacts of rising temperatures.

"Senators Lieberman and Warner have offered serious preventative measures that will take us a long way to preventing catastrophic climate change," said Kevin Knobloch, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists. "But it needs improvement if we're going to restore the patient to full health."

Industry groups were skeptical of the measure, saying the emissions cuts could hurt the competitiveness of U.S. companies by increasing their energy costs.

"We believe the bill's proposed greenhouse gas emissions reductions are 'too much, too soon,' " said Jack Gerard, president and CEO of the American Chemistry Council, a trade group of plastic and chemical manufacturers. He warned the bill would "turn energy markets upside down, causing massive reductions in coal usage and enormous increases in natural gas and renewable fuels usage."

Cynics noted that previous climate bills have failed in Congress, including a similar measure sponsored by Lieberman and Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona. But sponsors of the measure say rising public concern over global warming and the leading role played by Warner, one of the Senate's most respected Republicans, gives this measure a better chance.

Several Republicans have signed on as co-sponsors, including Sens. Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina, Norm Coleman of Minnesota and Susan Collins of Maine. "I'm convinced this bill does represent a tipping point," Collins said Thursday.

Sen. James Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican and leading climate change skeptic in Congress, took to the Senate floor to denounce the bill. He warned it could cost average families several thousands of dollars in additional energy costs.

"These are things that are very, very costly," Inhofe said.

The bill's sponsors say the bill has several cost-containment measures, including a "bank and borrow" system that lets greenhouse emitters save their allowances to pollute for future years, or borrow from future year's allowances to meet the goals.

The measure would also create a Carbon Market Efficiency Board, an appointed seven-member body that could loosen the rules on borrowing future credits if the price of carbon goes too high. However, all emitters would still have to meet the bill's targets over the long term.

The cap-and-trade system would work basically this way: A company that released more greenhouse gases than permitted would have to buy allowances for the extra pollution. The allowances would be sold in the market from a pool that came from companies that cut their missions below their required cap.

Some environmentalists were still unhappy with the bill's system for handling these allowances, which permit companies to emit greenhouse gases. Environmental groups would like to see them auctioned off and the proceeds go for consumer rebates and incentives for clean energy projects. Industry groups say an auction-only approach would be too costly to meet.

Warner and Lieberman have tried for a compromise that would start with auctioning off about one-quarter of the allowances, and increasing the number sold to 73 percent by 2036.

But Friends of the Earth president Brent Blackwelder warned that bill's approach "means that polluters will be rewarded with pollution permits worth tens or hundreds of billions of dollars or more."

Boxer said she or another senator would introduce an amendment to test support for a 100 percent auction system. "We'll see if we can get 51 votes," she said.

About half of the proceeds from the auctions would go to deploying clean energy technologies like solar, wind and geothermal energy as well as biofuels and plug-in hybrids. The other half would help poor people pay their energy bills and weatherize their homes, as well for training for "green-collar" jobs and aiding species put at risk by warming.

Lawmakers plan a subcommittee hearing on the bill next week, and Boxer is pledging a vote in her committee by the end of the year.

Online resources

For more information about the Lieberman-Warner global warming proposal go to:

links.sfgate.com/ZBGF