INTERVIEW - US Senator Boxer Lays out Climate Change Plans
Date: 19-Jan-07
Country: US
Author: Chris Baltimore
Sen. Barbara Boxer, California Democrat and chairwoman of the committee with broad jurisdiction over climate change issues, called for aggressive caps on US greenhouse gas emissions in an interview with Reuters.
Boxer's committee will hold a hearing Jan. 30, where all 100 members of the Senate will be invited to propose legislation to cut heat-trapping emissions linked to global warming and rising ocean levels.
Rather than combining all the proposals into one bill, Boxer said the issue could be addressed through a series of legislation.
"The consensus bill could be one bill with five parts, it could be five smaller bills," Boxer said. "We don't know."
Panel hearings on the issue could be wrapped up by March and "we'll have action hopefully this year" on a vote, she said.
The "gold standard" for climate change legislation is the Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act, a bill she co-sponsors that would cut US emissions to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050 through a series of reduction targets.
Boxer also said she likes legislation passed by California's legislature that would regulate greenhouse gas emissions from cars.
And mandatory caps are not the only approach to climate change, Boxer said.
"I happen to think that mandatory caps are essential," Boxer said. "But I think it's a false choice to say that's the only thing we have to do," and pointed to efforts to make cars and buildings more efficient.
Boxer pointed to a variety of other legislation, including a proposal by six US senators, including potential 2008 presidential contenders from both major parties, that would cut emissions to one-third of 2000 levels by 2050.
Also, fellow California Democrat Dianne Feinstein and Sen. Tom Carper, Delaware Democrat, unveiled a bill that singles out emissions from electric utilities, which account for about a third of US emissions.
Before Democrats took control of Congress, Boxer had been the ranking Democrat on the environment panel, previously chaired by Sen. James Inhofe, Oklahoma Republican and an ardent skeptic of global warming.
Inhofe, who has referred to global warming as a "hoax," kept up the drum-beat against action at a committee business meeting earlier Wednesday, hinting at adverse economic impacts from regulating power plant emissions.
"What about power plants?" Inhofe asked Boxer, according to a written statement. "Madame Chairman, California may have no coal plants, but what about the 1,100 in the rest of the country?"
Boxer said that any climate change legislation that emerges from her committee will have bipartisan support, and that the White House and Senate Republicans will oppose it at their peril.
Boxer warned the Bush administration that a veto of bipartisan climate change legislation could hurt Republican candidates in the 2008 presidential election.
"If we get a bill through here and they veto it they will jeopardize their own party in the presidential race," Boxer said. "Solving global warming will be one of the key issues of the 2008 election."