Global Warming

Another area of environmental protection that I have been intimately involved with is global climate change. We must take the necessary steps to protect our planet from the real threat of global warming. Rising temperatures will likely raise sea levels and significantly change global weather patterns. These changes will cause agricultural dislocation, increase the occurrence of economically damaging weather-related disasters, and put even more pressure on threatened and endangered species around the world. As a founding member of the House Climate Change Caucus I'm working to address this problem.

Greenhouse gasses, such as carbon dioxide, play a fundamental role in the Earth's atmosphere. They affect temperatures by trapping enough solar radiation from escaping back into space to make the planet hospitable for complex life. Changing the composition of atmospheric greenhouse gasses can disrupt the Earth's energy equation, potentially causing adverse impacts on human societies while putting added pressure on populations of threatened and endangered species. We need a national energy policy that will address these issues clearly and logically. We cannot simply rely on the tired rhetoric of drill, drill, and drill to see our way to a new energy future.

I have been working with Reps. Wayne Gilchrest (R--MD) and John Olver (D--MA) to introduce the House to the Climate Stewardship Act, which would set a nationwide standard for heat-trapping pollution responsible for global warming, while creating a market-based system encouraging maximum technological innovation and profitable opportunities for companies to cut emissions.

Specifically, H.R. 4067 would cap, starting in 2010, U.S. aggregate greenhouse gas emissions (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, and sulfur hexaflouride) for the covered sectors (electricity generation, transportation, industrial, and commercial) at 2000 levels. This legislation would also require the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to report periodically on the possible and projected impacts of climate change on coastal communities and oceanic and coastal ecosystems. Lastly, H.R. 4067 would require NOAA to identify and estimate the cost of measures to protect these resources. It is my hope that, with the help of the bipartisan group of Representatives and Senators supporting this legislation, we will be able to convince the White House and Republican Congressional leaders to schedule a vote on this crucial legislation.

In addition to the Climate Stewardship Act, I am cosponsor of the Clean Smokestacks Act, H.R. 2042. This important legislation would effectively reduce the pollutants that cause smog, acid rain, global climate change, and mercury pollution by cutting power plant emissions of the four major power plant pollutants by 2007. This legislation would also close the loophole that exempts older, dirtier power plants by requiring all power plants to meet the most recent pollution control standards for new pollution sources. Lastly, the Clean Smokestacks Act would greatly reduce environmental health hazards caused by air pollution by limiting emissions trading of particularly harmful toxins.