Verbatim, as delivered
May 15, 2007
Remarks of Chairman Lantos at Hearing, “
We are not here today to debate the
existence of global warming. There will be no dueling charts and graphs. There
will be no recitation of scientific arguments that point first one way, then
the other, like a weathervane gone wild.
The time for that is over. That debate is done.
The question now is: What are we
going to do about the global warming crisis in a concrete, far-reaching way –
in a way that will create a truly livable world for my 17 grandchildren, and
for all others?
So today, I have an announcement. On May 23rd, I will bring serious,
substantive legislation before our Committee to reinvigorate international
negotiations to stop global warming and to help developing nations produce
energy in a clean and sustainable way.
With passage of the bill, this Committee, and this Congress, will send a
strong, bi-partisan signal that the time for endless delays to stem global
warming is past.
Task number one is to overhaul
dramatically the manner in which this Administration, and the Administration
that follows it, negotiates with our global partners on climate change. Like the last remaining fan at a sporting
event whose team is losing badly, this Administration has stubbornly sat on its
hands and refused to acknowledge the score It has dispatched low-level
negotiators to international climate meetings armed with simple marching
orders: deny, stall, and postpone. Just
the other day, the Washington Post revealed that the Administration is trying
to soften tough climate change language to be declared at next month’s G-8
meeting.
Under my legislation, Cabinet-level
officials will board planes to represent the
And if the White House heeds the
call of my bill, our diplomats will have a bold, new mission – to negotiate a
post-Kyoto framework that contains binding commitments for environmental action
from all of the world’s polluters, including
As my legislation makes clear, any
meaningful post-Kyoto agreement must have three key elements: a viable target
for stabilizing carbon dioxide concentration in the Earth’s atmosphere; binding
emissions-reduction targets; and flexible mechanisms such as carbon trading to
make the agreement economically workable.
But given the potentially
catastrophic humanitarian consequences of global warming, we can’t wait for the
years it will take for such an agreement to be done before we roll up our
sleeves and start working. That is why my bill allocates more money to the US
Agency for International Development to work with developing nations to improve
energy efficiency and to bolster the regulatory and financial environments for
adopting clean-energy technologies.
That is why my legislation contains
new initiatives to boost American exports of energy-efficient and clean energy
technologies – a sector of our economy on the cutting edge of technological
innovation.
And that is why I propose the
establishment of an international Clean Energy Foundation, a semi-autonomous
institution that would leverage the resources that NGOs, private companies, and
foreign governments can bring to bear. The foundation will support the most
creative and feasible models for implementing renewable energy sources and
other energy alternatives.
The good news is that because of the
hard work of scientists, innovators, and entrepreneurs around the globe, the
technology we need to stem global warming is available and is affordable. But
to summon the national and global political will to tackle climate change, we
need to adopt collectively a new mindset about our planet – an urgent,
proactive mindset.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, to her
enormous credit, has challenged all committees to submit legislation by June.
We in our committee will fulfill this most important mandate. And Congress will, at long last, approve
far-reaching legislation to revive American leadership worldwide in efforts to
curb global warming and to preserve our planet for future generations.