Fresh Air for Global Warming

Perhaps it’s Christmas good cheer, but something is wafting cool, fresh bipartisan air into the once hopelessly heated debate over global warming. The breeze comes from Sen. John H. Chafee (R-R.I.), chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, who has put up legislation that would encourage U.S. companies to reduce their fossil fuel emissions, which are partly responsible for global warming.

Early in the year, bitter partisan bickering blocked even the modest step proposed in the Chafee bill. Senate Republicans prevented the Clinton administration from spending money to merely study global warming. The White House then snubbed the Republicans last month by signing the Kyoto protocol, an international treaty that calls for the United States to significantly reduce its fossil fuel emissions in the next decade. The Senate Republicans retaliated by denying the administration the approval it needs to implement the treaty domestically.

It seems almost miraculous that Chafee’s bill could emerge from these ashes, with an ardent global warming skeptic, Sen. Connie Mack (R-Fla.), as a co-sponsor. The measure would enable the United States to implement a key provision of the Kyoto agreement by assuring companies that if they get an early start on reducing emissions they won’t be penalized later with demands for even more drastic reductions.

The Kyoto agreement allows companies to receive financial rewards when they help developing nations reduce their fossil fuel emissions by, for example, installing scrubbers on dirty coal plants. Chafee’s bill would authorize the president to enter into binding agreements with U.S. companies that assure them of receiving credit in any future emission reductions programs.

Opponents of the Kyoto global warming agreement point out the failure of developing nations such as China to require emission reductions and say the treaty focuses so narrowly on reducing fossil fuel emissions that it doesn’t address how nations can adapt to global warming. Senators like Charles Hagel (R-Neb.), however, are wrong to argue that because the Kyoto treaty is flawed the United States should bury its head and ignore the problem of global warming. Opponents thought they were speaking for U.S. businesses that feared that the expense of investing in energy-efficient technologies would undermine their international competitiveness, but in recent months more than a dozen Fortune 500 companies have declared that energy-saving technologies are actually an economic boon, not an albatross.

These companies are looking at the superior technologies of their global competitors (like that in Toyota’s new 80-mile-per-gallon Prius sedan) and lobbying for legislation that rewards them for investing in the same sorts of forward-looking technology. They want to push forward now, not when some law finally requires it.

The new Congress, when it gathers in January, should find it easy to join in Chafee’s holiday good cheer. After years of polarized debate, there’s a greater understanding that energy-efficient technologies are as good for the economy as they are for the environment.