Bond set to fight legislation on greenhouse gases
Bond, R-Mo., a member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, criticized a so-called moderate plan offered by Sens. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and John Warner, R-Va.
"Your proposal would impose hardship on U.S. citizens and threatens robust growth in the U.S. economy," Bond said repeatedly in a letter last week to the two senators.
Lieberman and Warner had requested input from senators in what Warner had described as "an honest, well-intentioned and bipartisan start," but did not regard Bond's letter as useful, according to a Lieberman aide.
"It doesn't appear that it was an effort on the part of Mr. Bond to help the Senate come up with legislation that can be approved, but a rhetorical effort to kill the bill," Lieberman adviser David McIntosh told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
The Lieberman-Warner climate change plan aims to reduce greenhouse gases by 70 percent by 2050. It gives industry flexibility under a cap-and-trade system that permits the buying and selling of pollution credits under decreasing overall limits.
The legislation was viewed by some as a breakthrough because Warner is the second-ranking Republican on the Environment committee and a senior senator who hadn't supported global warming legislation before.
But Warner, who recently announced his intention to retire after this term, said he had become persuaded that the warming planet poses imminent threats.
Bond said his criticisms were specific.
For instance, his letter states that businesses would be threatened because of duplicative state and regional carbon control programs and that low-income families would be harmed by higher energy costs.
Bond said he will fight to ensure that climate legislation does not disproportionately hurt those who struggle to pay their energy bills.
Congress is expected to take up the issue in the coming weeks. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who chairs the Environment and Public Works Committee, said recently that of all the proposals, the Lieberman-Warner plan could provide the basis for a bipartisan agreement.
The issue has become more urgent as a result of a series of recent reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluding that global warming is indeed caused by human activity and that the effects already are showing.
The panel, made up of more than 2,000 scientists from around the world, also said that the worst damage from rising seas could be prevented by immediate action.
Later this month, President Bush will host two days of talks in Washington with government leaders from around the world in the first such administration effort aimed at reducing carbon emissions. The United Nations also will sponsor a gathering with the same goal.
It is not certain that Congress can reach agreement this year on global warming, which is competing with the Iraq War and immigration for members' attention.
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