Bush breaks promise to limit carbon dioxide emissions

By Cat Lazaroff

Washington, DC, Mar. 14 (ENS)— President George W. Bush did an abrupt about face Tuesday, reversing a campaign pledge to legislate limits on carbon dioxide emissions from US power plants. Saying such a rule would prove too costly, Bush launched another in a slew of recent federal and state government attempts to roll back environmental protections in favor of controlling energy prices.

In a letter to four Republican Senators, Bush said any plan proposed by his administration to regulate power plant emissions would not include carbon dioxide (CO2).

“I do not believe ... that the government should impose on power plants mandatory emissions reductions for carbon dioxide, which is not a ‘pollutant’ under the Clean Air Act,” Bush wrote.

In a campaign speech last September, Bush had vowed to require limits on emissions of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, along with other power plant pollutants including sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and mercury. That pledge met strong criticism by industry and Congressional Republicans.

On March 6, Senators Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, Larry Craig of Idaho, Jesse Helms of North Carolina and Pat Roberts of Kansas sent a letter to President Bush asking about his stance on global climate change, in light of his pledge to control CO2 emissions. The Senators expressed concern about the economic effects of a rule regulating CO2.

In his reply to the four Republicans, Bush cited a Department of Energy report which found that new limits on CO2 emissions “would lead to an even more dramatic shift from coal to natural gas for electric power generation and significantly higher electricity prices compared to scenarios in which only sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides were reduced.”

“This is important new information that warrants a reevaluation, especially at a time of rising energy prices and a serious energy shortage,” Bush wrote.

Bush’s decision was met by sharp criticism from environmental groups, Congressional Democrats, and even some Republicans who support attempts to control emissions of greenhouse gasses associated with global climate change.

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the ranking Democrat on the Environment and Public Works Committee, called Bush’s move “disappointing” and “nearsighted.” He warned that the failure to control CO2 emissions will have little effect on energy prices in hard hit California and other Western states, but could have a major effect on “our grandchildren and their children,” if global warming is not curbed.

The presidential backpedal on CO2 limits is not the only governmental move being blamed on high energy prices. Bush and his cabinet members have hinted in recent weeks that they will seek to justify new oil, natural gas and coal explorations and extractions on protected public lands due to the perceived need for a larger, more secure domestic energy supply.

The most notorious example is the North Slope of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which Bush has pledged to open to oil exploration, a proposal to which environmental groups and much of the US public strenuously object.

Other lands could be facing a loaded drill as well. During a media roundtable Tuesday, Bush said he will consider targeting other areas of the American West for new exploration to increase domestic production - even if the Arctic Refuge is opened to drilling.

“We’ll be looking at all public lands,” Bush said. “Obviously, there are some places where we’re not going to put a drilling rig, some of the crown jewels of our environment. But there are some lands that are, to me, suitable for exploration.”

Asked if that might include lands currently protected as national monuments, Bush indicated that “there are parts of the monument lands where we can explore without affecting the overall environment.”

“There’s a mentality that says you can’t explore and protect land,” Bush said. “We’re going to change that attitude.”

Other lands that could be targeted include roadless areas of national forests. The Bush administration has delayed implementation of a rule, six years in the making, that would protect remaining large tracts of national forests where no roads have been built.

Greens blast developed countries for energy double-talk

By Robin Pomeroy

Mar. 4— Developed countries are giving polluting fuels such as coal, oil and nuclear energy at least 10 times as much subsidy as they put into renewables like wind and solar energy, green groups said on Saturday.

Environmental campaigners issued a blistering attack on G8 countries, meeting in Italy this weekend, accusing them of propping up polluting industries and failing to help new, clean technologies.

According to data gathered by Greenpeace, the European Union put $10 billion into fossil fuels and $5 billion into nuclear energy in 1997, compared with just $1.5 billion spent on renewables.

In the United States, renewable energies receive an even smaller share of government energy funding, the groups said.

In the 50 years prior to 1998, fossil fuels and nuclear energy received $111.5 billion in federal subsidies. Renewables, excluding large hydro projects which have their own environmental disadvantages, took just $5 billion, a Friends of the Earth survey found.

“Governments need to put their money where their mouths are,” World Wild Fund for Nature’s Jennifer Morgan said. “There really is no excuse for G8 governments not to have a significant proportion of their energy generated from renewables.”

UN scientists say gases from energy use are contributing to a projected increase in average temperatures of up to six degrees Celsius over the next 100 years. Such global warming would have disastrous consequences on humans and wildlife.

As G8 environment ministers met behind closed doors to discuss how to fight climate change, green groups said a switch of funds to renewable energies, which do not produce emissions, was key.

“Without enhanced support in G8 and other industrialized country markets, renewables will not be able to reach the production levels necessary to drive costs to an affordable level for mass markets in the south,” the groups said in a statement.

The G8 countries should take the lead and promise to convert at least 20 percent of their energy consumption to renewables by 2010, the groups said.

By contrast, the EU gets about six percent of its energy from renewable fuels and plans to double this by 2010, EU figures show.

Such a move would make economic as well as environmental sense, Greenpeace campaigner Steve Sawyer said.

“If governments lead the way by shifting subsidies away from fossil fuels to renewables it would happen very quickly and a lot of people would make a lot of money and more new jobs would be created than by opening up new oil fields in the Amazon or Alaska,” said Sawyer.

Environmental groups also stated that the industrialized world needs to alter the finance available to energy projects in developing countries through institutions such as export credit agencies and the World Bank to ensure they switch from traditional schemes into renewables.

The World Bank spends 25 times more on fossil fuels than it does on clean energies, Friends of the Earth said.

The G8 has set up a task force of senior business people to look at ways of boosting renewable energies. The group will report to a G8 summit in Genoa in July.

Source: Reuters