Senators Seeking Response to Climate Change White Paper

February 28th, 2006

Posted by: admin

From the AGI monthly update:

In early February, Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chair Pete Domenici (R-NM) and Ranking Member Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) released a white paper designed “to lay out some of the key questions and design elements of a national greenhouse gas program in order to facilitate discussion and the development of consensus around a specific bill.”

Rather than advocate specific viewpoints on a potential greenhouse gas reduction program, the white paper poses four key questions that Senate staff hope will induce discussion between policymakers, industries, and environmentalists.

The questions are:

  1. Should regulations apply to specific sectors or to the economy as a whole, and should the regulatory process be “upstream” (targeting energy producers and suppliers) or “downstream” (targeting emitters)?
  2. Should regulatory costs be mitigated through allocation or auction of allowances, and who should receive allocated allowances?
  3. Should the U.S. system be designed to eventually allow trading with other systems worldwide?
  4. Should the U.S. system encourage “comparable actions” by major trading partners?

The committee is currently seeking public comments in response to the White Paper. Comments should be submitted to Climate_Conference@energy.senate.gov by 5 pm EST on Monday, March 13th following the guidelines.

A limited number of responders will be invited to participate in the Conference on Climate Change being held on Tuesday, April 4th.

The full text of the Climate Change White Paper is available here.

2 Responses to “Senators Seeking Response to Climate Change White Paper”

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  1. Steve Bloom Says:
    February 28th, 2006 at 2:58 pm

    But what about the hockey stick debate!?! Don’t these guys understand that the entire edifice of global warming science hinges on the outcome of the HS debate, which will never be over until M&M are triumphant? What a terrible pass we have come to when the U.S. Senate proceeds as if the HS debate outcome *makes no difference* to global warming policy. Quick, before it’s too late, send out the alarm to the WSJ editorial page and Michael Crichton — only they can save us now.

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  2. Dano Says:
    February 28th, 2006 at 7:23 pm

    Thank you Kevin for pointing this out.

    It certainly looks like some movement is occurring wrt what we should be doing as a society – if anything – about future impacts of climate change. Maybe finally we are past talking about doing something and starting to do something.

    Best,

    D