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Rising to the challenge posed by global warming |
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By Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.)
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Posted: 04/23/07 07:42 PM [ET] |
Nearly four decades ago, the founder of Earth Day, Sen. Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin, wrote: “Evidence of environmental degradation was appearing everywhere and everyone noticed except the political establishment.”
There is ample evidence that across America, leading businesses, religious communities, governors, mayors and millions of citizens from all walks of life have not only noticed the threat posed by global warming — they are demanding action.
California has moved with the leadership of our Democratic legislature and our Republican governor. Other states have done it with Democrats and Republicans working side by side to develop programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
More and more of the nation’s leading companies and investors have come together to call for a mandatory greenhouse gas program. Religious leaders of a broad spectrum of faiths are also joining the fight against global warming, rolling up their sleeves and working for the protection of the gifts we have inherited from our Creator. And recently, key national security and military leaders have been strongly urging us to wean ourselves from oil, and to avert global political instability, mass migrations and conflicts over water and food that could be caused by unbridled climatic changes.
At last, the political establishment here in Washington is awakening to the fact that global warming is more than an inconvenient truth; it is the challenge of our generation. It is a challenge that will make us stronger as a nation and as a people if we meet it head-on with hope, not fear.
The science is clear; we must take bold, decisive, scientifically based action to set the country on a path to stabilizing the world climate. Now, senators are not climate scientists. But we are policymakers. Just as our nation has taken action based on scientific consensus before — to deal decisively with challenges from the polio epidemics to water pollution — we must have the courage to act on what we know now.
I am committed to doing everything I can, as a senator and as chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, to capitalize on that momentum and ensure that the Senate rises in a bipartisan way to the global warming challenge. My committee — with the support of members on both sides of the aisle — has already passed legislation that will help make federal buildings models of energy efficiency, and will provide grants to cities and counties to upgrade their own buildings. And that is only the beginning. Whenever I have the votes to pass strong global warming bills out of the committee, we will send them to the Senate floor.
There is good news in the meantime. The Supreme Court ruled April 2 that right now the Environmental Protection Agency can begin to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act.
That means that right now, EPA can and should let California and other states go forward with global warming pollution standards for cars. That’s a 30 percent reduction from cars in California.
It means that EPA can and should set strong nationwide global warming standards for cars as well, meeting California’s standards. That would mean at least a 30 percent reduction from cars, which are about a third of our emissions, and could lower America’s global warming pollution by as much as 10 percent.
And it means that EPA can and should require strong global warming pollution limits for new and upgraded coal-burning power plants immediately. That way, we won’t be saddled for the next half-century with vast quantities of global warming pollution from coal-fired power plants that don’t use the latest clean technologies.
The Supreme Court has left the Bush administration with no excuses for further delay. When EPA Administrator Steve Johnson comes before my committee today, I will challenge him to use the power EPA has had all along to address global warming, and has refused to use.
I have faith that by stepping up to the challenge of global warming in the right way will transform and invigorate our country, not devastate it. In fact, failure to act would result in a huge economic cost.
I have a vision of a nation driven by innovation, energy efficiency, and green technology exported around the world. I see a strong American economic base, with entrepreneurs and businesses thriving as they develop the technologies that will solve this problem … a people united by a challenge in their daily lives, and as a society. I believe we will rise to this challenge, and that we will be the better for it as a nation.
Boxer is chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.
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