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COPENHAGEN AND BEYOND: IS THERE A

SUCCESSOR TO THE KYOTO PROTOCOL?

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

NOVEMBER 4, 2009

Serial No. 111–62

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/

(II)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California, Chairman 

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York 

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American 

Samoa 

DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

ROBERT WEXLER, Florida 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

BILL DELAHUNT, Massachusetts 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

DIANE E. WATSON, California 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

MICHAEL E. MCMAHON, New York 

JOHN S. TANNER, Tennessee 

GENE GREEN, Texas 

LYNN WOOLSEY, California 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

BARBARA LEE, California 

SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada 

JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York 

MIKE ROSS, Arkansas 

BRAD MILLER, North Carolina 

DAVID SCOTT, Georgia 

JIM COSTA, California 

KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota 

GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona 

RON KLEIN, Florida 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

DAN BURTON, Indiana 

ELTON GALLEGLY, California 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

RON PAUL, Texas 

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona 

MIKE PENCE, Indiana 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas 

J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

BOB INGLIS, South Carolina 

GUS BILIRAKIS, Florida 

RICHARD J. KESSLER, Staff Director 

YLEEM POBLETE, Republican Staff Director 

BRENT WOOLFORK, Junior Professional Staff Member 

GENELL BROWN, Senior Staff Associate/Hearing Coordinator 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESSES 

The Honorable Todd D. Stern, Special Envoy for Climate Change, U.S. Department of State ................................................................................................. 9

The Honorable Timothy E. Wirth, President, United Nations Foundation and 

Better World Fund (Former United States Senator) ........................................ 33

The Honorable Eileen Claussen, President, Pew Center on Global Climate 

Change (Former Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International 

Environmental and Scientific Affairs) ................................................................ 41

Steven Groves, J.D., Bernard and Barbara Lomas Fellow, The Margaret 

Thatcher Center for Freedom, The Heritage Foundation ................................. 51

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

The Honorable Todd D. Stern: Prepared statement ............................................. 13

The Honorable Dana Rohrabacher, a Representative in Congress from the 

State of California: Material submitted for the record ..................................... 23

The Honorable Timothy E. Wirth: Prepared statement ....................................... 36

The Honorable Eileen Claussen: Prepared statement .......................................... 43

Steven Groves, J.D.: Prepared statement .............................................................. 53

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 72

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 73

The Honorable Howard L. Berman, a Representative in Congress from the 

State of California, and Chairman, Committee on Foreign Affairs: Prepared 

statement .............................................................................................................. 75

The Honorable Eni F.H. Faleomavaega, a Representative in Congress from 

American Samoa, and Chairman, Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific and 

the Global Environment: Prepared statement ................................................... 77

The Honorable Gerald E. Connolly, a Representative in Congress from the 

State of Virginia: Prepared statement ............................................................... 86

Written responses from the Honorable Todd D. Stern to questions submitted 

for the record by the Honorable Barbara Lee, a Representative in Congress 

from the State of California ................................................................................ 88

Written responses from the Honorable Timothy E. Wirth to questions submitted for the record by the Honorable Barbara Lee ........................................ 95

Written responses from the Honorable Eileen Claussen to questions submitted for the record by the Honorable Barbara Lee ........................................ 102

(1)

COPENHAGEN AND BEYOND: IS THERE A 

SUCCESSOR TO THE KYOTO PROTOCOL? 

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2009

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS, Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:07 a.m. in room 

2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Howard L. Berman 

(chairman of the committee) presiding. 

Chairman BERMAN. The hearing will come to order. 

I will yield myself time for an opening statement and the ranking member as well and the representative from American Samoa 

and the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Manzullo, if he comes, for 3-

minute statements and then other members for 1-minute opening 

statements. 

In a little over 1 month, world leaders will gather in Copenhagen, Denmark, in an effort to tackle one of the most difficult 

challenges of our time—global climate change. Numerous studies 

have warned that the failure to act quickly and decisively on global 

warming will have disastrous consequences. Many developing countries will face the threat of severe flooding, the loss of arable lands, 

and the spread of cholera, malaria, and other diseases. 

A World Bank Study released last May estimated that storm 

surges resulting from rising sea levels could threaten 52 million 

people and 29,000 square kilometers of agricultural land in developing coastal countries around the world. This will likely lead to 

mass migration, political instability, and even failed states. 

While countries in the developing world will bear the brunt of climate change, the effects of global warming will also be felt here in 

the United States. According to the U.S. Global Change Research 

Program, a consortium of 13 Federal agencies, climate change will 

affect almost every aspect of American life, from access to food, to 

the state of our health, to the amount of energy we use. In my 

home State of California, where water is already scarce, increasing 

temperatures could lead to a major water crisis—in fact, I think we 

are having a major water crisis right now. 

While there is growing certainty about the consequences of climate change, it is unfortunate that the same cannot be said about 

the prospect for charting a new course in Copenhagen. Will the result be a comprehensive, binding agreement to reduce global emissions and provide aid to developing countries to deal with the impacts of climate change? Or will we see, as is more widely expected, 

a more general framework agreement with a ‘‘roadmap’’ to a future 

deal? 

2

At this late stage, no consensus has been reached on specific objectives for lowering global greenhouse gas emissions or on how 

best to help poor countries adapt to climate change. Differences 

also remain on what funding levels are adequate to achieve these 

objectives and how to help developing countries access clean energy 

technologies while protecting intellectual property rights. In part, 

this is a result of the fact that the United States has limited flexibility to negotiate at Copenhagen because Congress has yet to provide clear guidance on emission levels and other key issues. 

In June, the House passed legislation that would reduce U.S. 

greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent below 2005 levels and provide assistance for poor countries to adapt to the impacts of climate 

change, develop clean energy technologies, and reduce emissions 

from deforestation. The Senate has yet to act, but Majority Leader 

Reid has announced he wants Senate committees to complete their 

work before Thanksgiving. I personally strongly support Senators 

Kerry and Boxer’s efforts to move this legislation soon. 

If we hope to achieve a meaningful international agreement on 

climate change, the United States will have to make serious commitments to reduce its emissions and to help developing countries. 

Many nations, both developing and industrialized, have been very 

clear about the need for U.S. leadership in this arena. Regrettably, 

in recent years, such leadership has been lacking. 

In his recent speech before the United Nations General Assembly, President Obama made it clear that the world can no longer 

postpone a serious response to climate change. He acknowledged 

that many nations will be devastated by drought and famine if we 

fail to alter our current course. Just yesterday, Chancellor Merkel 

spoke passionately about this issue. 

One thing this committee can do to help combat climate change 

is to begin the process of modernizing our foreign assistance institutions and programs. This will allow us to more effectively help 

developing countries meet their energy needs in an environmentally sustainable manner and adapt to climate-related challenges. I am hopeful that we will begin considering foreign assistance reform legislation early next year. 

Today’s hearing will help us gain a better understanding of the 

challenges and opportunities at Copenhagen, the positions of the 

various parties, and the possible outcomes of the climate change 

negotiations. 

To help us explore these complex issues, we have a number of 

excellent witnesses with us today, which I will soon introduce. But, 

first, I would like to turn to my friend and colleague, the ranking 

member, the gentlelady from Florida, Ms. Ros-Lehtinen, for any 

opening remarks she might want to make. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you so much as always, Mr. Chairman, for this hearing and for the opportunity to make opening 

statements. 

The Obama administration has made clear its desire to try to 

reach what it says will be an historic agreement to replace the expiring Kyoto Protocol at the upcoming United Nations climate 

change conference in Copenhagen. However, there is growing concern about the implications of such an agreement. Many of the proposals already put forward in the name of fighting global climate 

3

change contain provisions that, if adopted, would do great harm to 

U.S. interests. 

A recurring theme is the establishment of new and unaccountable United Nations’ style organizations acting as global regulatory 

bodies and armed with far-reaching powers that current U.N. bureaucrats can only dream of. Perhaps more troubling is that, under 

many plans, these international bureaucrats would have tens of 

millions of dollars at their disposal to spread around the world. 

Based on past experience, much of that money would undoubtedly 

disappear into the hands of favored individuals and corrupt governments, never to be seen again. 

The prospect of a powerful, unaccountable, international regulatory bureaucracy leads directly to an even greater concern, namely, the undermining of U.S. sovereignty. Behind the urgent calls for 

collective action on climate change is the fact that many of these 

proposals are intended to be mandatory and enforced by international authorities. 

There are other problems with the proposals put forth. One example is the demand by developing countries that the United 

States and other developed countries pay them tens and even hundreds of billions of dollars in compensation for taking action to address climate change. The proposed sums defy belief. 

China’s solution is to have the United States and the developed 

nations contribute up to 1 percent of their gross domestic product 

to the developing world annually. For the U.S., that would amount 

to $140 billion per year. Now, we have been getting used to speaking in terms of trillions of dollars, but $140 billion per year every 

year still sounds like a lot of money to me. Some of the developing 

countries have insisted that this money or payment to them must 

be a legally binding obligation that ‘‘cannot be subject to decisions 

of developed country governments or legislatures.’’ Basically, under 

these proposals, the American taxpayer would be required to subsidize other countries; and the U.S. Government and specifically 

the U.S. Congress would have no say in it. 

Also raising concerns is the disproportion in the obligations and 

the idea being considered for the U.S. and other developed nations 

to voluntarily impose significant restrictions on ourselves while 

granting developing countries a pass. This is one of the most objectionable provisions in the current Kyoto Accord, but it has already 

made its appearance in these new negotiations. 

Although China is now the world’s largest producer of carbon 

emissions and India is racing up to catch it, these and other countries have repeatedly stated that they have no intention of adopting 

costly measures to address this situation, although they are happy 

to have the United States, Europe, and other developed countries 

do so. Only 2 weeks ago, India’s environment minister stated that 

‘‘India will never accept internationally legally binding emission reduction targets. These are for developed countries and developed 

countries alone.’’

Developing countries are also targeting intellectual property 

rights, or IPR, by demanding free access to clean energy technologies. These proposals include prohibiting companies from patenting their own creations, compulsory licensing, and the waiving 

of all royalties. One can only imagine the consequences in China 

4

and elsewhere from the removal of such international property 

rights protections, given China’s role as the number one violator of 

intellectual property rights in the world. 

And, finally, there are the enormous economic costs for the 

American people. Many of the proposals being discussed are so 

sweeping that our economy would have to be restructured in order 

to achieve them. No credible estimate of the actual cost to our economy in terms of money, lost jobs, and reduced economic output 

have been put forward, but at a time of economic distress and 

widespread unemployment here at home, we should avoid imposing 

additional burdens on U.S. businesses and individuals. 

These are but some of the problems relating to the Kyoto Accord 

and negotiations for a successor treaty. It is my hope that President Obama will bear these facts in mind and not rush to sign the 

U.S. on to an agreement that could seriously harm our own interests. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the time. 

Chairman BERMAN. I thank the gentlelady. 

Now I am pleased to recognize the chairman of the Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific and the Global Environment, the 

gentleman from American Samoa, Mr. Faleomavaega. 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

As we speak, Mr. Chairman, the climate change negotiators from 

175 nations are meeting in Barcelona, Spain, for a final week of official talks before next month’s climate change summit in Copenhagen. That summit offers a crucial opportunity to advance a new 

and a more comprehensive agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocols after our country’s own absence for some 8 years now, hopefully to limit greenhouse gas emissions and avoid the worst consequences of climate change. 

Fortunately, the U.S. is playing a positive role in that effort, as 

President Obama has long recognized the need for American leadership in reducing emissions, developing a clean energy economy, 

and addressing the impact of global warming. 

Passage of the Waxman-Markey bill last June has demonstrated 

that the House is rising to the occasion. I hope and believe that the 

Senate will soon make important progress as well, despite yesterday’s Republican boycott of the Senate Environment and Public 

Works Committee markup of the Kerry and Boxer bill. The generally positive developments in Washington have added impetus to 

the negotiations in Copenhagen and enhance the prospect for a successful agreement on tackling the manifest problems of global 

warming. 

Mr. Chairman, I believe that the United States and other developed countries have a moral obligation to provide adequate and 

sustainable levels of assistance to the most vulnerable countries. 

Those most adversely and immediately affected by climate change 

are those least responsible for the greenhouse gas emissions. 

Driving global warming, as the World Development Report 2010 

noted, are high-income countries with one-sixth of the world’s population, responsible for nearly two-thirds—and I repeat, Mr. Chairman, two-thirds—of the greenhouse gases currently in the atmosphere. Yet those living in developing countries are bearing and will 

continue to bear the overwhelming majority of the costs. 

5

Thus far, Mr. Chairman, however, there has been relatively little 

discussion in Washington of the problems posed by climate change 

for developing countries and even less commitment of resources. Indeed, the amounts directed to the developing world by the Waxman-Markey and Kerry-Boxer bills are woefully inadequate. That 

is the key reason why I have focused the climate change work on 

the subcommittee on the impacts of the most vulnerable societies 

and the resources required to reduce or avoid those impacted. 

Mr. Chairman, the Europeans, though more forthright in making 

official estimates of the resources needed by developing countries, 

have not been much forthcoming in making commitments. Just last 

Friday, for example, the European Union asserted that developed 

countries needed to provide some $75 billion annually to developing 

countries by the year 2020 to help them cope with climate change, 

beginning with a fast start. And all of this, unfortunately, Mr. 

Chairman, despite pointing out the sums needed, the EU failed to 

state how much it was willing to provide, let alone how costs are 

to be divided amongst 27 members. 

Mr. Chairman, I know my time is up, but I will wait for another 

chance to say more. 

Chairman BERMAN. We will include the entire statement in the 

record. 

And now who seeks recognition on the minority side? 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, seeing that Mr. Manzullo 

isn’t here and seeing that I do sit in on those particular hearings 

held by that subcommittee, might I claim Mr. Manzullo’s time. 

Chairman BERMAN. As long as it doesn’t establish a precedent. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. All right. This is nonprecedent setting. 

Chairman BERMAN. This is a waiver for vital national security 

interests. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman BERMAN. The gentleman is recognized for 3 minutes. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. And I appreciate that, considering you know 

what my positions are on this issue, but I will make it clear for the 

hearing. 

Chairman BERMAN. I am hoping it is going to help me. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Let me just note that the words that are 

being used today: ‘‘Climate change.’’ Climate change. Did they always call it climate change? I seem to remember that up until recently the words were ‘‘global warming.’’ And, in fact, for two decades we were inundated with and smothered with this word global 

warming was this tremendous threat that was about to engulf the 

world. 

Let me just note that the reason why it has changed from global 

warming to climate change is that all the predictions that we were 

told, these dire predictions over the last 20 years, have been proven 

wrong. Instead of getting warmer for the last 9 years, it has not 

been getting warmer. It has actually been getting cooler. In fact, 

the much-heralded melting of the arctic ice cap has for the last 2 

years reversed itself. And that is just in terms of global warming 

not being proven. But man-made global warming we hear more and 

more scientists stepping forward to repudiate this flawed theory, 

global warming, which is being used basically to attain a political 

6

agenda through basically manipulation of the scientific establishments in various countries. 

Let me note that if we move forward—just for example, I will 

just say, with all due respect to my good chairman and friend, Eni 

Faleomavaega, the countries are not putting two-thirds—no countries, including developing countries, are putting two-thirds of the 

greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Ninety percent of all greenhouse gases are caused naturally. And the focus of controlling carbon dioxide, which is a very miniscule part of the atmosphere, does 

not make sense to many scientists who are now stepping forward, 

finally, after this barrage of propaganda which is being used, Mr. 

Chairman, to justify what we are talking about today, an attempt 

to create global controls over the United States of America and a 

compromise of our sovereignty which will undermine our prosperity 

and our freedom. 

This is an issue that should be taken very seriously; and people 

should note that, after 20 years of hearing about global warming, 

now it has become climate change, which has a great deal of significance to the issue that we are talking about today. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman BERMAN. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

We do have two panels today, so to the extent members can include their statements in the record, that would be helpful. 

But I will now recognize any member of the majority who—the 

gentlelady from California, Ms. Watson, is recognized for 1 minute. 

Ms. WATSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

This is a very important hearing that you are holding today, and 

I look forward to Copenhagen. As we turn our attention to the facts 

and figures, the position of the administration, and the timeline of 

our Senate colleagues, I ask that we keep a few things in mind. 

Firstly, we all live in the environment. When a pipe breaks, the 

roof starts leaking, or something blows a fuse in our homes, we fix 

it. We can debate about why it happened and how it happened, but 

in the end the only thing we can do is make sure the problem is 

fixed as best as we know how. The environment and our home, we 

have a responsibility to take care of it. 

Also, our environment very clearly affects all of us. The Samoan 

people survived a tsunami just last month. Villagers in Ethiopia 

face hunger daily because of the seemingly endless drought. And in 

my own district, California, Los Angeles, we constantly face water 

shortages that are exacerbated by the reduction in the rainwater 

over the years. Therefore, Copenhagen represents an opportunity 

for us to collectively think through and act to ensure that we live 

in a healthy environment. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Chairman BERMAN. The time of the gentlelady has expired. 

Anyone? The gentleman from Florida, Mr. Bilirakis, is recognized 

for 1 minute. 

Mr. BILIRAKIS. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ranking Member Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you for calling this important hearing. I 

look forward to hearing from our distinguished panel of witnesses. 

I am deeply concerned about the potential consequences of Copenhagen. As we are dealing with double-digit unemployment for 

the first time in decades, the last thing we need coming out of CoVerDate 0ct 09 2002 16:41 Jan 22, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\FULL\110409\53303 HFA PsN: SHIRL
7

penhagen is an energy tax that will drive energy costs through the 

roof for families and hamstring small businesses who are trying to 

survive and create jobs. I am worried that any international treaty 

addressing climate change will severely disadvantage American 

businesses and shift jobs to other nations like China and India 

which do not cap emissions and will not be encumbered by any protocols. 

We must balance the need to protect our environment with the 

need for economic growth and job creation. Unfortunately, I believe 

that any resolve at Copenhagen will fail to effectively strike that 

balance and will do more harm than good. 

We most certainly should not agree to live by the terms and conditions of any international treaty or legislative body other than 

the United States Congress. 

Chairman BERMAN. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

Mr. BILIRAKIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to submit 

the rest of my testimony for the record. 

Chairman BERMAN. Who else on our side seeks recognition? Mr. 

Carnahan is recognized for 1 minute. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Since coming to Congress, I have advocated for the U.S. to reengage in a more commonsense international policy in terms of climate negotiations. It is incumbent upon us as a country, I believe, 

to lead by example, and we have a responsibility to future generations here at home, to our fellow nations abroad, and it is an opportunity for us to lead by example, to use the very best of American 

science and innovation to create a new generation of green entrepreneurs and green jobs. This is what I think the opportunity is 

at hand to address this issue. 

The prior administration, unfortunately, repeatedly denied the 

very existence of climate change, attempted to silence scientists 

that spoke out about this. I think the weight of the evidence, the 

urgency, and the magnitude of the problem deserves our very best 

attention and our very best efforts; and I appreciate us having this 

hearing here today. 

Chairman BERMAN. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

The gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Connolly. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I thank the gentleman, and I will put my full 

statement into the record with consent. 

Chairman BERMAN. Without objection. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I just want to say two things: That the era of 

global warming denying is over. Thank God. For the last 8 years 

we have denied the compelling evidence, the overwhelming evidence of the reality of global warming, and the time for that denial 

is now over. And, secondly, this is an opportunity for the United 

States to reassert global leadership, having squandered that opportunity these last 8 years. We can now take our rightful place at the 

table. 

And, as we heard from one of our key allies at the joint session 

just yesterday, from Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany, 

our allies are looking for that leadership and looking for that cooperation. This is a great opportunity. 

Thank you for holding the hearing, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Chairman BERMAN. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

8

The gentlelady from California, Ms. Woolsey, is recognized for 1 

minute. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

This hearing is not only important to our State of California and 

our country and our world but to the sanity of Members of Congress. Because what a welcome relief it is, Mr. Chairman, to have 

the opportunity to hear this expert group of panelists we are going 

to have and the witnesses today and on a subject that is not health 

care. So it is a subject we cannot ignore, and it is going to give us 

a nice relief to be thinking about something equally as important. 

Thank you. 

Chairman BERMAN. A panel on the health care implications of 

global warming. 

The gentlelady from Nevada, Ms. Berkley, is recognized for 1 

minute. 

Ms. BERKLEY. I have no statement at this time. 

Chairman BERMAN. The gentleman from New York, Mr. Crowley. 

Mr. CROWLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will submit my opening statement for the record. 

Chairman BERMAN. Without objection. 

Mr. CROWLEY. I just want to comment just briefly and very 

quickly. 

I hear repeatedly from my colleagues on the other side of the 

aisle this is not the right time to do this. If this is not the right 

time, when will it be the right time to do this? 

It was not the right time in 1935, it is argued, to create Social 

Security. But today we see that Social Security has been one of the 

great achievements of our country. During the middle of the Great 

Depression, we did that. 

It was not the right time in 1965 to create the Medicare system 

during the Vietnam War and during the civil rights movement. It 

was not a good time to be doing things like that. 

It is not the right time to be doing global warming because of the 

economic condition of our country. This is exactly the right time to 

be doing this, talking about new jobs, creating green jobs for America, and at the same time reducing pollution and contributing positively toward the growth of industry in not only our country but 

throughout the world. This isn’t only a good time, this is the only 

time we are going to have an opportunity to do this again and get 

it right. 

Chairman BERMAN. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

The gentleman who knows something about the water crisis in 

California, Mr. Costa, is recognized for 1 minute. 

Mr. COSTA. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

It is a timely hearing. I think it is clear and undisputable that 

the climate has always been changing. I think the debate currently 

is whether or not and how much we are contributing to that climate change. I think there is a substantial amount of evidence that 

we are contributing significantly to that climate change; and I 

think it provides tremendous opportunities, if we take advantage 

of them, for the economy and for new technologies and for a new 

generation of energy development. 

In California, we are largely dependent upon our water supplies 

through Mother Nature’s icebox which is the Sierra Nevada, the 

9

snow that takes place there. We need that to continue. With climate change, we need to understand how we are going to better 

balance our water resources in a water-deficient State. And so I 

think it is very important, not just from the standpoint of energy 

but from a host of other water resource and related energy issues, 

that we balance these needs and that we take the time to do what 

is right. 

Chairman BERMAN. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

The gentlelady from Arizona is recognized for 1 minute. 

Ms. GIFFORDS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I am really pleased that Mr. Stern is here today and that we will 

have a chance to hear from him and other members as well. This 

is a hearing that is incredibly important and is coming at an important time. I am excited about traveling to Copenhagen with 

other Members of the Congress to have a global conversation about 

what is happening with climate change. 

I come from Arizona and, very much like my colleague from California, the problems that we are facing are truly grave. Climate 

change will affect our part of the country to a much greater extent 

than other parts. Arizona is highly dependent on the Colorado 

River. The Colorado River has over 25 million users, increased population growth in that area, and the Colorado is beginning to run 

quite low. 

The invasive species that have come in because of climate change 

as well, the buffelgrass infestation, for example, the infestation of 

the bark beetle, the mega fires that we are having across the West, 

these are not by coincidence. It is real, and it is happening. 

The positive aspect of what often seems as a doom-and-gloom situation is that this is a human-caused problem, and it can be a 

human solution as well. And that is what I am looking forward to 

in terms of creating new jobs with a new type of energy and a new 

way of addressing this problem. So there are real possibilities here. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman BERMAN. The time of the gentlelady has expired. 

We are now pleased to welcome Todd Stern to the committee. He 

was named as the special envoy for climate change on January 26, 

2009, by Secretary Hillary Clinton. In that position, he plays a central role in developing clean energy and climate policy, both domestic and international. 

Prior to his service with the Obama administration, Mr. Stern 

was a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, where he 

focused on climate change and environmental issues. From 1997 to 

1999, he led the Clinton administration’s initiative on global climate change, acting as the senior White House negotiator at the 

Kyoto and Buenos Aires negotiations. 

Mr. Stern, thank you very much for being here, and we look forward to your opening statement and the questions. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE TODD D. STERN, SPECIAL 

ENVOY FOR CLIMATE CHANGE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE 

Mr. STERN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

I must say, I have not yet been accused during the year of being 

able to provide relief to an issue that is even harder than this, so 

10

I appreciate the welcome. And I think this issue will be a tossup 

as to whether health care or this is more complicated. 

But, in any event, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Ranking 

Member Ros-Lehtinen, and members of the committee for inviting 

me here today. 

I would like to give you a brief update today on the state of negotiations. Time is growing short. We have just 32 days left until the 

beginning of the Copenhagen conference, and there is still a lot of 

work to do. 

Broadly speaking, I think it is fair to say that progress has been 

too slow to date, especially in the formal U.N. negotiating track. 

We are also operating intensively on other tracks—the major 

economies forum of 17 major economies, developed and developing, 

and the bilateral track—both of which have been more constructive. But the formal negotiating track is still quite problematic. 

The developed-developing country divide that has run down the 

center of climate change discussions for the past 17 years is still, 

I am afraid, alive and well. Developing countries tend to see a 

problem not of their own making and they are being asked to fix 

it in ways which they fear could stifle their ability to lift their own 

standards of living. And, of course, we cannot expect developing 

countries or indeed any country to commit to actions that they cannot plausibly achieve or to make promises that are antithetical to 

their need to fight poverty and build a better life for their citizens. 

We must send a message that the effort to reach a new climate 

change agreement is not simply about putting a cap on emissions. 

It is also about development. And in the world we now inhabit, the 

only sustainable development is low carbon development. 

But let me say what is not helpful is the way that some developing countries, in any event, focus more on citing chapter and 

verse for dubious interpretations of the original Framework Convention Treaty or the Bali Action Plan, designed to prove that they 

don’t have any responsibility for action now, rather than thinking 

through pragmatic ways to find common ground and start solving 

the problem. 

We recognize that developed and developing countries, even the 

major ones, can be expected to do different things. For example, the 

economy-wide reductions against a specific baseline such as 2005 

for developed countries on the one hand and strong actions by developing countries that will have the effect of reducing their emissions versus their business as usual trend lines. Those are quite 

different things. 

And we agree that developed countries have particular responsibilities that are different from developing countries with respect 

to providing financial and technology assistance to poorer countries. We not only understand this, but we have made a number 

of very forward-leaning and constructive proposals in this regard. 

We know that developed countries, including the United States, 

have a special responsibility, given our role in producing the emissions already in the atmosphere and because of our greater wealth 

and capability. What we do not agree with, though, is that we 

should commit to implement what we promise to do while major 

developing countries make no commitment at all, hiding behind a 

11

misreading of the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respected capabilities. 

And we do not agree that only the actions of developed countries 

should be submitted to a serious transparency and accountability 

regime, including peer review by other countries, while the major 

developing countries should be subject to no peer review at all unless the actions were paid for by developed countries. 

The mentality that looks at the world through those lenses will 

not produce an agreement in Copenhagen. We have to do better. 

After all, we are not engaged right now in a debating society about 

the exegesis of section X of subpart 1 of sub-subpart B of the 

Framework Convention or the Bali Action Plan. We are seeking to 

put in place a new agreement based, broadly on the concepts of 

those underlying documents, to be sure, intended to safeguard our 

future and the future of our children, to take an important step, 

in a word, toward saving the planet and improving the economic, 

environmental, and natural security future of America and the 

world. 

This is a profound undertaking, it is a profound responsibility, 

and we need to all treat it as such. The sooner we get past the 

mentality of resisting responsible action and the sooner we get into 

the mentality of searching for pragmatic common ground, the better off we will be. 

Ninety-seven percent of the growth of emissions between now 

and 2030 is projected to come from developing countries, and about 

50 percent of that from China alone. We cannot solve the problem 

without major action by the emerging market countries, absolutely 

consistent, with their imperatives to grow and eradicate poverty 

but major action nonetheless. And no country holds the fate of the 

Earth in its hands more than China. In our view, it is precisely because of their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities that they and others need to step up. 

Now, paradoxically, while the negotiations are in a difficult state, 

it is also true that we are at a moment in history when more countries, including China, India, Brazil, South Africa, are in fact taking stronger action or are poised to take stronger action than ever 

before to combat climate change. And the negotiations going on 

right now have helped to drive these countries and others, developed countries as well, to recognize the seriousness of the problem 

and to assert and recognize the need for global action. So we need 

to find a way to capture the positive effects on the ground—and 

there are many—to get a deal, and I firmly believe that we can do 

this. 

What are the key issues that we need to make progress on? They 

are mitigation issues that I have already referenced. Both developed and major developing countries need to not only undertake 

those actions at home but reflect them in an international agreement. Those actions must be subject to a solid transparency and accountability regime. There must be financing provisions to get to 

a deal, and in this regard I hope that the Senate takes this into 

account as it pushes its own version of a bill. There need to be provisions for technology assistance, assistance on adaptation, forestry, and the like. 

12

We all, both in Congress and in the administration, have a lot 

of work ahead. The world is watching our legislative progress closely; and the more progress that is made by the time of Copenhagen, 

the better off we will be. What we do or don’t do domestically is 

hugely important. It is, in a word, central to our credibility and our 

leverage. 

For our part, we will continue intensively engaging with key 

countries and country blocs between now and Copenhagen. My 

team right now is in Barcelona participating in the broad framework convention negotiations that go on periodically. And President 

Obama and the Secretary of State, along with our entire administration, are committed to seizing each opportunity to make 

progress. 

Our objective, of course, is to pursue the strongest possible outcome we can get in Copenhagen consistent with the science and 

mindful of the necessity to be practical and pragmatic. The health 

and safety of our children’s future depends upon it. 

I look forward to answering the committee’s questions. Thank 

you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Stern follows:]

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Chairman BERMAN. Thank you very much, and I yield myself 5 

minutes to start the questioning. 

Step back, if you would, for a moment, Mr. Stern, and just sort 

of tell us, why is it more important now than before for the international community to act soon to lower greenhouse gas emissions 

and help the developing countries that are affected by climate 

change? 

Mr. STERN. Mr. Chairman, I think it has been important for 

quite some time. I think it grows ever more important, because the 

problem gets worse and gets more visibly worse. If you look at the 

evidence from all around the world, whether it is from the Arctic, 

to the Antarctic, to glaciers melting in the Himalayas, to droughts 

in our country and around the world, to extreme weather events, 

to the force of hurricanes and the like, there is just a huge imperative to begin to take action. 

And the steps that need to be taken involve essentially the transformation of the energy base of the global economy. It involves the 

transformation of our energy infrastructure. You have got to start. 

The longer that we wait, the worse it gets. We are on a track to 

go—if we keep to our business as usual, we are on a track for a 

temperature increase that would lead to potentially catastrophic 

consequences. And so it is way past time, but it is certainly time 

to take the action that you have referenced. 

Chairman BERMAN. Thank you. 

Yvo de Boer, who oversees the U.N. negotiation, said recently 

that there is not sufficient time to reach a comprehensive agreement in Copenhagen. He also hoped that Copenhagen wouldn’t 

simply be a declaration of principles. Keeping those comments in 

mind, what are the expectations for Copenhagen? Will the outcome 

be a new roadmap similar to Bali that sets a new date for a binding comprehensive international agreement? What would the components of a framework agreement look like? 

Mr. STERN. Mr. Chairman, I think that, in a word, the objective, 

what success will be in Copenhagen, is the strongest possible 

agreement we can get. I would think that we would certainly hope 

that that would go well beyond simply a restatement of Bali or a 

roadmap for further negotiations. 

I would note in this regard the Prime Minister of Denmark, who 

has more than the average concern and interest in the state of 

these negotiations, has spoken recently, gave a speech to a group 

of international legislatures—Congressman Markey was actually 

there—on the 24th of October in which he called for full-tilt pressure to move forward on getting a comprehensive legal agreement 

but recognizing that that might not be in the cards and doesn’t look 

like it is in the cards for December, that we should make progress 

on a political agreement that hit each of the main elements—mitigation commitments, transparency and accountability, financing, 

technology, force adaptation—and to do all of that in a strong 

agreement that leads the way to a full legal instrument perhaps 

next year or as soon as possible. 

So I think that we want something certainly beyond simply a 

declaration that says we are going keep working on this. We want 

a real agreement. 

Chairman BERMAN. I thank the gentleman. 

19

I yield back the balance of my time and recognize the ranking 

member for 5 minutes. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. Thank 

you, Mr. Stern. I have a few questions. We won’t have enough time 

to answer them, but just some of my concerns. 

President Obama has said that he supports the proposed reduction in global emissions by 50 percent by the year 2050 and that 

the U.S. should be able to reduce our own emissions by over 80 percent. What are the estimated costs in the terms of foregone economic growth, jobs, income in meeting this target? 

Following that, the developing countries argue that significant 

reductions on emissions will reduce economic growth and that the 

developed countries were not subjected to similar restrictions in 

their history. Are they wrong in believing that these proposals will 

reduce economic growth? And if yes, why do the same arguments 

not hold true for the developed world? 

And, lastly, China has repeatedly stated that it will only accept 

any limits, as I said in my opening statement, on its emissions—

it will not accept any limits, even though it is the largest in the 

world. How can the targets you have outlined, without cooperation 

by China and other developed countries, work? 

Thank you, sir. 

Mr. STERN. Thank you very much, Madam Ranking Member. Let 

me try to take these quickly in order. 

Your first question is about costs, and there are different assessments of that. I think that the assessments within the administration are quite, quite modest. I don’t remember the exact number, 

but I think it is 100-something dollars over the course of a year. 

And we can get you that exact number, but it is quite modest for 

the costs of taking action. And let me say that it is also our view 

that this is an enormous growth opportunity with respect to the 

whole area of clean energy and clean technology development. 

We are going to be—whether we acknowledge it today or we acknowledge it next year or we acknowledge it in 10 years, we are 

going to be in a low carbon world. There isn’t any way around it. 

At some point, people recognize that smoking cigarettes causes cancer. At some point, people are going to recognize that too much carbon in the atmosphere is going to be damaging; and we are going 

to, the whole world——

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. I am sorry—just because we have such limited time. So what is the estimated cost in terms of growth, jobs, 

and income in the target? 

Mr. STERN. My staff just handed me a note saying that what I 

said was I think it is in the range of 100-something dollars a year. 

I see the EPA estimate $100–175 a year, is our EPA estimate. 

But there is going to be a huge—a huge industry, set of industries that grow up in the course of converting to low carbon. We 

are either going to be a leader in that—and we have the capacity 

in terms of our technological ability, our capital formation, our financial industry, et cetera, to be a leader there. We can be a leader, or we can fall behind. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. The section about China saying repeatedly 

that it is not going to limit their emissions. How is this going to 

work worldwide? 

20

Mr. STERN. The problem—and you are raising a very good point, 

Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. But the issue here is not that China or the other 

countries are not taking real action. They actually are taking real 

action. The issue is and the difficulty and what we are trying to 

work on now is that they are much more willing—the way I often 

put this is countries are willing to do more than they are willing 

to agree to do in an international treaty. 

If you look at what China is doing in terms of their reduction in 

energy intensity, in terms of their renewable targets, in terms of 

what they are doing on nuclear energy, in terms of what they are 

doing on energy efficiency, it is quite, quite significant; and it certainly appears from everything that both I have seen and that others who are interacting a lot with China have seen is they have 

started to get the bit between their teeth and they are going to 

move on this. 

And the thing that I worry about is not so much that is not our 

pushing China now but that we are going to be chasing China if 

we don’t get our own act together 5 years from now and out into 

the future. So they are acting, but they are resisting making promises in an international agreement. And that is a problem, and we 

are working on that, but it is not the case that they are not doing 

anything. 

Chairman BERMAN. The time of the gentlelady has expired. 

The gentleman from American Samoa, Mr. Faleomavaega, is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman; and I want to 

personally welcome Mr. Stern also this morning for our hearing. 

A couple of observations, and please correct me if I am wrong in 

these observations, Mr. Stern. 

Our country’s population makes up only 4 percent of the world’s 

population and yet we consume about 30 percent of the world’s energy resources. Of course, in fairness to our country, we are also 

the biggest contributor to the needs of the many problems the 

world currently has. No question that India and China have to be 

part of this whole negotiation or summit that is going to be coming 

up in Copenhagen or else the whole issue is a failure. 

The question is also whether or not the administration is very 

firm about its commitment in seeing that, as part of the negotiation process, we do identify and help the most vulnerable societies 

in the developing countries that not necessarily are the producers 

of these greenhouse gas emissions. 

I remember 9 years ago, and right where you are sitting, was the 

former Secretary of State, Colin Powell, when the administration 

first started at that time. And the question that I raised before 

him, where was the administration’s position on climate change? 

And I remember Secretary Powell said: ‘‘In a matter of 2 months, 

we will let you know about this.’’ Every indication was that he was 

going to continue the engagement process of the Kyoto Protocols. 

Now, as you know, the Senate killed any indication of whether or 

not we support the Kyoto Protocol. 

And I agree with the fact that the Kyoto Protocols had many provisions that were very unfair to the needs of our country. But the 

criticism that I have had, not only did we take ourselves away from 

the negotiation table, we just simply had nothing to do with Kyoto 

21

anymore. And it is almost going to the idea that if you are not at 

the table you are going to be on the menu. And I believe, Mr. 

Stern, that for these years we have been on the menu, ridiculed, 

criticized. And to say that the most productive country in the world 

is not even at the negotiating table, whether or not this issue is 

very important not only to our own national security but to the 

needs of the entire world, that we just simply were in absentia, if 

you will, for these past 8 years. 

Now, I know, with due respect to my good friends who still question whether or not climate change really is a serious issue that 

our own country should be a participant on, I wanted to ask you—

and I could not agree with my good friend and colleague from Virginia that the years of global warming denial is over. I think 8 

years is long enough. 

When I was at the Bali conference, Australia was the first country that signed on to the Kyoto Protocol; and we were sitting there 

so embarrassed. Because 190 countries gave Australia a standing 

ovation for its commitment to global change, and we just stood 

there like a—well, just embarrassed, if you want my opinion. 

But I would like to ask you, what is the administration’s position 

about helping the most vulnerable societies at the Copenhagen discussions coming up next month? 

Mr. STERN. We think that helping the most vulnerable societies 

is a crucial part on any new agreement, Congressman. This comes 

up in a couple of different places. 

One is the issue of adaptation. We have put in a strong position 

in support of adaptation particularly focused to the poorest and 

most vulnerable countries. It arises in the context of technology assistance, and it arises in the context of financial assistance. We are 

in favor of all of those things in a reasonable way. 

The ranking member pointed out some of the fairly outlandish 

numbers that are thrown around by some developing countries; 

and certainly when you talk about things like 1 percent of GDP, 

that is silly. But real support is absolutely essential. And not only 

is real support essential, but we believe it is essential now. We believe that we should get going with an agreement that can take effect and that can start moving right away, not be delayed for several years; and we hope that is what we can help to make happen. 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Chairman, I wanted to ask Mr. Stern, 

I would deeply appreciate some clear statements from the administration about the substance of the Waxman-Markey bill provisions 

regarding what kind of assistance are we serious about in providing for the needs of these most vulnerable societies. Because it 

seems that—my own observation, Mr. Chairman—there has been a 

lot of rhetoric, a lot of floating ideas, but no real substantive commitment to help this part of the equation as far as climate change 

is concerned. I know my time is up, Mr. Chairman, but I would appreciate that. 

Chairman BERMAN. I, unfortunately, should have mentioned at 

the beginning, our 5 minutes are for both the questions and the answers. But the question you asked on our second panel is one of 

the ones I wanted to start out with. 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. If he could just submit for the record. 

22

Chairman BERMAN. Sure. Very good. If you would, we would 

make it part of the hearing transcript. 

Mr. STERN. Happy to do that. 

[The information referred to follows:]

WRITTEN RESPONSE RECEIVED FROM THE HONORABLE TODD D. STERN TO QUESTION

ASKED DURING THE HEARING BY THE HONORABLE ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA

We support the House for its emphasis on adaptation in Waxman Markey, as this 

will be an increasingly important issue in international climate discussions as the 

impacts of climate change become more pronounced. The Administration considers 

it very important to address the needs of the most vulnerable in any future approach. That is why we requested a nine-fold increase in our FY10 appropriation 

for adaptation activities, to $350 million. We are committed to working with Congress to mobilizing this funding through various sources, including through the carbon market and other available sources.

Chairman BERMAN. The gentleman from California, Mr. Rohrabacher——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Oh, yes. 

Chairman BERMAN [continuing]. Who took Mr. Manzullo’s time. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Yes, I did. 

Let me just note that the use of the word climate change instead 

of—replacing global warming is itself a denial of global warming. 

Because that phrase came into existence as the scientific reality 

that it hasn’t been warming for the last 9 years and that the Arctic 

melt has reversed itself for the last 2 years seems to be something 

that can be denied by suggesting that we change the wording now 

to climate change. So any change that takes place will justify a 

compromise in the legal protections that we have given our own 

people by signing some foreign treaty that compromises our constitutional rights, compromises our national sovereignty, and undermines American prosperity. 

When you are in Copenhagen, you might look up Dr. Lomborg, 

who is the former head of Denmark’s Environmental Assessment 

Institute—and I might put this quote into the record: ‘‘Reducing 

CO2 emissions will not make the world a better place to live.’’

And I submit for the record right now, Mr. Chairman, a list of 

10 names of prominent, world-class scientists from MIT and other 

major institutions who totally deny this theory of man-made global 

warming and the efforts to try to stampede us into making such 

agreements that we are talking about today that, as I say, are 

aimed at undermining the constitutional rights of our people and 

undermining our prosperity and our freedom in this country. 

[The information referred to follows:]

23

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Stern, let me just ask you some specifics, 

rather than debating global warming itself, which I believe is a debatable issue. 

In performing your tasks, will you agree to alter or reduce or 

deny the protections now held by American people of their intellectual property rights, patent laws, and other type of protections for 

intellectual property for so-called green technologies? 

Mr. STERN. We have no intention of doing anything that would 

undermine or weaken intellectual property rights, Mr. Rohrabacher. We think that is quite essential to the whole project and 

innovation, which is, in turn, essential to getting this issue——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. So you would not——

Mr. STERN. We are not going to undermine intellectual property. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Would you agree to compulsory licensing fees 

for such green technologies? 

Mr. STERN. No, that is not in our——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much. 


53303f.eps
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Will you agree to differential responsibilities in emission reductions or in funding? 

Mr. STERN. We have said that we see a differentiation that is appropriate, in our judgment, as between developed and developing 

countries. Although developing countries, the major ones, need to 

do very significant things to make very significant reductions in 

their emissions compared to where they would be. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. So the American people are going to have to 

bear a much greater burden of other countries where maybe their 

dictatorial governments have prevented the type of economic 

progress that we have enjoyed here with the freedom in our country. 

Mr. STERN. We don’t actually think there would be greater burden for the American people. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. What does differential mean then? I think 

that differential means that somebody is going to bear more and 

other people aren’t. 

Mr. STERN. No. It means that there is a difference; that the nature of what we have to do and what they have to do is somewhat 

different in a way that relates to both state of development and 

standard of living and the like. And you can well end up with the 

reduction of emissions as compared to where they would otherwise 

be in a developing country that turns out to be just as much as 

what happens in the United States, even though the basic requirements are different. So I don’t actually think that we are talking 

about a larger burden. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I think that we could disagree on that. 

Mr. STERN. I accept that. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Will you agree to pay compensation to vulnerable countries? And what would be an acceptable definition of 

‘‘vulnerable’’? 

Mr. STERN. Well, it depends on what we are talking about. We 

think that adaptation assistance for poor countries, countries in 

sub-Saharan Africa, for example, and other vulnerable countries, 

absolutely should get assistance and adaptation. Compensation is 

sometimes used to mean something else. Saudi Arabia asks compensation for the loss of revenues that might ensue if there was a 

global warming climate change regime. We are not in support of 

that. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much. 

Mr. STERN. Could I make one other comment for the record, 

which is the original climate change agreement is the Framework 

Convention on Climate Change in 1992. It is not a new term. 

Chairman BERMAN. The time of the gentleman has expired; and 

the gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Carnahan, is recognized for 5 

minutes. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I wanted to focus on I guess a challenge and an opportunity. One 

of the counterarguments that we hear often against the United 

States taking strong action is that countries like India and China 

are such large and growing emitters. I would be interested to hear 

some more detail on your opinion regarding our engagement with 

China and India, what we are doing to engage the international 

community to move them toward adopting appropriate policies. 

25

Mr. STERN. You know, Mr. Carnahan, we have to do what we 

need to do as the United States. So I don’t think that—that is not 

dependent, in my judgment, on China and India. And yet what 

China and India and other major developing countries do is absolutely critical. As I said, virtually all the growth and emissions 

going forward is going to come from the developing world, and half 

of it—fully half of it is going to come from China alone. 

We have been engaged in an extremely intensive way with the 

Chinese from the time that we started earlier in the year. I have 

been to China myself three times. I have met with their lead negotiator probably nine or ten times. We have engaged with them at 

the level of the Secretary of State, level of the President, level of 

Secretary of Energy and others. So we are pushing hard. We are 

working with other allied countries, if you will, who are also pushing. 

Again, the thing that is really important to understand is that 

countries like China and India are actually doing a lot. They are 

not in the world anymore of saying we don’t have to worry about 

this problem. There is nothing that we have to do. They are taking 

a lot of action. And my guess is, as you go forward in the years 

to come, they are going to only ramp that up in very significant 

ways. 

Where they are resisting—and it is a real problem—is in translating any of those actions that they are taking at the national 

level into an international agreement. If you can’t get those actions 

translated into an international agreement, you don’t have an 

international agreement. 

So that is a challenge. We are working hard at it. We have had—

we are pushing them to move in that direction. I think there has 

been some movement in the context of my own conversations with 

them, but there are 5 weeks to go, and I don’t know yet where that 

is going to land. But it is not the case and shouldn’t be seen to be 

the case that they are simply sitting back and not taking action. 

They are quite focused on it. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. And closely related to that, the role of technology 

and innovation in terms of translating those goals, what they have 

done looking at certainly innovation that we have done here at 

home, what we have seen countries like Germany do in terms of 

incentives, in terms of setting standards for how they meet goals, 

they have done remarkable things with solar energy in a country 

that doesn’t particularly have a lot of sun. 

So in terms of looking at some of those successes and some of the 

technology, talk, if you would, briefly about the role of technology 

and changing the game here. 

Mr. STERN. I think technology is the game. There are certain—

if you look forward, if you look right now—there are a lot of things, 

technologies, on the shelf in terms of renewable energy and energy 

efficiency that can substantially get us where we need to be in the 

course of the next 20 years or so. 

But if you are looking at the long-range solution of the problem, 

it is going to come at the development of the new technology. We 

can either set the rules of the road in place through measures like 

the legislation that is pending, executive action, regulation for the 

EPA and other places; we can set the rules of the road in place to 

26

drive that technology revolution; or we can sit back, keep debating, 

keep not getting to where we need to go and watch that technology 

revolution happen in other places. 

Really, the competitive problem that we face in this country is 

not so much what is going to happen to exposed industries in the 

next few years. Those problems are real, and they should be taken 

care of. They are taken care of in the context of the House bill, and 

they should be taken care of in final legislation. 

But the real competitive problem that this country faces is if we 

don’t act at full speed and watch the technology revolution be 

taken over by the Chinas and Indias and other developed countries 

that see the writing on the wall and act. We can be the leader here. 

Nobody has intellectual and financial capability like the United 

States. But we need to act. 

Chairman BERMAN. The gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Manzullo. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Stern, you made the statement that new industries will grow 

up to help us comply with climate change, the so-called green technology. There is a March 2009 study by the University of Juan 

Carlos in Madrid, Spain, that showed Spain’s experience in forcing 

a transition to renewable energy that has been terribly economically counterproductive. Based upon Spain’s experience, the study 

concluded that the United States should expect a loss of at least 

2.2 jobs on an average, nine jobs lost for every four so-called green 

job created. The study also concluded that, since 2000, Spain spent 

571,000 Euros to create each green job. 

I live in manufacturing. That is my life. One out of four people 

who work in the district I represent earns their living dealing with 

grease and, many times, clean technology. What you are saying is 

totally incorrect. 

Do you think that one morning 535 Members of Congress or people from the administration woke up saying, ‘‘Voila, let us invent 

green technology’’? 

It doesn’t happen that way. Government does not create jobs. 

Let me give you some examples. 

Danfoss is a Danish firm doing business in my congressional district, the world leader in electrical modulation machines. 

All-World Manufacturing, small group of guys got together. They 

have cut back about 75 percent of the costs of the power necessary 

to run hydraulic pressure pumps. 

Eclipse Manufacturing—leading the world in gas combustion 

burners—were making solar panels. 

And Rentech, over on the Mississippi River in a congressional 

district that has been suffering terribly from the loss of jobs, was 

set to have a $600 million Fischer-Tropsch conversion process to 

clean coal as opposed to natural gas for feedstock for anhydrous 

ammonia and urea. As a result of Fischer-Tropsch, they could have 

been manufacturing diesel fuel without using petroleum, and all it 

lacked was lubricity. 

Now I have seen with my own eyes the suffering taking place in 

this country as a result of the statement that you made that government can create jobs from green technology. What you represented to this panel is nothing less than unilateral surrender. 

27

The Chinese and the Indians already have inked an agreement 

back in October, just this past last month, that they are going to 

coordinate efforts to combat any climate change treaty that has, as 

its core demands, that the developing world take the lead in cutting carbon emissions. So we just sit back and say the United 

States is going to fall on its knees, plead that the world follows the 

example and continue to destroy jobs. 

I mean, I know of people who are fastener manufacturers in 

Spain. They adopted cap-and-trade there. It did not work there because right across the Strait of Gibraltar there is a company in Morocco that is making the very same thing that doesn’t have to comply with these highest standards. 

I just do not understand why the United States should unilaterally disarm—we are at 17 percent unemployment in the City of 

Rockford, Illinois. Add five points to that all across the Nation. 

That is 22 percent. One out of four families in Winnebago County, 

Illinois, is on public assistance; and many have lost their jobs in 

manufacturing because of these things and the statements that you 

want to make them have even more of a loss of jobs. 

Do you understand what I am saying? Have you talked ever 

talked to the people in manufacturing about the impact? 

Mr. STERN. Well, I actually grew up in a manufacturing family. 

But that is neither here nor there. 

Congressman, I don’t think anybody lacks sympathy for what is 

going on in the country with respect to the recession, but let me 

just say I absolutely did not say that government creates the jobs. 

Mr. MANZULLO. You did, too. You said, as a result of government 

policies that green jobs will be hatched. 

Mr. STERN. What I am saying is I think there are rules of the 

road that can be laid down that can help stimulate the creation of 

jobs. 

You know, John Doerr, who is one of the legendary investors in 

California, talks about the transition to clean technology is something that has the promise to be several times larger——

Mr. MANZULLO. I am not talking about philosophy. I am talking 

about people who are losing their jobs. There is a big difference between philosophers and manufacturers. 

Chairman BERMAN. I am sorry. I feel like this won’t get settled 

by one more sentence. 

Mr. STERN. I think you are right, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman BERMAN. We have just started to vote. There will be 

four votes. Let us see how far we can get, because Mr. Stern does 

have to be back at the White House at 12:30, and we have an excellent second panel. 

The gentlelady from California, Ms. Woolsey. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I would like to remind my friend, Mr. Manzullo, that we do have 

an industry that is suffering, the auto industry, because they refused to adjust to the world’s needs for smaller, cleaner autos. And 

we can’t just go about business as usual. Otherwise, we are going 

to have every industry in this country either being replaced overseas with something that is cheaper and something that will fit the 

needs of our global economy. We have a lot of work to do. 

28

So Mr. Stern, will you do me a big favor for all of us? Will you 

repeat one more time—you can take my time to do this—if you 

will, to outline what the United States is going to lose if we refuse 

to step up to the fact that we must make major changes and that 

we do have an industry that we must capture for the United States 

green industries? Just take your time. Talk about it. I am not going 

to shove it down your throat. I want you to know we need to hear 

this over and over again. 

Mr. STERN. Well, look, I think that there are probably three fundamental imperatives for the United States with respect to acting 

on this issue: First of all, the issue itself. Climate change, global 

warming, is getting worse. It is extraordinarily serious. We are on 

a track, if we don’t change the trajectory that we are on as a global 

community, of running into very serious and indeed potentially catastrophic problems. So there is the underlying issue in itself which 

is quite serious. 

Secondly, there are really serious national security implications 

that flow from that. There has been a lot of writing about this lately. There was an excellent piece on it in the New York Times a couple of months ago, and it is—to say it is not just an environmental 

problem is not to downgrade the importance of environmental problems, but it goes way beyond that. 

The third issue, the one that was the focus of your question, is 

that this is going to be a monumental transformation of the global 

economy and a monumental transformation of the U.S. economy. 

We are talking about transforming the energy base of the entire 

economy and over a period of years, over a period of decades. We 

are either going to get out ahead of that and take a leadership role 

in developing the technology—both here and for export—which has 

the potential over time, not like that, not in 2 minutes, but over 

time in being a huge potential job creator all across the country. 

There isn’t any country in the world that has got a better intellectual or financial base than the United States. So there isn’t any 

reason why we shouldn’t be a leader. And yet, if you look at what 

happened over the last number of years, industries that we started 

have gone elsewhere because we haven’t been acting. Solar industry is in Germany. It is in Japan. China is charging forward on the 

development of solar and wind components. 

We can get back into this game, but we have got to do it with 

policy that provides the right incentives and the right tools. And 

we can do that. It is going to happen. Either we can buy the stuff 

from somebody else when we finally get around to believing that 

it is necessary, or we can get out in front of it and make this a potent driver for the U.S. economy for the 21st century. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. I have 1 more minute just to ask you what if—

I am switching. We are in Copenhagen now. What would be the 

consequences if China signs on to an agreement that the United 

States does not? 

Mr. STERN. Look, I think that I am going to focus on the positive. 

I think that we can get an agreement. I think that we have a fair 

distance yet to go, but I actually think there is a deal to be done. 

I think the core is to get the major players all on board; and I 

think that, in general, with respect to your question, if you see the 

major players around the world, including the major developing 

29

players, prepared to step forward in a constructive way and in a 

way that is up to the task and the United States were to stay back 

in the shadows, that would be quite a troubling thing for the U.S. 

Chairman BERMAN. The time for the gentlelady has expired. 

The gentlelady from Nevada. 

Ms. BERKLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Your answer to Ms. Woolsey’s first question was exactly the 

question I was going to ask you, but it was leading to the ultimate 

question. I believe that getting away from fossil fuel and harnessing energy is an economic necessity, an environmental necessity, and a national security imperative. We are obviously not getting our message out to a broader audience. 

What would you suggest that we do to take this message forward 

and share with the American people how serious this is and what 

the downside is of not acting and the upside is of actually doing 

something, and what are we doing wrong? 

Mr. STERN. Well, look, I think that the reality is—and the President has noted this on a number of occasions. I think it is inevitably true that it is inherently difficult from the point of view of 

the focus of the public to be confronting this issue right in the middle of a global recession. What I sort of say sometimes is there may 

be a sinkhole in your backyard which is extremely threatening and 

dangerous, but if your house is burning down, you don’t have a 

chance to quite look at it. 

So there is a certain problem, I think, in terms of public communication, people having been understandably focused on their jobs, 

their homes, their health care, et cetera. But, at the same time, I 

believe it was Mr. Crowley who said this is the moment to act. We 

cannot look at the economic challenge and say, well, we will put 

this problem off. 

We are creating new infrastructure all the time. We are creating 

new power sources all the time. We have to make these low carbon, 

and we have to make these green, and we have to get on the right 

side on developing the type of technology that I was talking about. 

I think we need to keep talking. Members of Congress need to 

talk. We need talk from the administration, the White House, and 

the agencies; and we need to communicate a message that I think 

is fundamentally twofold: One is, the status quo is not sustainable. 

We have to change this. If you don’t like a proposal that you see, 

then you better explain what you do instead. The status quo is not 

sustainable. 

And, B, there is a huge, huge opportunity here that we need to 

avail ourselves of, as I have been discussing before. 

So there is a real legitimate threat which we cannot ignore, and 

there is a real legitimate opportunity that we must take advantage 

of. 

Chairman BERMAN. The gentlelady is expired. 

Oh, I thought you were done. 

Ms. BERKLEY. My time has expired. I have not expired. 

Chairman BERMAN. The gentlelady yields back her time but not 

herself. 

The gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Delahunt, will be our 

last questioner. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. I will just make some observations. 

30

Has there been a calculation as to the potential in terms of the 

economic loss, in terms of what will happen if we don’t address this 

issue? 

You know, there are some people—and I think you have sensed 

it today—that still believe that the world is flat, okay? You know, 

and thank God Columbus discovered America, how they would hold 

on to that. That is what we are faced with. That is the problem 

with communication. The world is round, the science is overwhelming, but there are those—and many of them are on the other 

side of this aisle that are within the Republican Party—people who 

think the world is flat. That is not the case. 

We understand that we have to address it. All I know is that we 

sit here and, time after time, we find ourselves having to fund 

enormous numbers, Federal dollars, in terms of addressing natural 

disasters. What is that cost? Put aside the economic, but, as we 

look, has anyone developed a model that looks forward? 

Mr. STERN. Congressman, it is an excellent question, actually. 

Because what you see when you see even the EPA number that I 

was talking about earlier of $100–175 a year, virtually all of those 

models explicitly set aside the question of the cost of inaction. They 

are not factored into any of those models. 

Now the guy who has done the work on this——

Mr. DELAHUNT. How many Katrinas can we afford? 

Mr. STERN. That is exactly right. 

The guy who has done the most work on this is Nick Stern, the 

former Chief Economist of the World Bank and from the U.K. He 

published a lengthy study that the U.K. Government had asked 

him to do, and he made estimates that I don’t remember the exact 

numbers, but they go up into the several percentage points of GDP 

lost over the course of the next 50, 75 years. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Rather than 2 percent of GDP, give me a number. Half a trillion, 10 trillion? What is it? 

Mr. STERN. I can get back to you on that. But the numbers are 

very, very large. You are talking about 4–5 percent of GDP out 

to——

Chairman BERMAN. $280 billion a year just to start. 

Mr. STERN. A lot more than that. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Do you hear that, Mr. Chairman? A lot more 

than that. 

Chairman BERMAN. U.S. proportion. 

Mr. STERN. But if you look into the future worldwide, it is a very 

large number. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. How many natural disasters can we deal with in 

terms of our economy here? Look what Katrina has done to the national economy and will continue to do. 

And I agree with you on your other issues. But, you know, you 

are right. The world—the globe isn’t flat. It comes down to that. 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Will the gentleman yield? 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Yes. 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. I just want to say to my good friend, with 

a little sense of humor, you said about Columbus discovering America. I say that, while my ancestors were traveling, voyaging thousands of miles, different islands, Columbus actually got lost. 

That is just a little humor that I wanted to add. 

31

Mr. DELAHUNT. You have never been lost. 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. And the fear among our friends in Europe 

was that you would go over because the world was flat. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. I just have one question for the minute remaining. 

Chairman BERMAN. We have 1 minute to vote. If you want to 

preside right from there, just take the gavel. 

We will be back for the second panel. 

Take a minute with the gentlelady. I am done. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE [presiding]. I won’t get an answer from you, 

but maybe I can get it in writing. 

I am interested in whether or not, since we know the kind of 

world we live in and the various interest groups, such as coal in 

the United States, and the contributors to our complex climate situation, what outreach has been done to energy companies—for 

which, by their definition, the world is energy. It could be green. 

It could be biofuels, et cetera. How can we get them to the table? 

And I will listen to the gentleman and yield on the way to the 

vote. 

Mr. STERN. I think there has been a great deal of outreach done 

in that regard. That tends to be driven more by the White House 

and the agencies that are focused specifically on the domestic 

issues. 

I think there has been an enormous amount of outreach done to 

energy companies of all sorts. Some are at the table. Some are actually supportive, and some are opposed. And I think that there 

has been a lot of effort, continues to be effort, both by the administration, by the White House, Department of Energy, and others 

and by proponents of legislation on the hill. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. I would appreciate getting from the State Department, getting from you, a list of either those coming together 

at those meetings. I would assume they are open so you can get 

a list. 

[The information referred to follows:]

WRITTEN RESPONSE RECEIVED FROM THE HONORABLE TODD D. STERN TO QUESTION

ASKED DURING THE HEARING BY THE HONORABLE SHEILA JACKSON LEE

The Department of State regularly meets with a range of industry representatives, as well as NGOs representing environmental, labor, and other interests both 

at their requests, and also prior to large meetings of the UNFCCC and other key 

processes. Representatives from major industry associations are invited to these 

meetings, as well as are representatives from individual companies that have taken 

a particular interest in the negotiations. 

In addition, the State Department and the Department of Energy hosted three 

stakeholder meetings in July and September, including representatives from industry and NGOs, and soliciting input and ideas in the following areas:

• Carbon Capture and Sequestration: July 9, 2009

• Solar Energy: July 21, 2009

• Building Energy Efficiency: September 10, 2009.

In addition, we have held regular briefings with industry and NGO representatives on the UNFCCC process. These included briefings with business and industry 

representatives on August 19, September 24, November 10, and November 30, in 

addition to briefings during the Copenhagen Climate Conference itself. 

Other agencies also have their own outreach processes focused on outreach to 

members of civil society.

32

Ms. JACKSON LEE. I think congressional members can be part of 

this whole journey that we have to take beyond even the writing 

of legislation, because we do have an issue that we must get our 

hands around. 

I assume at this point the meeting is now in recess. 

[Recess.] 

Chairman BERMAN [presiding]. The committee will come back to 

order. 

At least one of the panelists is aware of the strange nature of our 

schedule. 

Now I would like to introduce the panel. 

Tim Wirth was the lead U.S. negotiator for the Kyoto Climate 

Conference until he resigned to become the president of the United 

Nations Foundation. In this role, he has worked to develop the 

framework for post-Kyoto climate negotiations and to advance the 

standards of energy efficiency in the United States and abroad with 

the Energy Future Coalition. 

As a Colorado Senator, he focused on environmental issues, particularly climate change. In 1988, he organized the Hansen hearings on climate change and collaborated on the groundbreaking 

idea of cap-and-trade that was included in the Clean Air Act 

amendments. 

Senator Wirth was recently honored as a Champion of the Earth 

by the U.N. Environment Programme; and, for those of us who 

have been around a long time, we knew him as a really wonderful 

House Member and really one of the critical leaders on environmental issues and on a lot of other issues as well. 

Eileen Claussen is the president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change and Strategies for the Global Environment. Ms. 

Claussen formerly served as the assistant secretary of state for 

oceans and international environmental and scientific affairs under 

President Clinton. She also served as senior director for Global Environmental Affairs at the National Security Council and chair of 

the U.N. multilateral Montreal Protocol Fund. 

Her previous experience also includes work on the depletion of 

the ozone layer, the Clean Air Act, and EPA’s energy efficiency program, including the Energy Star Program. Ms. Claussen is a member of the Harvard Environmental Economic Program Advisory 

Panel. 

Steven Groves is the Bernard and Barbara Lomas fellow at the 

Heritage Foundation’s Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom. Mr. 

Groves is responsible for developing the Freedom Project, part of 

the Foundation’s Leadership for America campaign to advance the 

cause of protecting American sovereignty, self-governance, and 

independence while promoting Anglo-American leadership on 

issues relating to international political and religious freedom, 

human rights, and the strengthening of democratic institutions. 

From 2003 to 2006, Mr. Groves was senior counsel to the U.S. 

Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, where he 

played a lead role in the subcommittee’s investigation into the 

United Nations’ Oil-for-Food program. Mr. Groves earned a law degree from Ohio Northern University College of Law in 1995 and a 

degree in history from Florida State University in 1992. 

33

Thank you for coming. Sorry for the interruption, and your entire 

statements will be part of the record. 

Senator Wirth. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE TIMOTHY E. WIRTH, PRESIDENT, UNITED NATIONS FOUNDATION AND BETTER WORLD 

FUND (FORMER UNITED STATES SENATOR) 

Mr. WIRTH. It is always a delight to be back here and see so 

many friends and have a chance to get into this remarkably interesting issue with you. 

I would say, by way of beginning, I listened carefully to the Q&A, 

and I would give credit to the minority. I thought that Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen raised some very interesting issues that I 

hope the committee has a chance to discuss. Because those questions of common but differentiated responsibilities, cost of adaptation, overall cost to the economy, are exactly the ones that we all 

have to come to understand. And if we can help you and the minority, Mr. Chairman, to organize roundtables or discussions on those, 

we would be delighted to help. They have to be understood. Members of this committee have to understand them. 

I listened to Mr. Crowley’s, I thought, very, very good statement 

about, even at times of crises, we can move ahead; and I thought 

it was very eloquent. We think about what happened during the 

Civil War, the worst crisis in our Nation’s history. While that was 

going on and the Congress was dealing with that, the Congress 

also did the State and Land Grant University Act, the Railroad 

Act, the Homestead Act. It was an extraordinarily creative time. 

And the fact that we can walk and chew gum—in the words of a 

famous American—at a time of crisis we can deal with that but 

also deal with this issue. 

If I might, Mr. Chairman, just be to very simple about this and 

to try to boil this down. I think you can make this issue as complicated as you want, or you can try to boil it down to a few simple 

directions. 

I listened to Todd Stern, who is an old and good friend of mine. 

If I were sitting where he is, I would be trying to transmit to people the fact that we can, in the United States, commit to getting 

to, by 2020, a 20-percent reduction that in fact is a benefit to our 

economy. And we can in fact, long term, commit to the 80-percent 

reduction and 50-percent global reduction that is going to be necessary by 2050. 

Now, in answer to the question of the committee, those become 

part of the post-Kyoto framework. You have got to have the numbers. They are not the makers or breakers, but the U.S. is going 

to have to commit to those numbers. 

Just running through this very rapidly, if you follow the legislative route and Waxman-Markey gets you 14 percent, the KerryBoxer bill gets 17 percent—WRI estimates that Kerry-Boxer gets 

23 percent. So if you follow the legislative route, we are going to 

get to that 20 percent. You are going to see that on the horizon 

through the ways in which the legislative process says it is going 

to move. 

If that weren’t to happen, do you get hung out, as we were in 

Kyoto, by having made commitments you can’t honor? No, you can 

34

go back the other route and go the administrative route. I have in 

my testimony data which is very well documented that you can follow: Efficiency, renewables, and activities on deforestation. And 

just those three measures alone, Mr. Chairman, that gets you 15 

of the 20 percent that you need. 

You can do all of those through actions of the EPA, and through 

renewable energy standards, efficiency standards, and actions related to forests. You get 15 percent. You add on top of that what 

we should be getting from automobiles—we are going to do that—

and add on top of that a transition from coal to natural gas for at 

least those clunker power plants that were—when you and I were 

young Members of the Congress, we battled over the Clean Air Act 

under Henry Waxman’s lead. The idea was to get rid of these 

clunker power plants, those old ones. They have managed to evade 

the law and stay in action. Those ought to be wiped out. 

If you do efficiency, renewables, forestation, take credit for automobiles, and get rid of clunkers for the transition to our own domestic fuel, natural gas, you get 20 percent as well. 

So we can make this incredibly complicated and battle over one 

thing or another, or you can go back and say, yes, we can accomplish this. This is how we go about doing it, and these are the benefits from that. 

I tried to include a number of those items in my statement, Mr. 

Chairman. 

The last point I would make is I think the committee also ought 

to pay very, very close attention to the United States-China relationship. It is not only extraordinarily important, but I think we 

are missing the boat on that. 

I just came back from 3 weeks in Asia. We heard from American 

business, from Chinese business, American leadership at all levels 

that we are not paying the attention that we have to pay to this 

most important of all relationships. They are the largest polluter; 

we are the largest economy. They are the most rapidly developing 

country; we are the biggest developed country. We are a mirror of 

each other in so many ways. We have agreements, but we are not 

following up on them. 

And we have heard—and I have got some of that language, and 

I could share others with you. We heard over and over and over 

again, the United States has got to pay greater attention, put real 

weight into this United States-China relationship. That can be 

done by having a high-level person representing the Secretary of 

State, at a high level, to be the person making the interagency 

process work. 

You remember Gore-Chernomyrdin at that time was a good example when we were working on the United States-Soviet relationship. And that really worked. We created that special capability. 

You all can help to get that done, examine this and help to get that 

done as you are working on the reauthorization. 

If I were you, I think one of the most interesting—and I am not 

telling you how to do your job—but I think one of the most interesting hearings to have would be to get people to come in and talk 

about what this relationship is, what can be done, and how do we 

accelerate taking advantage of what both sides want to do, instead 

of pointing fingers at each other, saying, you haven’t reduced it, 

35

you haven’t done that, or whatever. That is such tired old language, and it’s getting us nowhere. At a time when our leadership 

says it wants to move, their leadership says it wants to move, how 

do we get the two together? Well, you have to organize administratively to get it to happen, and it is absolutely doable. So we would 

be delighted to help you on that, Mr. Chairman. It is an incredibly 

promising and interesting area. 

We thank you for having this hearing in this area, and your leadership is remarkable. And you have got some great members on 

your committee and flat-earthers and so on. A little humor in the 

top row is always helpful. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wirth follows:]

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Chairman BERMAN. Thank you, Senator Wirth. 

Ms. Claussen. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE EILEEN CLAUSSEN, PRESIDENT, PEW CENTER ON GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE 

(FORMER ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE FOR OCEANS 

AND INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL AND SCIENTIFIC 

AFFAIRS) 

Ms. CLAUSSEN. Thank you very much for the opportunity to be 

here. I am going to focus a little bit on where the negotiations are 

and what I think we need to do. 

To be fair and effective, a new climate agreement must establish 

binding, verifiable commitments for all of the world’s major economies. These commitments can vary in form. The United States and 

other developed countries, we believe, should commit to absolute, 

economy-wide emission reduction targets. China and other major 

developing countries should have the option of assuming other 

types of commitments, such as intensity goals, efficiency standards, 

or renewable energy targets. 

Let me just highlight the core issues in achieving such an agreement and then describe what we believe would be desirable and 

what might, in fact, be feasible at the negotiations next month in 

Copenhagen 

First is the issue of developed country targets. All developed 

countries, except the United States, have now formally adopted or 

proposed emission targets for 2020. The proposed targets in the climate bill passed by the House and in the Kerry-Boxer bill before 

the Senate are reasonably comparable to those put forward by 

other countries if we assume a 2005 baseline. Viewed against a 

1990 baseline, they are clearly not comparable. But, no matter the 

baseline, when taken together, these numbers fall short of the midterm reduction levels many believe are needed to avoid dangerous 

climate impacts, in other words, 11–18 percent below 1990 levels, 

rather than 25–40 percent. 

The second issue is developing country commitments. It was a 

major step forward when developing countries agreed 2 years ago 

in Bali to negotiate nationally appropriate mitigation actions. 

China and other major developing countries have now adopted national climate strategies outlining steps they are taking and additional steps they could take with international support. The challenge is to translate these types of actions into international commitments which mean, in our view, developing a new legal framework that inscribes developing countries’ efforts alongside those of 

developed countries in a way that is clear, quantified, and 

verifiable. 

A closely related issue is support for developing countries. In the 

1992 Framework Convention and again in Bali, the United States 

and other developed countries agreed to help developing countries 

reduce their emissions and adapt to climate change. A new agreement must include a finance mechanism that delivers on those 

promises. Both the House bill and the proposed Senate bill would 

use some allowances under a cap-and-trade system to support reduced deforestation, adaptation, and clean technology deployment. 

Final legislation must retain these provisions so the United States 

42

is able to commit substantial support for an initial period as part 

of a balanced climate agreement. 

A fourth important issue is verification. As agreed in Bali, the 

actions of both developed and developing countries must be 

verifiable. This requires annual emission inventories from all major 

emitters, regular reports from countries on their implementation 

efforts, and international review of both. There also must be a fair 

and open process leading to a clear determination of whether or not 

countries are fulfilling their obligations. 

The fifth and final issue is the legal form of a new agreement. 

We believe the best final outcome is a single, comprehensive legal 

instrument under the Framework Convention that succeeds and incorporates elements of the Kyoto protocol. This agreement should 

be ratified and binding. 

These are difficult issues; and, despite progress, major differences remain among the parties. In light of this, we don’t believe 

a full and final agreement is possible in Copenhagen. The very best 

outcome, we believe, would be an interim political agreement defining the basic legal and institutional architecture as a basis for then 

negotiating specific commitments in a final legal agreement. But, 

for this to occur, we will need to make substantial process on all 

of the five issues I have just discussed. 

Short of a comprehensive agreement on a new framework, the 

best Copenhagen may be able to achieve is a political declaration 

setting a long-term objective of two degrees and perhaps providing 

some near-term support in areas such as adaptation and deforestation. In all cases, it would be important to establish a new end 

date for the negotiations in 2010. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Claussen follows:]

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Chairman BERMAN. A new end date for the ultimate goal? 

Ms. CLAUSSEN. Yes. Absolutely. 

Chairman BERMAN. Mr. Groves. 

STATEMENT OF STEVEN GROVES, J.D., BERNARD AND BARBARA LOMAS FELLOW, THE MARGARET THATCHER CENTER 

FOR FREEDOM, THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION 

Mr. GROVES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for inviting me to testify 

today. 

In response to the question posed by the title of this hearing, Is 

There a Successor to the Kyoto Protocol, the answer is certainly 

yes. I can say so with confidence. Because, to paraphrase Ronald 

Reagan, ‘‘A United Nations program is the nearest thing to eternal 

life we’ll ever see on this Earth.’’

The international community will press forward on a climate 

change treaty regardless of what happens in Copenhagen. The 

question is whether and to what extent the United States will feel 

compelled to submit to an onerous treaty regime. 

By now, we have all heard the common international refrain that 

the United States must exhibit leadership on this issue. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon recently said, ‘‘All the world is now 

looking to the leadership of the United States and President 

Obama.’’ But at what cost does American leadership come? 

The draft 181-page negotiating text proposes a complex, comprehensive, legally binding multilateral convention, the nature of 

which poses a threat to American sovereignty. Not only are the 

proposed terms controversial, the manner in which those terms 

would be enforced would submit the United States to an unprecedented monitoring and compliance regime. The United States 

would apparently be required to agree to an intrusive review of 

both its domestic energy policy and its compliance with obligations 

to transfer wealth and technology to the developing world. 

The current draft negotiating text is replete with references to 

mechanisms for compliance, monitoring, verification, and enforcement and requires that financial commitments and transfers of 

technology be legally binding. 

Protecting U.S. interests in the Copenhagen negotiating environment will be challenging. Unlike bilateral treaty negotiations, the 

United States will be only one of 192 countries participating in the 

process. Such multilateral negotiations make it difficult, if not impossible, for the United States to dictate terms most favorable to 

it. Large voting blocks—such as the European Union, the African 

Union, and the G–77 developing countries—will likely pool their 

votes, coordinate their negotiating positions, and may attempt to 

effectively isolate the United States. 

Despite these challenges, the United States may demonstrate 

genuine leadership in climate change negotiations both in Copenhagen and thereafter. Such leadership, however, should be exercised in a manner that protects U.S. interests while preserving 

American sovereignty. To do so, the United States must first determine what the domestic consequences of ratifying a post-Kyoto 

agreement are and then negotiate with the international community on those terms. 

52

Before engaging with the rest of the world regarding the final 

terms of a universal climate change treaty, the United States must 

first ascertain whether the international obligations of the postKyoto agreement are domestically feasible, both politically and economically. Given the sharply divided opinion on climate change 

here in Congress and across the country, it is unlikely that the 

U.S. is yet in the position to make sincere commitments to the 

international community, and making international promises that 

the United States is unable to keep—as was the case when the 

U.S. signed the Kyoto Protocol—does not demonstrate American 

leadership. Neither does capitulating to demands from U.N. Officials. Pledging to reduce greenhouse gas emissions without first determining how those reductions will affect our economy does not 

constitute leadership, in my view. 

Instead, Congress should continue to study the impact that a 

comprehensive climate change treaty and corresponding legislation 

implementing that treaty would have on our economy, our energy 

sector, our workforce, and our treasury. If we knew what effect the 

proposed climate change treaty would have on American citizens, 

then Congress and the White House would be able to work toward 

a true bipartisan consensus on climate change legislation. Only 

then will the United States be in a position to promise internationally what can be achieved domestically. 

Such an approach would allow the United States to negotiate 

with the international community in good faith, while protecting 

U.S. national interests and preserving American sovereignty. That 

approach, I submit, would demonstrate genuine American leadership. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Groves follows:]

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Chairman BERMAN. Thank you, and thank you all. 

I am going to first recognize the gentlelady from California, Ms. 

Woolsey. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator, it is nice to see you. 

I have a question for both Senator Wirth and Ms. Claussen. 

Mr. Groves, we just heard him; and he is saying that American 

sovereignty could be at risk or is at risk if we sign a global climate 

change agreement. I need to know, do you agree with this assessment and what kind of precedence is there for the U.S. signing 

such an agreement? What are the risks of our not doing it? 

Mr. WIRTH. Let me begin by commenting on Eileen Claussen’s 

testimony. 

We were just saying here if we took that statement that I had 

made and the one she had made and put those together, you have 

a pretty good framework for what we could do; and that begins to 

answer your question, Congressman Woolsey. The comments that 

I heard as ‘‘intrusive review’’—the way we do this, we have a very 

open process. Our data is available through the Energy Information Administration and so on. This is hardly something we are 

hiding from the world. 

The question is the other side. How do we get the rest of the 

world to report their data? That is what we want to have happen. 

It is scarcely ‘‘intrusive review.’’

Transfer of technology? Well, just the reverse is rapidly happening; we are going to be asking them for their technology because they are moving ahead of us so much more rapidly. 

One of 191, and they could isolate the U.S.? Well, we have the 

veto at any time, so I wouldn’t worry about that. 

Protect the U.S. interests and not sign a climate agreement? We 

were the sixth country to ratify the Framework Convention on Climate Change in the fall of 1992. It is the law of the land. We have 

already done that. What are we worried about? That is the framework in which we are operating. Now we are trying to implement 

the framework. 

And, finally, the question was raised that we have to know what 

we are doing economically. Well, we have a very clear economic 

analysis. McKinsey has done that in this country extensively. Stern 

has done that extensively globally. We have got those numbers. We 

have to read those. 

So the answers are all there to doing it. 

The big question is the one that you asked. What happens if we 

don’t do this? Then the data gets really dangerous, and the economic downside is very, very serious and very real to us, much less 

the human suffering that occurs, the dramatic threat to international security from vast flows of refugees because of the hunger 

issue and the water issue that is pervasive elsewhere. Not acting, 

there is no, no reason for us not to act. It would be immoral and 

wrong for us not to act. 

Ms. CLAUSSEN. Let me add one point to what Tim just said. 

It appears that Mr. Groves is looking at this in a funny way. Because we have already passed legislation through the House. The 

Senate is engaged in trying to pass legislation there. Those will set 

limits on greenhouse gasses for us. And in the event this doesn’t 

60

happen very fast, we do have the Clean Air Act; we do have all 

kinds of authorities under the Department of Energy’s office to set 

efficiency standards and other things. So it is not as if we haven’t 

looked at the economics of all of this, and it is not as if we are not 

going to act. 

The value of an international agreement is that everybody else 

will start acting and make their data available and move forward; 

and, as a global matter, you have to do that on an issue like this. 

So the issue, I think, is not us. We are going to go ahead and 

do this anyway. The issue is making sure that others do their fair 

share. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Thank you. 

Changing the subject slightly, same topic. I was part of a United 

States-China relations conference about 1 year ago. And one of the 

scholars—Chinese scholars said that the United States had—it is 

the same quotes—used more than our share of the resources and 

soiled more than our share of the world, and now it was their turn. 

I told them they didn’t get a turn because, if they did, the world 

wouldn’t be around for their children and our children. 

But what does the United States need to do to work with China 

so that—I mean, they can’t do what we did. So what do we have 

to do to prove and make that balance? 

Mr. WIRTH. Again, it is the kind of question, Mr. Chairman, that 

deserves a lot of discussion; and this committee is a great forum 

for doing that. 

I think that if you listen to the United States and China today, 

the rhetoric is very, very different. When Eileen and I were doing 

Kyoto, it was terrible. There was no discussion, none whatsoever. 

Today, we are getting beyond the finger-pointing and ‘‘You put 

this up there to begin with’’; ‘‘No, you are the biggest polluter 

today.’’ We are getting beyond that, and the opportunity now is to 

use this issue as the fulcrum—I believe you can use this issue as 

the fulcrum of the relationship between the two superpowers. 

I mean, we are so overwhelmingly bigger. India we are going to 

watch very carefully. We have got a set of relationships there and 

others, but this is the number one relationship. And the opportunities that we have to take advantage of economically—how do we 

understand each other in terms of tariff issues? How do we share 

technology? How do we go ahead on some of these very, very big 

issues that are out there? It is a terrific set of opportunities. 

Chairman BERMAN. The gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Manzullo, 

is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Thank you. 

Senator, on May 18, 1993, when I was a freshman, having been 

a Member of Congress for 4 years, you were testifying about this 

same issue; and I appreciate your perseverance and your dedication, your hard work on it. 

I asked you a question back then—and this is not an ‘‘a-ha’’ moment but just to bring it to your remembrance—as to whether or 

not there should be an economic impact study on the people that 

would be involved and taken into consideration with environmental 

legislation. 

The answer that you gave is, ‘‘I know the President agrees with 

you.’’ We have to be very careful about the impact on people. The 

61

impact on the deficit and the impact on interest rates are very significant indeed. If we are not able to alleviate that burden, it would 

be enormously difficult for our children and grandchildren to enjoy 

the level of living this generation has had. 

My question is the same as it was back 17 years ago on the impact that this will have on people, especially the areas in manufacturing. That is, going into the negotiations in Copenhagen, signing 

an agreement to further reduce emissions, has anybody ever got involved deeply with manufacturers as to what impact this will have 

on the loss of jobs? 

I know the Brookings Institute on the cap-and-trade bill we just 

passed said we would have a loss of about 8 million jobs. But when 

you are at enormously high unemployment nationwide—and the 

district that I represent, the biggest city at 17 percent, and for any 

area in the country just add 5 percent, so we are over 22 percent—

and when one out of four families is on public assistance, don’t you 

think it is absolutely totally imperative to have some type of measurement as to the impact of this on manufacturing? 

And thank you for your answer 17 years ago. 

Mr. WIRTH. It was a good answer 17 years ago, and it is a good 

answer today. 

And the reason that we have to get an answer to this is, as you 

suggest, is that what is happening in the Middle West, in your 

area, is an economic catastrophe; and we have to figure out how 

to build ourselves out of that. We can’t blow up the same balloon 

again, as you know. What is the new balloon going to look like? 

What is the new economy going to look like? 

If I were sitting where Larry Summers is sitting or where the 

President is sitting and sitting down and talking to you about what 

we do in Illinois, I would start by reaching out to people like Caterpillar, who have said there are tremendous opportunities here. If 

we do the climate change legislation right—we are a major employer in your State. They have said, if we do this in the right fashion, this could be a great opportunity of rebuilding lots of industries and new industries in this country. This is Caterpillar. 

Mr. MANZULLO. I understand that. 

The reason I raise that is I don’t see any quantitative studies—

we have seen people talking about inventing jobs. People don’t 

want new jobs that are invented by the government. They want the 

same jobs they have, those jobs that have been lost because of the 

downturns of the economy, those jobs that are still necessary. And 

those jobs, in fact, Senator, that are really being hurt by cap-andtrade that——

I mentioned earlier, Rentech makes anhydrous ammonia and 

urea-related products. They were switching to the Fischer-Tropsch 

process. We have a $600 million investment in my congressional 

district. It would have really spawned green technology all the way 

across the top part of the State of Illinois. But just out of fear, out 

of what Senator Obama said at that time about emissions tax or 

cap-and-trade, they pulled the plug on that massive investment; 

and that has really hurt manufacturing. 

Mr. WIRTH. Rentech is headquartered right at the edge of Denver. The guys that own Rentech are there. I know the situation 

very well and the opportunity. 

62

Going back to the numbers, there is a very clear gross economic 

analysis done by McKinsey—and I referenced some of that in my 

testimony, and we would be glad to share with you sort of the 

internals of that data if you would like to look at it—as to what 

the opportunity is for growing out of this. 

A second step, it seems to me, relates to truly looking at a lot 

of the new industries and a lot of the new energy opportunities. Let 

me cite one in particular. 

In Illinois, you have——

Chairman BERMAN. Senator, can you come back to this in the 

next round? 

Mr. WIRTH. I would be happy to come back to it, because it is 

the key question. It is the one we have to get on, and the Congressman is absolutely right. 

Chairman BERMAN. Anybody object to a unanimous consent to let 

Mr. Manzullo have an additional minute? 

Mr. MANZULLO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. WIRTH. I will just give you one example on fuel. 

We have been very dependent upon coal—and that has been driving a lot—and low prices, and somehow we have to figure out how 

do we deal with the coal question because coal is so polluting. Well, 

is there a shift that we can make? 

Well, we have been given this enormous gift, as you probably 

know, of these discoveries of shale gas. We now have more natural 

gas reserves in the United States. Well, if we are going to make 

the shift toward a low-carbon economy, along the way you want to 

use low-carbon resources; and a lot of those are in Illinois. There 

are significant resources in Illinois. So this is an opportunity as 

well. If we get the rules right, how do you generate the kinds of 

industries and changes? 

Final point that I would make is really looking very carefully at 

agriculture. There are solutions from the land that are being developed. Some are coming to understand what can be done in terms 

of sinks of carbon, different kinds of fuels that can be grown, that 

we can grow on our own which make a great deal of difference, and 

different nutritional crops at a time when the nutritional value of 

foods is going to decline because of climate change. There are opportunities coming out of the great State land grant university system. You have one of those in Illinois. That can be also another significant opportunity. 

Mr. MANZULLO. Thank you for the additional time, and I look forward to a cup of coffee to get the rest of the answer. 

Chairman BERMAN. The gentleman from California, Mr. Sherman, is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for having 

these important hearings. 

The United States is often at a disadvantage in trying to get 

manufacturing jobs. We still do very well in terms of developing 

the technology, marketing it, putting it together. Critical to that is 

protection of intellectual property rights. 

Now, the House has spoken in strong support for IP protections 

in numerous House-passed bills. But, Mr. Groves, how well are we 

doing in insisting that, especially with regard to American innovations in the area of green technology, that this will be protected 

63

and that the protection will not just be a protection of the U.S. 

market? 

All too often we want to say, well, we have protected intellectual 

property. At least the Chinese can’t sell the counterfeit goods here 

in the United States. And there is a lot of money to be made in 

the U.S. market. But we are being promised global exports when 

we develop the technology. How effective are we in making sure 

that American intellectual property rights will be protected not 

only with regards to devices used here in the United States but 

around the world? 

Mr. GROVES. Thank you, Mr. Sherman. 

I was very pleased and very heartened to hear Mr. Stern’s testimony—or I believe it was in answer to a question regarding the 

IPR issues—that the two options of the four IPR options that are 

really on the table that are against protections for intellectual 

property are a non-starter for our delegation. They are still on the 

table. They involve compulsory licensing of specific technologies for 

mitigation and adaptation and immediate exclusion of new and revocation of existing patents in developing countries, which would be 

anathema to starting new green technologies in this country, especially if we are going to be exporting them under a new treaty regime, the post-Kyoto commitment period. So I was very happy to 

hear Mr. Stern’s response to those questions. 

Mr. SHERMAN. So at least our bargaining position is that we 

don’t want in the agreement some additional text which additionally roads international property rights. But, right now, the international regime is not too friendly to intellectual property rights. 

It is on paper. 

Is there anything—and do we need anything—in Copenhagen 

that provides for penalties for those who violate existing—and, 

hopefully, under this treaty—undiminished intellectual property 

rights? 

Mr. GROVES. It would be a good opportunity. If the United States 

is ultimately going to agree to be part of such a universal treaty, 

those types of technology transfers can be monitored better than 

your average intellectual property when we are talking about 

DVDs and movies and other inventions. So protections and penalties for infringement on IP rights would be a good addition to the 

treaty, and I don’t think it would be outside of the scope of the negotiations. 

Mr. SHERMAN. I wonder if we have a comment from either of the 

other two witness. 

And I will ask you to comment, do we have a prospect not just 

for battling against bad provisions on intellectual property but actually putting into this agreement protections that go beyond the 

currently ineffectual provisions in international law? 

Ms. CLAUSSEN. I can say that if you look at the text right now, 

it includes virtually every country’s proposals. So you have these 

bad IPR things in there which I believe we will never agree to and 

neither will some other countries, so I think in the end they go 

away. I don’t think there is anything on the reverse which would 

enhance IPR. 

64

Mr. SHERMAN. Our usual trade policy is to insist on documents 

that are very good on paper and absolutely fail in reality. Hence, 

we have the largest trade deficit in the history of mammalian life. 

Senator Wirth. 

Mr. WIRTH. I would just again point out, Congressman, what I 

suggested earlier. I think the biggest point of debate is the United 

States-China relationship on this. And it is an opportunity again. 

I mean, they are very interested in what is going to happen on this 

because they are developing on their side a lot of protected technologies, and they also want to get the rules right for this. So I 

think this is a great opportunity for the United States and China 

to use this negotiation, not going to happen at Copenhagen, but use 

this relationship to see if we can clarify and come in a positive way 

to agreements here. If I were this administration, I certainly 

would——

Mr. SHERMAN. I look forward to us negotiating agreements that 

will be enforced against U.S. Companies and ignored in China. 

I yield back. 

Chairman BERMAN. The time of the gentleman has expired; and 

the gentleman from California, Mr. Rohrabacher, is recognized. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

I will preface my questions by stating that I have never seen an 

issue in my 22 years as a Member of Congress or in the years beforehand when I was a journalist, I have never seen an issue in 

which there has been a greater attempt to stifle debate than this 

issue on global warming. The repeating of ‘‘case closed’’ and labeling anybody who has honest doubts about whether or not the manmade global warming theory is correct or not as deniers is just 

antithetical to open discussion of a very important issue; and it 

leads to errors. 

For example, it leads to errors when people on our own committee mentioned that two-thirds of all the CO2 that is coming 

from developing countries, when only 10 percent of all the CO2 in 

the atmosphere comes from man-made sources. Ninety percent or 

more comes from natural sources. 

Let’s just note that again the theory of man-made global warming is today being contested by hundreds of prominent and thousands of scientists throughout the world. And this is not something 

that is debates over the deniers, blah, blah; it is a matter of serious 

discussion. When you see especially that ice cores now indicate at 

their second look at it, not the first, it was discovered that the 

warming trends in the world came after the increases—the increases in CO2 were not brought on by—the CO2 didn’t bring on 

the higher temperatures. The higher temperatures actually happened after the CO—anyway, you know what I am trying to say. 

Pardon me for getting this mixed up. 

But see how we need to discuss this? High scores are now showing the temperature increases—temperature increases preceded 

CO2 increases. So the whole predicate of this argument on global 

warming is that the CO2 made the earth grow warmer. Well, based 

on that, predictions were made that we were going to have evermore-increasing temperatures; and for the last 9 years we haven’t 

had those increasing temperatures. We have actually had a decline 

in temperature. 

65

And we have also seen in the last 2 years the polar ice cap that 

is so touted with the pictures of the polar bear is now refreezing 

for the last 2 years, again, totally contrary to the predictions. 

So what we have here is, at the very best, a debatable theory of 

man-made global warming, which isn’t used anymore. It is manmade climate change because it is no longer warming. So it is a 

very debatable point, if not a totally bogus point, when people look 

up at other planets and see that some of the same temperature 

trends that are going on here are going on on Mars, for example. 

And I happen to be on the science committee, and I have followed 

that very closely. And what does that indicate? That—what? Manmade global warming is also affecting what is going on on Mars? 

No. 

So if there are absolute reasons to doubt whether or not this theory is correct, why are we rushing headlong into Copenhagen, into 

making agreements that will dramatically impact the sovereignty 

of our country by agreeing that international panels will then have 

greater say as to the policies of our Government? And we also will 

agree to certain goals and restrictions that may cause economic 

hardships here and actually benefit countries that are poor because 

they have dictatorships that are corrupt. 

Let me just ask the panel this. Does anyone on this panel think 

that the threat of global warming—excuse me, climate change—it 

is not global warming anymore—would mean that we should agree 

to policies that would discourage the use of airline transportation? 

Would anyone agree with that? 

Chairman BERMAN. The panel has 38 seconds. 

Mr. WIRTH. I would certainly say that the airline industry, like 

everybody else, is going to have a responsibility to the integrity of 

the climate envelope that allows life on earth to exist as we know 

it. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. So the answer is yes. Thank you. So we are 

going to discourage travel on airlines. 

Mr. WIRTH. Congressman, I am perfectly happy to answer my 

own questions. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. But I only have 13 seconds so people can——

How about—what I have heard from the man-made global warming group is that they want to discourage airline travel, discourage 

the eating of meat, dramatically increase the price of gasoline. 

These things will have huge impacts, especially if mandated by an 

international agreement enforced by international panels on the 

people of the United States. This is a catastrophe being driven by 

a very questionable theory at best but probably a bogus theory. 

Thank you. 

Chairman BERMAN. Probably a bogus theory. That is a concession on your part. 

The gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Delahunt. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Well, I think there is one area that I find myself 

in agreement with the gentleman from California; and I do not believe that the changes that are occurring on Mars is the result of 

anything that human beings are doing. I presume that is all the 

responsibility of the Martians. 

But, to be serious, you know, Mr. Groves—and my ranking member and friend from California raised the issue of sovereignty here. 

66

Are there any treaties or conventions that—do you have a philosophical or an ideological perspective in terms of the United States 

entering into international conventions or international treaties? 

Mr. GROVES. Not at all, Mr. Delahunt. Thank you for the question. It just depends on the treaties that we are getting into. Obviously, bilaterals are better, because we can control the terms better. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. And I should have phrased it multilateral. 

Mr. GROVES. Multilateral human rights treaties, for example. We 

are party to several major universal human rights treaties. But, in 

those cases, every 4 years we go and we report to a committee of 

experts in Geneva. They look at our record. They make——

Mr. DELAHUNT. So you are comfortable with human rights, multilateral human rights treaties? 

Mr. GROVES. As properly understood, I am comfortable with 

them. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. In terms of multilateral environmental conventions? 

Mr. GROVES. If it is something that is in the U.S. best interest 

and preserves American sovereignty, it is something——

Mr. DELAHUNT. You always put that qualifier, ‘‘preserving American sovereignty.’’ I would suggest that any convention in some way 

can be interpreted as ceding some sort of sovereignty. 

Mr. GROVES. Correct. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. And I guess the issue is, is it in our best interests when one steps back and does the analysis? 

Mr. GROVES. Or do a cost-benefit analysis. What are we getting 

for surrendering or ceding some or a lot of our sovereignty? Yes. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. And, again, that obviously is in the eye of the beholder, whether we are ceding. Because the economic arguments 

that I am hearing like setting the rules—you know, there are rules 

in every marketplace, you know, whether it is—we have rules domestically. We have safety rules. We have food security rules. We 

have an FDA. Maybe some would abrogate all of those rules and 

just have a marketplace with absolutely no supervision, no regulation, no protections. At least I am using the term protections for 

the consumers. 

So the concern that I have is that eventually rules are going to 

be set that we had little input into; and, as a result, we are going 

to find ourselves—I think it was Mr. Stearns or maybe it was Senator Wirth who talked about we are going to be catching up in 

terms of the new economic opportunities. 

I listened to my friend from Illinois, and I sympathize with that 

pain and anguish that is besetting many of the people that work 

in manufacturing. You know, I wish that we had done something 

earlier in terms of the automobile industry, you know, that would 

have made the American automobile manufacturer much more 

competitive than it is. Because, let’s be honest, we got creamed by 

foreign competitors. All these good, patriotic Americans are going 

out buying Toyotas or BMWs, because, for some reason, the marketplace failed us, the American manufacturers. 

So, Senator Wirth, would you care to comment? 

Mr. WIRTH. I think there are interesting areas where you have 

got to worry about sovereignty, and there are other areas where I 

67

think Mr. Groves and I would probably disagree. But if you look 

at the Law of the Sea, it seems to me that enhances U.S. sovereignty. We get an enormous increase if we ratified the Law of the 

Sea—which we haven’t done for reasons that escape me entirely. 

If we ratify that, we enhance, we broaden our sovereignty very significantly. We broaden our jurisdiction very significantly. We increase our rights significantly. In the most selfish way, you know, 

we benefit from that treaty. 

Chairman BERMAN. I agree with you. By his facial expression, I 

have a feeling Mr. Groves does not share your view about the Law 

of the Sea. 

I yield myself 5 minutes. 

And, I mean, this issue that Mr. Delahunt raises of impinging 

sovereignty, I mean, there are two ways to look at this. One is—

and I guess in every different area you can have different views of 

it. One is that every international treaty is impinging sovereignty 

to some extent, because it is providing constraints that don’t otherwise exist on what American political institutions can do. 

So another way of looking at it is every one of these is a sovereign decision of the United States and, therefore, none of them 

impinge on U.S. sovereignty. It gets a bit philosophical here. 

Mr. GROVES. What we want to look at real quickly is, when it 

comes down to sovereignty, depending on the treaty, it boils down 

to the question of who decides. At the end of the day, who decides 

whether the United States is meeting its treaty obligations? 

Chairman BERMAN. Well, sometimes the WTO decides. 

Mr. GROVES. If it goes to a case and we bring it up to the court, 

yes. And we were happy to cede that power to them. We were front 

and center in those negotiations. 

Chairman BERMAN. So now it is a question of what we are happy 

to do, what is wise to do. It is getting down to case by case. 

Mr. GROVES. Treaty by treaty, there is a different analysis. 

Chairman BERMAN. Well, one is, is it appropriate? You propose 

sort of an analysis before you jump into something of what are the 

economic costs trying to go through this process. Is a corollary part 

of that process what are the economic costs of not getting into 

meaningful, enforceable limits? Is that appropriate, or is that 

called creative scoring? 

Mr. GROVES. I think it is the same question. You can’t determine 

what the economic costs are. 

Chairman BERMAN. So your analysis would allow for that kind 

of comparison? 

Mr. GROVES. Sure. To the extent that those costs can be quantified on a scientific basis, of course. 

Chairman BERMAN. To get down to some of the specifics, I am 

wondering if any of you—and Senator, Ms. Claussen, perhaps just 

by your background you might be the most likely to suggest it. 

Waxman-Markey talks about some funding assistance for developing countries. Kyoto provided a framework for the flow of money 

through the clean development mechanism, which has been criticized for funding projects that do not reduce global warming. What 

is the best way to distribute funds for mitigation and technology 

transfer? Are existing mechanisms sufficient? Should we try to look 

for a new model? 

68

Mr. WIRTH. My own view of this, Mr. Chairman, is that we ought 

to start by professionalizing CDM, the Clean Development Mechanism. It was a good idea. It remains a good idea. It has been 

caught up in an international bureaucracy that is very tedious and 

incredibly slow. It is a good idea. It ought to be incorporated into 

work being done by financial experts to make this thing work, because it is a very, very good idea. And it is a good way for us to 

discharge our obligations if you believe, as I do, that, one, we put 

a lot of the pollution up there but also that what we want to do, 

for example, is to slow down the rate of deforestation. Well, how 

do you do it? What mechanism do we have for buying forests effectively from people who would be happy to sell them to us, if we had 

some money, rather than to cut them down? So how do we pay for 

that? 

Well, CDM is a very good mechanism. We don’t have to create 

something new, and it doesn’t have to be the Copenhagen agreement that gets us there. 

But this is, again, something, from the perspective of this committee, to look at and say, well, how do we make this work better? 

It is so terribly important. I mean, that is one good example of, it 

seems to me, what we could be doing at essentially no cost to us. 

Chairman BERMAN. Ms. Claussen. 

Ms. CLAUSSEN. Let me just add that there is an effort to try to 

reform CDM, because the process is slow and because some of the 

reductions haven’t been verified. So some of it is not real. I think 

that has to be something that we take on, because there are ways 

to use CDM to get something that is real, and that is really what 

it should be all about. So some reform I think is necessary. 

Chairman BERMAN. Thank you. 

Because my own time is running out, let me just ask a question 

that probably could have a yes or no answer. Is there any aspect 

of the Strategic and Economic Dialogue with China—I mean, this 

whole notion of thickening the United States-China relationship in 

this area? Is there any aspect of that that the administration is 

treating as specially focused on environmental energy kinds of 

issues? 

Mr. WIRTH. Well, it has an overall framework. As you know, it 

came out of the Treasury Department originally; and it was run by 

Secretary Paulson. He was the big guy in the Cabinet. I mean, he 

sort of filled the vacuum. 

Since then, it was transferred to the State Department. They 

thought that was necessary—there was an MOU signed this last 

summer. The question now is one of implementation and really serious management of the dialogue—and do the Chinese understand 

this? We don’t want to negotiate something new. We don’t have to 

negotiate something new. It is already there. They already understand that. It is a matter of us managing it on our side. 

I would be happy to talk to anybody further about this, Mr. 

Chairman. We just heard over and over and over again—I was at 

a major conference in Beijing of business people from all over 

China and all over the United States, and this was the number one 

issue—how much attention we are paying to the implementation of 

this agreement. Americans asking, please do this; and Chinese 

business saying, please do this. And we are missing the ball. 

69

This is not a massive new invention. We have the mechanism 

that is there. It is just a matter of tending to it and putting the 

political muscle behind it. I think that Secretary Clinton could be 

encouraged to do this. 

We have a great ambassador there. Huntsman is very, very impressive, but he doesn’t have time to do this day and day out. That 

is not his job. The climate negotiator, that is not his job. It is this 

economic relationship. That is where we ought to hone right in on, 

and that is something I believe also that this committee certainly 

has the jurisdiction and has the ability to really underscore this 

and find out what is going on and what the different views are. 

Chairman BERMAN. Thank you. 

We could probably continue the debate about the science for a 

while, but I think we should adjourn the hearing. Thank you all 

very much for coming and participating. A lot of good ideas to follow up on. 

[Whereupon, at 1:02 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]

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