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29–932 PDF 2006

CLIMATE CHANGE: UNDERSTANDING THE DEGREE

OF THE PROBLEM

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

JULY 20, 2006

Serial No. 109–179

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

DAN BURTON, Indiana

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

JON C. PORTER, Nevada

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

DAVID MARIN, Staff Director

LAWRENCE HALLORAN, Deputy Staff Director

TERESA AUSTIN, Chief Clerk

PHIL BARNETT, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on July 20, 2006 ............................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Connaughton, Jim, chairman, Council on Environmental Quality; and

Thomas Karl, director, National Climatic Data Center, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ........................................................ 21

Connaughton, Jim ..................................................................................... 21

Karl, Thomas ............................................................................................. 87

Curry, Judith, Chair, School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia

Institute of Technology; John R. Christy, professor and director, Earth

System Science Center, NSSTC, University of Alabama in Huntsville;

Roger A. Pielke, Jr., Center for Science and Technology Policy Research, University of Colorado at Boulder; Jay Gulledge, senior research fellow for science & impacts, Pew Center on Global Climate

Change ........................................................................................................... 129

Christy, John R. ........................................................................................ 145

Curry, Judith ............................................................................................. 129

Gulledge, Jay ............................................................................................. 171

Pielke, Roger A., Jr. .................................................................................. 153

Roosevelt, Theodore, IV, chairman, Strategies for the Global Environment/Pew Center on Global Climate Change; Andrew Ruben, vice president, Corporate Strategy and Sustainability, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.;

and Marshall Herskovitz, producer/director/writer, television and films 198

Herskovitz, Marshall ................................................................................. 219

Roosevelt, Theodore, IV ............................................................................ 198

Ruben, Andrew .......................................................................................... 206

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Christy, John R., professor and director, Earth System Science Center,

NSSTC, University of Alabama in Huntsville, prepared statement of .... 148

Connaughton, Jim, chairman, Council on Environmental Quality, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 25

Cummings, Hon. Elijah E., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Maryland, prepared statement of ............................................................ 238

Curry, Judith, Chair, School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia

Institute of Technology, prepared statement of .......................................... 132

Davis, Chairman Tom, a Representative in Congress from the State of

Virginia, prepared statement of ................................................................... 4

Gulledge, Jay, senior research fellow for science & impacts, Pew Center

on Global Climate Change, prepared statement of .................................... 174

Herskovitz, Marshall, producer/director/writer, television and films, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 222

Karl, Thomas, director, National Climatic Data Center, National Oceanic

and Atmospheric Administration, prepared statement of ......................... 90

Kucinich, Hon. Dennis J., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Ohio, prepared statement of .................................................................... 240

Pielke, Roger A., Jr., Center for Science and Technology Policy Research,

University of Colorado at Boulder, prepared statement of ....................... 156

Roosevelt, Theodore, IV, chairman, Strategies for the Global Environment/Pew Center on Global Climate Change, prepared statement of ...... 200

Ruben, Andrew, vice president, Corporate Strategy and Sustainability,

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., prepared statement of ............................................ 208

Waxman, Hon. Henry A., a Representative in Congress from the State

of California, prepared statement of ........................................................... 12

(1)

CLIMATE CHANGE: UNDERSTANDING THE

DEGREE OF THE PROBLEM

THURSDAY, JULY 20, 2006,

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM, Washington, DC.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:29 a.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Tom Davis (chairman

of the committee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Davis, Shays, Duncan, Marchant,

Schmidt, Waxman, Owens, Cummings, Kucinich, Davis of Illinois,

Van Hollen, Ruppersberger, and Higgins.

Staff present: David Marin, staff director; Larry Halloran, deputy

staff director; Keith Ausbrook, chief counsel; Jennifer Safavian,

chief counsel for oversight and investigations; Brooke Bennett,

counsel; Rob White, communications director; Andrea LeBlanc, deputy director of communications; Teresa Austin, chief clerk; Michael

Galindo, deputy clerk; Michael Sazonov, research assistant; Mindi

Walker, professional staff member; Alexandra Teitz, minority counsel; Earley Green, minority chief clerk; and Jean Gosa, minority assistant clerk.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. The committee will come to order.

Welcome to today’s hearing on climate change.

I want to thank my friend and colleague and ranking member,

Henry Waxman, for working with us to make this discussion of climate change a priority for the committee. We are committed to addressing this issue in a non-partisan way, and that is how it ought

to be.

For too long the political dialog on climate change has been dominated by black and white grandstanding, finger wagging, or headin-the-sand denial and denunciation. There has really been very little reasonable discourse, and that needs to change.

Over the past several years, and especially over the past 6

months in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and the release of Al

Gore’s film, ‘‘An Inconvenient Truth,’’ climate change has understandably jumped to the forefront of America’s discourse. We have

seen the Time cover story suggesting we ‘‘be worried, be very worried,’’ and yesterday’s London Independent Newspaper reported

‘‘Temperature set to hit 100 degrees, and global warming is to

blame,’’ and the deluge of attention to ‘‘An Inconvenient Truth,’’

and its depictions of potential disasters of global warming.

We are here today to acknowledge that too many elected officials

have for too long been missing in action on this issue. We hope to

begin to change that, but first we need to step back and ask some

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basic but critical questions. Exactly what is climate change? And

where are we with the science?

There are not very many people left these days who would argue

global warming isn’t happening, per se. There is widespread agreement that the global mean temperature has gone up approximately

1 degree fahrenheit over the past century, that atmospheric carbon

dioxide has also increased over the past century, and that carbon

dioxide, as a minor greenhouse substance—as opposed to major

substances such as water, vapor, and clouds—likely contributes to

warming.

But beyond this consensus—scientific, political, technological,

and moral—remains somewhat elusive. That is why we have to

step in. It is our job to ask whether we are responding appropriately, whether a scientific consensus exists, and whether we are

facilitating the research and ensuring an unbiased review when

there is not.

Knowledge is refined through continuous inquiry and, yes,

through skepticism. As Mr. Waxman said in an Energy and Commerce Committee hearing yesterday—Henry, I don’t always quote

you—‘‘science is hearing both sides, looking at the evidence, reaching conclusions based on evidence.’’

Living and breathing through the power of evidence, science

evolves. Policy needs to evolve along with it. To that end, we are

fortunate to be hearing from leading researchers on climate change

about climate change science and about some of their new research.

But this hearing has not been spared the disappointment and

politicization that has accompanied the issue for too long.

We were looking forward to hearing from Dr. Jim Hansen,

NASA’s preeminent climate change scientist, but we learned just

days ago he was no longer available to testify. Let the record show

he was not muzzled, at least not by this committee. Nor will we

be hearing from Vice President Gore, who has spoken often of Congress and the administration’s ‘‘blinding lack of awareness’’ about

this ‘‘planetary emergency,’’ and whose spokesman told the L.A.

Times the Vice President would ‘‘go anywhere and talk to any audience that wants to learn about climate change and how to solve it.’’

This committee asked the Vice President to pick any date in

June or July, but apparently ours was not one of the audiences he

had in mind. While Mr. Waxman and I are disappointed, we understand movie screenings and book signings are time consuming, and

we hope his book signing in northern Virginia went well yesterday.

Regardless, the panels of witnesses we have with us this morning will help us greatly in learning more about the truth, inconvenient or otherwise, surrounding climate change. We will hear from

the administration about the President’s climate change initiatives

and the Federal Government’s extensive research. We will hear

from respected scientists with differing views on the science of climate change, and we will hear from companies and organizations

that are responding to climate change challenges in their own important ways.

Today is about education. It is about whether we have the courage to ask the difficult questions without regard for what the answers may be. It is about beginning to get those answers so that

strategies to combat climate change can become clearer, so that we

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can begin to understand the complex combination of technologies,

incentives, restrictions, and sacrifices that may be needed to truly

tackle this problem, whatever its degree.

Policymakers need to understand this issue before we can pretend to effectively address potential solutions and debate the personal, economic, and societal impacts that will inevitably evolve.

Opportunity has knocked, and today this committee at least is answering the door.

[The prepared statement of Chairman Tom Davis follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. I would now recognize the distinguished

ranking member who has long been involved in expressing environmental concerns and been on the lead end of many environmental

policies, Mr. Waxman, for his opening statement.

Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am really pleased

that I am here, because if I had not been here you wouldn’t have

quoted me and you would have criticized me. So, Al Gore, pay attention. [Laughter.]

I want to commend Chairman Davis for holding this hearing on

global warming today. Global warming is the greatest environmental challenge of our time, and we have a short window in which

to act to prevent profound changes to the climate system. Unless

we seize the opportunity to act now, our legacy to our children and

grandchildren will be an unstable and dangerous planet.

I have been working to address this threat of global warming for

many years. In 1992, over a decade ago, I introduced the Global

Climate Protection Act of that year which would have frozen U.S.

emissions of greenhouses gases at 1990 levels in 2000. This was

the first bill dealing with the global climate problem. Had we acted

then, the task before us today would be much easier.

Although we have long known the basic scientific facts of global

warming, more recent findings have brought us an even greater urgency to the problem. Last year the national science academies of

11 nations, including the United States, Great Britain, Russia,

China, India, issued a joint statement on the international scientific consensus on global warming. The academies unanimously

confirmed that climate change is real and they stated the scientific

understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to justify

nations taking prompt action. It is vital that all nations identify

cost-effective steps they can take now to contribute to substantial

and long-term reduction in net global greenhouse gas emissions.

For decades the tobacco industry mounted a disinformation campaign to create doubt about the dangers of smoking. Major energy

industries are now trying the same approach about the consequences of global warming. But no one should be deceived: global

warming is real and it is an enormous threat to our Nation.

Unfortunately, the Bush administration and Congress have

squandered opportunity after opportunity to address the problem of

climate change. It is much easier to rack up enormous debts than

to be fiscally responsible, and it is much easier to pretend global

warming doesn’t exist than to face the reality of dangerously overheating climate, but doing is morally irresponsible. We are literally

mortgaging our children’s future so that we can continue to consume unlimited amounts of fossil fuels.

It is impossible to catalog this administration’s record of failures

on global warming in a 5-minute statement. President Bush set a

so-called target for greenhouse gas emissions that contemplates a

14 percent increase in emissions by 2012. The administration has

persistently tried to derail any effective international agreement to

limit emissions of greenhouse gases, and the administration denies

that greenhouse gases are pollutants. And it is even in court claiming that EPA has no authority to regulate global warming pollution.

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Well, we need to stop letting the coal companies, the oil companies, and the other special interests dictate our approach to global

warming. Instead, we need to start listening to the scientists. That

is what I tried to do earlier this year when I introduced the Safe

Climate Act.

There are different approaches that can be taken to climate legislation. Some bills seek a symbolic recognition of the problem, others are premised on what may be politically achievable in the near

term. The Safe Climate Act is drafted on a different premise. It reflects what the science tells us we need to do to protect our children and future generations from irreversible and catastrophic

global warming.

The bill has aggressive requirements to reduce emissions of

greenhouse gases, calling for an 80 percent reduction in emissions

by 2050, but these are the reductions we need to preserve a safe

climate for future generations.

As Dr. James Hansen, among other scientists, has been telling

us, we have about 10 years to act to avoid being locked into irreversible global warming on a scale that will transform the planet.

Daunting though it may seem, these reductions are achievable

with innovation and commitment. In fact, they will make our economy stronger and our Nation safer.

I hope today’s hearing will help this committee and this Congress

move forward to tackle the urgent problem of global warming. The

scientists have been proven right on this issue time and time

again, and if we continue to disregard their warnings our children

and their children will pay the price.

I want to point out how remarkable it is that this committee is

holding this hearing. Yesterday I was at the Energy and Commerce

Committee’s subcommittee hearing. The Energy and Commerce

Committee has legislative jurisdiction over this issue, but in 12

years yesterday’s hearing showed what their thinking was at the

leadership level. They held a hearing on global warming simply to

try to rebut a study done in 1998 to 1999 to argue that statistically

it was in error, even though all the subsequent studies continue to

reaffirm the conclusions of scientists all over the world.

That was not a real, legitimate hearing. I hope that our committee will serve the purposes for the Congress in giving a balanced

approach to reviewing this issue so that we can impress upon people the problem it is now, the problem it will be tomorrow, and

what we must do today to prevent the disasters of tomorrow.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I commend you for the hearing.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to mention one item before we turn

to the witnesses for testimony and the other Members for their

statement. Mr. Connaughton, who is the chairman of the White

House Council on Environmental Quality, is here today to talk

about the administration’s views on climate change. As we are

probably all aware, serious questions have been raised about

whether the White House and CEQ, in particular, has deliberately

suppressed and manipulated the findings of Government scientists

to minimize the problem of global warming.

The chairman and I have discussed how we should handle these

questions. We have both agreed that an inquiry into these matters

would benefit from additional information and investigation; thus,

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rather than exploring these issues today, the committee will be

sending a letter to CEQ requesting communications and documents

about CEQ’s role in reviewing and editing Government reports on

climate science.

We have also agreed that, after we have received and reviewed

these documents, this committee will call Mr. Connaughton back to

answer any questions raised by the documents. I think this approach makes a lot of sense, Mr. Chairman, and I appreciate your

willingness to pursue it.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Henry A. Waxman follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Shays.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First, I want to say I think it is interesting that this hearing has

begun without a thank you, a sincere thank you from me and I

think the entire environmental community for the President’s action to protect the largest area in our Federal Government in what

was done in the Hawaiian Islands and that area. Mr.

Connaughton, I want to say congratulations. I know it was a 5-year

fight. You deserve tremendous credit. Generations will look back at

that action as extraordinarily important.

I do want to say, in addition, that I believe we are not going to

have a world to live in if we continue our neglectful ways. I believe

that with all my heart and soul. I believe that future generations

will look on all of us in this generation like we looked at past generations. We look at past generations and say, how could they have

done that? What were they thinking to have had slaves or to have

practiced segregation? And we have tremendous arrogance almost

because, of course, we wouldn’t be so stupid. But I think future

generations will say the exact same thing, and it will apply to our

stewardship of the environment. They will say, how could we have

allowed this to happen? What were we thinking?

Now, I do know that it is not just a Republican problem. I would

like this administration to have been more active in multilateral

negotiations. They have been very active in bilateral negotiations

and have achieved some tremendous results. But it is almost like

the administration doesn’t want to get credit for doing something

well in the environment. At least that is the way I feel.

Kyoto was negotiated by President Clinton. He never submitted

it to the Senate. He never submitted it to the Senate because it

only had about five votes. But if you were to listen to the Senators

today you would think that everyone would have voted for him.

There was a reason why he didn’t submit it: because it had so

few votes. It had so few votes because China wasn’t basically included, India wasn’t basically included, and, frankly, there were

some even in the environmental community that said, well, if we

have to abide by it and do it like they do in Great Britain and like

they do in France and like they do throughout Europe and like

they are doing in Japan, we are going to have nuclear power, and,

of course, that is something we don’t want to have.

So I wish with all my heart and soul that the President had submitted it to the Senate, and then we would have a more logical debate about the problem. Do we waste energy? Do we waste fuel?

We sure do. Minivans, SUVs, and trucks are not under the same

mileage standards as cars. Not under the same mileage standards?

Why not?

Well, why not is because the senior Democrat in Congress, the

senior Democrat, the senior Member of Congress stands up and opposes any fuel efficiencies, minivans, SUVs, or trucks, getting cars

to have better standards, with Republicans. It is a bipartisan problem, and the environmental community can say all it wants, but

until we recognize it is a bipartisan problem we are never going to

solve this problem.

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I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for having this hearing. This is an

extraordinarily important hearing. This committee is doing things

no other committee is doing.

I thank you, Mr. Waxman, for your efforts over decades on the

environment. You deserve tremendous credit.

I will conclude by saying that we will solve the problem, but it

won’t be a Republican solution, it won’t be a northeast solution, it

won’t be a southwest solution, it will be a solution when Democrats

and Republicans stop being so gosh darn partisan and start dealing

with this issue.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Van Hollen.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me begin by

thanking you for holding this very important hearing. I also want

to thank my colleague, the ranking member, Mr. Waxman, for his

leadership on this issue. I am very pleased to join him as an original cosponsor of the Safe Climate Act, which I do believe sets forth

the best in scientific consensus in this country as to what we need

to do to address the problem of global climate change on an urgent

basis.

I think before we can move as a Nation, before this Congress will

take action, we have to get consensus on the basic facts, and the

scientific community is very clear in the consensus that this is a

real problem, that human activity is a primary contributor to this

problem, and we need to address it.

I am not going to delve into this issue too much today, but I do

think at the outset it is important to underscore the issue that Mr.

Waxman raised with the efforts that have gone on in this administration, well documented, to essentially have political people veto

the findings of scientists, whether they are scientists at EPA, our

own Government agencies or elsewhere, and essentially trying to

rewrite their findings. We had an individual who was a representative of the oil and gas industry in the White House who was essentially editing the findings of scientists for political purposes.

We have to get beyond that. The President in the State of the

Union Address said he was committed to addressing the issue of

energy efficiency and renewable energy, and then we found out

shortly after the State of the Union speech that he had actually cut

positions in his budget in one of the renewable energy labs in Colorado. They were going to do a big photo op out there and they had

to scramble to make the rhetoric that he gave to the American people meet the reality of the budget. Until we stop that kind of nonsense, until we really align our resources with our rhetoric, we are

not going to move forward in this country.

This is a very, very serious problem, and if we don’t address it

now and in an urgent manner it will be too late. Hopefully it is not

already too late. As Mr. Waxman said, there are things we should

have done years and years ago that would have made our task now

easier. The longer you wait, the more urgent your action has to be.

Of course, the greater cuts you have to make over a shorter period

of time than if you begin earlier, in terms of emissions of greenhouse gases.

So I really hope that we get beyond this debate as to whether

or not this is a real problem, because until we get beyond that we

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can’t take the actions we need, and there are people who are

spending an awful lot of money and time in this city committed to

trying to obfuscate this issue, to confuse the issue. We need to get

beyond that. I am glad we are having this hearing on this issue,

but beyond acknowledging the problem we have to get to the solutions and we have to start acting.

It is not just the United States. As we know, we have growing

economies in China and India that are going to be major contributors to the greenhouse gases problem. But if we don’t lead, if we

don’t lead here in the United States, we can’t go around telling people in the rest of the world that they have to address this issue.

Frankly, as we all know, we are the largest producers of greenhouse gases. Per capita we are way off the charts. Yet, we have

been negligent in terms of our response.

I hope, Mr. Chairman, that this hearing will be part of a wakeup

call, not to the American people, I think they are beginning to get

it, but to political Washington to get moving on this issue.

Thank you for having the hearing.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Van Hollen.

Mr. Ruppersberger.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Mr. Chairman, I thank you and Mr. Waxman for addressing this extremely important issue.

We are not here to rewrite the science; we are here to act on it.

Unfortunately, the debate on climate change has gotten away from

science and has, instead, been driven by political opinions on

whether or not global warming is happening. I hope today we can

take a second look at this issue and work together to solve this

challenge, because the stakes are high and the warning signs could

not be clearer.

The 1990’s were the hottest decade recorded over the past century, and perhaps the millennium. Water sources that were once

the lifeline of communities across the globe are evaporating. In

May, MIT and Purdue University separately reported new evidence

that global warming is causing stronger hurricanes, and the melting of our ice caps is now visible to the naked eye, causing sea levels to rise. In fact, the Heinz Center for Science, Economics, and

the Environment estimates that at least a quarter of the houses

within 500 feet of the U.S. coast may be under water by the year

2060 due to rising sea levels.

Right here in the Maryland/Washington/Virginia region, a number of islands in the Chesapeake Bay have disappeared in the last

few decades, including Poplar Island, a historic spot used by President Roosevelt. Now Poplar Island has to be maintained by a massive dredging project to keep the Baltimore Harbor functional.

The threat here is real and can no longer be ignored; yet, the administration has questioned whether carbon dioxide, the principal

greenhouse gas responsible for global warming, was even a pollutant.

The administration created doubt about the reality of global

warming and withdrew the United States from the Kyoto protocol.

Now the administration says we should reduce the intensity of

greenhouse emissions when we really need to focus on lowering

greenhouse pollution.

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In the meantime, businesses, homeowners, towns, cities, and foreign countries have moved ahead to promote greener, more energy

efficient technology; 266 cities and towns across America have

promised to reduce global warming pollution to levels required

under the Kyoto protocol.

Businesses are using green technology to cut costs, including a

new Bank of America tower in Manhattan that will convert scraps

from the cafeteria into fuel for its generator, producing more than

half the building’s electricity. Wal-Mart has set a goal of reducing

their carbon footprint by 20 percent in 7 years. And every day

Americans are using solar energy to power their homes, replacing

their lamps with energy efficient light bulbs to conserve electricity,

and buying hybrid and flex fuel cars to reduce their gas costs.

With all these advancements happening in spite of a lack of leadership from the White House and some GOP Members of Congress,

imagine what we could do if we work together in a bipartisan manner to address the serious problem of global climate change.

I challenge the administration and some of my Republican colleagues here in Congress to take a second look at the facts we have

on climate change. Too much is at stake to make this another partisan issue.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, again for calling this hearing, and to

all of our witnesses for presenting your testimony. I look forward

to the hearing and your comments.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Cummings.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to

again echo the comments of my colleagues and I want to associate

myself with all the comments on both sides of the aisle. I think

they have been very appropriate.

I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman and ranking member, for

holding this vitally important hearing today. You know, Mr. Chairman, when children go to Disney World and they go to the Animal

Kingdom there is a major sign that they have to look at because

it is so big as you enter. It says, ‘‘We do not inherit our environment from our parents,’’ it says, ‘‘We borrow it from our children.’’

I can tell you that in urban communities, like the one I represent

in Baltimore, the impact of global warming has been great. A study

conducted by researchers at Harvard University and the American

Public Health Association found that America’s cities are blanketed

with smog and climate changing carbon dioxide, leading to an epidemic of asthma and other illnesses. Hardest hit by the epidemic

are preschool-age children, like the ones that visit Disney World,

whose rate of asthma rose by 160 percent between 1980 and 1994,

the report says. These children are so young they are still learning

to spell their names, yet they cannot breathe because of the pollutants we have put in the air.

Tragically, they are not the youngest victims. In a comparison of

86 cities in the United States, infants who lived in a highly polluted city during their first 2 months of life had a higher mortality

rate than infants living in the city with the cleanest air.

We can talk about impact in other terms, too, because global

warming impacts some communities more than others. In 2002, 71

percent of African Americans lived in counties that violated FedVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:46 Oct 19, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00023 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\29932.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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eral air pollution standards, compared with 58 percent of Whites.

What to know what the impact of that disparity has been? Asthma

attacks in 2002 sent African Americans to the emergency room at

a three times greater rate than White, and the asthma-related

death rate for African Americans was nearly twice that of Whites.

As a matter of fact, just on Monday, Mr. Chairman, my colleague

from your side of the aisle went with me on a tour of my District

in Baltimore, and when we went to the Johns Hopkins clinic that

deals with the conditions of the poor, he realized and was told that

the rate of asthma in that community 40 miles from here was simply off the charts.

But that is not all. A recent study of the 15 largest U.S. cities

found that global warming would increase heat-related deaths by

at least 90 percent. Most African Americans live in inner cities,

which tend to be about 10 degrees warmer than the surrounding

areas.

We have heard time and time again the accusation that people

who are sounding the alarm on global warming are a bunch of

reactionaries making baseless claims. That is a dangerous line of

reasoning. All one has to do is look at the most recent Al Gore

movie. The threat of global warming is here and it is real. The

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the National Research Council, and the National

Academies of Sciences of 11 countries all agree when it comes to

the impact of global warming has made on this planet it has been

phenomenal.

But I need no further evidence than what I see happening in my

own back yard in Baltimore. Adolescents can’t breathe normally.

Babies are dying prematurely. And African Americans are getting

sick in communities where they live.

The time is past due for Congress to lead the charge in the fight

against global warming. As my colleagues have said, it is time for

us to act. And I pray that we are not sitting here 5 years from now

having the same discussions, looking at reports that have been

pulled off the shelf and warmed over, for the fact is that people are

literally dying. So perhaps some of those children that might have

had an opportunity to go to Disney World won’t have that chance

if we adults don’t do what we are supposed to do.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Members will have 7 days to submit opening statements.

We are going to now move to our first panel. We have Jim

Connaughton, who is the chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality, and Dr. Thomas Karl, the Director of the National

Climatic Data Center, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Thank you for your patience as we moved through our

markup and our opening statements.

It is our policy that all witnesses be sworn before you testify, so

if you would rise, please, and raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Chairman TOM DAVIS. We have a light in front of you. Your entire statements are part of the record. Our Members and staff have

read that, and questions will be based on that. We have a green

light in front of you. It will turn orange after 4 minutes, red after

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5. If there is an important issue, if you feel that you need to go

over, you know, we understand, but we want to keep things going

because we have three panels to get through.

Mr. Connaughton, we will start with you. Thank you for being

here.

STATEMENTS OF JIM CONNAUGHTON, CHAIRMAN, COUNCIL

ON ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY; AND THOMAS KARL, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL CLIMATIC DATA CENTER, NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION

STATEMENT OF JIM CONNAUGHTON

Mr. CONNAUGHTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Waxman, and members of the committee. It is actually

a delight to be here and a delight, in particular, that you have chosen to at least dedicate a portion of this session to the actions related to addressing this serious issue.

Congressman Shays, thank you for your kind words about the

monument. It really was a great event. It is great for America and

for the world. It was a lot of fun.

I want to begin, first and foremost, we talk a lot about the polarized debate and rhetoric on climate change. At the ground level of

policy work, even of scientific work, and the ground level internationally, I think the fair characterization is actually a raging

amount of consensus. I hope you will get a feel for that in my testimony.

I want to begin with the President on the science. As early as

June 2001 in a major policy address and many times since, most

recently in the EU last year and again earlier this year, the President has made clear that climate is a serious issue, serious problem. Humans are a big part of the problem and we need to just get

on with it, and that is really where our discussion needs to focus.

It is what are the serious and sensible measures that we can take

to make meaningful progress toward addressing this issue.

The President is committed to doing that and he has been

achieving it through a portfolio of policies that are focused on encouraging the transformational breakthroughs in technology and to

take advantage of the power of markets to bring those technologies

into widespread use. There is raging consensus on that point, too.

The administration’s growth-oriented strategy encourages global

participation—I will talk about that in a second—and focuses on

actions that ensure continued economic growth and prosperity in

the United States and throughout the world. This is important because economic growth is necessary to provide the resources for investment in the technologies and practices that are required to reduce greenhouse gases. You don’t get those investments in sagging

economies.

By the end of this year the administration will have devoted

nearly $29 billion in taxpayer resources, more than any other Nation, to climate science technology, international assistance, and incentive programs. We are now implementing more than 60 Federal

programs that are directed at cleaner, more efficient energy technologies, conservation, and sequestration. My 40 plus pages of testimony gives just a thumbnail of some of the more interesting ones.

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For fiscal year 2007, the President has asked for an additional

$6.5 billion for climate-related activities. To put that in perspective,

the entire budget for the National Science Foundation is about $6

billion, the entire budget for the Department of Commerce or the

entire judicial branch is about $6 billion. We are talking about a

massive, bipartisan-supported commitment to this important issue.

Now, domestically the President has set an ambitious national

goal to reduce the greenhouse gas intensity of our economy by 18

percent in 2012. What that means is we are working hard to slow

the growth in emissions, and there is no question that under this

metric emissions will grow. We are trying to have that occur at a

decreasing rate. So our objective is to first significantly slow the

growth of emissions and, as the science continues to inform us, stop

the growth of emissions and then reverse it.

To achieve this goal, the administration is pursuing a range of

activities, partnerships, incentives, mandatory programs, and helping to enable smarter consumer choice to reduce greenhouse gases.

Let me start with partnerships, just a few examples out of many.

We have major new efforts, such as the Department of Energy’s climate vision program, which gets specific commitments from 15 of

the major emitting sectors, plus the business round table, EPA’s

climate leaders, which has nearly 100 leading companies such as

the one the Congressman described. We have nearly 100 who are

leading the way in their sectors with very aggressive greenhouse

gas reduction programs, and a very interesting program called

smart way transportation, which is trying to turn off diesel trucks

at night and plug them in rather than emit all night long. Each

of these is based on specific commitments to cut emissions and improve greenhouse gas intensity.

Now, Federal agencies and private innovators are also partnering

to pursue energy supply technologies with low, and in some cases

zero, carbon dioxide and air pollution emission profiles. These include solar, wind, geothermal, bioenergy, combined heat and power,

and a new generation of clean, near-zero fossil fuel coal plants, as

well as the next generation of nuclear.

In the State of the Union this year I think the President rocked

the Nation and the world with his commitment to advancing the

domestic and international dialog for renewable fuels, both ethanol,

cellulosic ethanol, and the new generation of clean and really

friendly to rural communities biodiesel.

On the incentive side, it is overlooked but the major tax reforms

on expensing of dividends that enjoyed strong bi-partisan support

in the Congress are demonstrably working to unleash substantial

new capital investments, including the purchases of cleaner, more

efficient facilities and buildings, so instead of maintaining the old,

inefficient stuff, our economy is roaring toward the purchase of

new, cleaner, more efficient equipment.

The Energy Policy Act of 2005 authorizes about $5 billion in tax

credits and incentives over 5 years for clean energy systems and

highly efficient vehicles, and our farmers and ranchers can now obtain substantial financial incentives from the nearly $40 billion in

farm bill conservation programs to biologically sequester carbon on

their working lands, while also enhancing their local ecology.

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On the mandatory side—again, all of this is new since 2001—we

have a 15 percent mandatory improvement in fuel economy for new

light trucks now, including large SUVs and Hummers for the first

time. We are calling on Congress to give us the authority to do the

same for passenger vehicles, and we hope the Congress will act on

that.

We have a 7.5 billion gallon renewable ethanol requirement,

which enjoys strong bipartisan support, and 15 mandatory efficiency standards for new appliances. If you look at the other provisions of the Energy Policy Act, it can point to every one of them

as being a new improvement in reducing greenhouses gases,

whether it is clean coal, nuclear, some of the other technology programs related to hydrogen, etc. We are overlooking the fact that we

have a comprehensive strategy and we have had a lot of climaterelated legislation, even in the last 2 years.

These and many other efforts are working. They need to be coupled with smarter choices by consumers, and we are on track to

meet the President’s goal.

A June 2006, preliminary estimate by the Energy Information

Administration of energy-related CO2 emissions for 2005 show a reduction in the emission intensity of 3.3 percent. If I was sitting

here in 2001, the EIA and most people would say we couldn’t have

done that. Well, we have. We have done it for reasons that are both

good, as a matter of policy, and for reasons that are a bit of concern, which I can talk about in the Q and A. But I would note we

are making accelerated progress.

This rate of progress domestically in the United States, it is also

important to note, is on par with what our counterparts are achieving internationally in the developed world, whether it is the U.K.,

Australia, Japan, France. The major nations are making about the

same rate of progress, and that is a good thing. It is a good rate

of progress.

Very briefly, on the international side the President is sustaining

U.S. leadership begun by his father and carried out through the

Clinton/Gore administration when it comes to practical actions to

address this important issue. Since 2001, not only have we established 15 bilateral climate partnerships with countries that account

for about 80 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, but, very importantly, the G8 last year launched a major effort, in partnership and

really led by Prime Minister Blair working with the President, to

create an integrated agenda for action that addresses energy security, air pollution control, and greenhouse gases as a bundle, which

is very important.

Successful projects have been initiated in the area of climate research and science, climate observation systems, many of the technologies I just highlighted, including, very importantly, carbon capture and storage, as well as other joint policy approaches. But,

most importantly, the United States has found a way to engage

China and India in a meaningful way with the introduction of the

Asia Pacific partnership.

Along with those two countries, Australia, Japan, South Korea,

and the United States, which account for about half of the world’s

economy, energy use, and greenhouse gas emissions, are working

together to open up and accelerate market opportunities for the

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best of today’s technologies and create a platform for the faster introduction of the promising technologies of tomorrow. Importantly,

this is working with the private sector to accomplish this goal in

key areas such as power generation, cement, aluminum, mining,

and buildings.

I just want to underline the importance of this initiative. Countries like China and India, these major emerging economies, not

only is their air pollution now at levels beyond what we saw in

America and have now taken real action to address, but their

greenhouse gases, as early as 2010 to 2015, their greenhouse gases

will exceed those of the developed world. We need to do this together. We have found a pathway by which we can do this together.

The Asia Pacific partnership, along with partnerships such as

methane to markets and programs internationally focused on zero

emission coal, renewable energy, energy efficiency, hydrogen, next

generation nuclear, and even fusion are centered on the key ideas

that the greatest progress will occur in the context of the broader

development agenda, so if we can marry lifting people out of policy

through cleaner energy systems with also their desire for clean

water and improved energy security, we can make very real

progress. Second, technology is the glue that binds these objectives

together. Third, it only works with the private sector, which will

spend more than $15 trillion in the coming decades on our entire

energy infrastructure.

Our goal is we need to point that investment toward the cleanest

opportunities.

I wish I had more time to get into any specific program. I hope

that this hearing, as well as subsequent hearings, can begin to distill out this immense bipartisan program of work supported not

just in the executive branch but supported very aggressively by the

legislative branch.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Connaughton follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Dr. Karl.

STATEMENT OF THOMAS KARL

Dr. KARL. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, thank you

for giving me this opportunity to speak to you about climate change

today.

As you mentioned, Mr. Chairman, I am the director of NOAA’s

National Climatic Data Center. The National Climatic Data Center

is the world’s largest archive of weather and climate data. We also

serve as the Nation’s scorekeeper regarding trends and anomalies

of weather and climate.

I would like to emphasize today that the natural greenhouse effect is real and it is an essential component of the planet’s climate

process driven by greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, water

vapor, methane, and other greenhouse gases.

In the absence of these greenhouse gases, the temperature on

Earth would be too cold to support life as we know it. Some greenhouse gases are increasing in the atmosphere because of human activities, and they are altering the planet’s way of emitting heat it

receives from the sun back to space.

Direct atmospheric measurements made during the past 50 years

have documented the steady growth of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. I have a slide that I hope will come up that can demonstrate

this. Is that going to show?

Chairman TOM DAVIS. We will find out.

Dr. KARL. There we go.

As you note from that side, you can see the black line represents

the increase in carbon dioxide concentrations, the blue and red bars

represent global temperature anomalies. As you can see from that

slide, the growth in carbon dioxide is occurring over the last several hundred years. This growth is predominately caused by the

increase——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Where does it start? What year does it

start?

Dr. KARL. That is in 1880.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. OK, that starts in 1880, so it is about 120

years?

Dr. KARL. That graph goes from 1880 through 2005.

The growth in carbon dioxide is caused by the increase in combustion of fossil fuels. Once these greenhouse gases enter into the

atmosphere, it stays for a long time, from decades to centuries.

While slide one shows a strong positive correlation between increases in carbon dioxide, the black line, and the global temperature anomalies, the specific cause and effect relationship cannot be

assumed. Climate scientists must use other tools to link climate

change to human influences. This is where climate models enter

into the picture.

So what exactly is a climate model? Why is it useful? The next

slide shows schematically the kinds of processes that can be included in climate models. Among these are many Earth system

components, such as atmospheric chemistry, ocean circulation, land

surface hydrology, and many others.

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Many of the scientific laws governing climate change and the

processes involved can be quantified and linked by mathematic

equations. Linking these equations creates mathematical models of

the climate that may be run on computers or super computers.

Given the magnitude of the data and understanding of all these

physical and chemical processes, it is impossible to create a single

model because it would be too complex to run on any existing computer system.

The key challenge in modeling is to isolate and identify cause

and effect, which requires knowledge about changes and variations

of the external forces controlling climate, such as greenhouse gases,

and a comprehensive understanding of climate feedbacks, such as

a change in Earth’s reflectivity because of a change in sea ice or

cloud amount.

Climate models are used to simulate many years of weather.

These simulations can be used to look either into the future or to

compare them to some time in the past. This comparison enables

scientists to study the output of climate model simulations to understand the effect of various modifications of those aspects of the

climate system that might cause the climate to change.

An example of how climate models are used to detect the human

influence on the climate system is shown on the next slide. When

considering only natural changes in the Earth climate systems, the

models cannot replicate the observed global temperature. You notice that on the far left. The red is the global temperature. The

black lines represent model simulations, with only consideration of

natural variability.

By including both natural or anthrogenic or human-induced

changes in the Earth climate system, the models do, indeed, replicate the observed global temperature variations in changes. That

is on the far right panel, to include both the anthropogenic changes

in the models, as well as natural variations.

The scientific community has been actively working on detection

attribution of climate changes related to human activities since the

1980’s. Research has shown there are many other aspects of the climate system beside global surface temperature that have been influenced by human activity, such as changes in temperature, regional changes in temperature, changes in ocean heat content, extreme weather, and climate events. There is considerable confidence that the observed warming, especially since the 1970’s, is

mostly attributable to changes in atmospheric composition due to

human influences.

In conclusion, the state of the science continues to indicate that

modern climate changes is affected by human influences, primarily

human induced changes in atmospheric composition. While there is

considerable uncertainty about the rates of change that can be expected, it is clear these changes will be increasingly manifested in

important and tangible ways. Recent evidence suggests there will

be changes in extremes of temperature and precipitation, decreases

in seasonal and perennial snow and ice extent, sea level rise, and

increases in hurricane intensity and related heavy and extreme

precipitation.

Furthermore, while there has been progress in monitoring and

understanding the causes of climate change, there remain many

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scientific, technical, and institutional challenges to precisely plan

for, adapt to, and mitigate the effects of climate change.

The U.S. climate change science program is addressing the scientific dimensions of these challenges through research, observations, decision support, and communication. This Federal Government program, which encompasses the efforts of 13 Federal agencies, helps prioritize and integrate Federal research on global climate change. The program’s vision, as guided by the 2003 climate

change science strategic plan, is to improve the Nation’s ability to

manage the risks and opportunities of climate change and related

environmental systems.

For the next 2 years the program will produce a series of synthesis and assessment reports that describe the state of the science

on a range of key issues. The first report released this past May

addressed the debate about the differences in detected temperature

increases by satellites and surface observations. The issue has led

some to cast doubt about the magnitude of global warming. Subsequent reports will further provide important contributions to the

Nation’s discussions on climate change.

Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to testify

about this important topic.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Karl follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Just to try to sort through it all, let me just ask each of you—

Mr. Connaughton, I will start with you—global warming is a fact;

would you agree with that at this point?

Mr. CONNAUGHTON. Yes.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. And it is likely to continue over the next

50 years?

Mr. CONNAUGHTON. That is what the scientists tell us.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Dr. Karl, would you agree?

Dr. KARL. Yes. We are already committed to, even if we stopped

emitting all greenhouse gases, we are already committed to approximately another half to 1 degree rise in temperature because

of the heat that has already been absorbed into the oceans and the

resident time of existing atmospheric greenhouse gases.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. How much of this is naturally occurring

in the cycle of Earth and how much of this is really man created?

Dr. KARL. We think most of it is due to man. There are natural

effects such as volcanoes and El Ninos that do have contributions

on global temperatures, but mostly the rise in temperature is attributed to human influences of the past 30 years.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. And as you look ahead 30, 50 years, without an aggressive policy what does this mean for the planet?

Dr. KARL. Well, in terms of some of the climate activities, we

look toward increasing heavy and extreme precipitation events,

more in the way of heat waves, reduce snow cover and sea ice, less

in the way of cold waves, temperatures in the winter would warm

up, rising sea levels expecting to continue, and probably at this

point in time, when dry weather does occur on a global basis, the

tendency will be for greater evaporation and potentially greater intensity of droughts, as well.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Just in the natural occurring of the planet

in our millions of years of existence, or whatever, we have had

warmings and we have had it cooled and everything else, and that

has changed dramatically the landscape, where water is, the kind

of plants and animals that can survive. What is the degree of

change that we are looking for at this point?

Dr. KARL. I think it is important to keep this in mind because

if you look at the climate about 18,000 years ago, when we were

in the middle of the last full glaciation, global temperatures were

approximately—we don’t have precise measurements—approximately 8 to 10 degrees colder than they are at the present time.

Some of the scenarios for changes in atmospheric greenhouse composition run well into the end of this century and into the next century. Some of the scenarios approach changes of that magnitude,

but within a short period of time, a period of 100, 150 years as opposed to a much longer time that it has taken for us to recover

from the last full glaciation.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. So that is a very significant change?

Dr. KARL. Yes.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. And, Mr. Connaughton, you have talked

about some of the things that the administration is doing on this

and so on. I think it is important to note that there is a recognition

on the part of the administration that not only is there global

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warming, that we are contributors to that, but that we need to be

very proactive. Do you agree with that?

Mr. CONNAUGHTON. It goes well beyond recognition. The scale

and scope of what the United States is undertaking in terms of

greenhouse gas mitigation is far beyond anything it has done before, and the scale of what we are doing as a Nation far exceeds

what any other nation is accomplishing. But we also have the biggest burden and the biggest obligation. We are the largest emitter.

But we have promised, as well—I will give you an example. One

of the most potent greenhouse gases, which is methane, is 20 times

more potent than CO2, but it also has a shorter atmospheric lifetime, so taking action on methane gives us an earlier benefit in

terms of its forcing.

The United States has found a way profitably to get an absolute

reduction in methane emissions, so that is something we have been

able to go after aggressively through the 1990’s, and we are carrying that forward, and what we are trying to do is take that approach international. So there are real opportunities with respect

to some greenhouse gases to dramatically reverse them.

I will give you another one: PFCs, perfluorocarbons, which also

contribute to ozone depletion. We are in the process, the United

States, of effectively removing them from our economic system. The

aluminum sector has done a really great job of really cutting their

use of PFCs.

So we have some actions where we can really make some dramatic reductions and then there are others, such as CO2 from fossil

energy generation, that are going to require longer time horizons,

so we need to work on both these really aggressive, dramatic cuts,

and then these more gradual, phased-in cuts.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. But I think you have been critical of some

of the treaty-based efforts for emissions reductions. Can you explain why this is true? I mean, many of the other people we are

going to hear from today think the only way that the climate

change can be effectively addressed is through international cooperation, particularly with the part of the world stepping on now

and industrializing.

Mr. CONNAUGHTON. The two main components from an environmental perspective that have an economic dimension are the problems with the Kyoto protocol. The Kyoto protocol set reasonably

achievable targets for some countries and set impossible to achieve

targets for other countries. The United States falls into the category of the impossible to achieve. So we can’t ratify a treaty if we

don’t have confidence that we can actually achieve its objectives.

We can do a lot toward achieving those goals, but it was just a

wrong deal.

The other problem is——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Should we go back and at least try to get

another deal, I mean, if that is not reasonable?

Mr. CONNAUGHTON. It is not should we, we already are embarked

on that exercise on a massive scale. Hold that for 1 second, because

the other problem is the global participation issue. If we were to

even make halfway progress toward achieving Kyoto, one of the big

outcomes of meeting that goal would have been a shift of our enVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:46 Oct 19, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00118 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\29932.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ergy intensive manufacturing base to countries that don’t have targets.

That is bad enough from a jobs and an economic perspective, but

let’s just worry about climate change. What we have effectively

done is move our emissions produced in relatively efficient manufacturing to another country that does it much less efficiently, so

you would likely get a net rise in greenhouse gases elsewhere. It

is like squeezing the end of a balloon. It just fills out the other end.

So we have to be very careful about a well-intentioned aspiration

creating an unintentional outcome that everybody can agree on.

Simply moving our emissions to another country doesn’t solve the

problem. That is why we need to pull back into this realm of reasonably ambitious, and everybody is moving at about the same

rate. That is what we are doing to the Asia Pacific partnership. We

have six huge countries: the United States, Japan, South Korea,

China, and India.

And then you have the G8 group that Tony Blair pulled together,

which is the G8 countries along with India, China, Brazil, South

Africa, and a few others. That is a pretty powerful group of countries that have realized that, regardless of these aspirational targets, how do we break it down into the several hundred pieces of

action that have to occur either individually or jointly to make the

greatest rate of progress.

Again, it is exciting what is going on, because we are finally talking about real programs of work, not rhetorical flourishes, not challenges to each other to accomplish things. We are actually breaking

it down into how do we make biodiesel available worldwide with

the same standard. How do we bring cellulosic ethanol to market

in 2010 rather than 2020? These are the very tangible aspects of

progress, and that is happening. That is what is exciting.

We have a renewable energy and energy efficiency partnership.

Methane to markets has several dozen countries involved in it trying to do what we do well in the United States. We capture methane from landfills. In most of the rest of the world they don’t.

Imagine. That is profitable.

We capture methane from agricultural waste. In other parts of

the world there is a huge capacity to capture that methane and

make it a clean-burning, profitable energy source. And in the

United States we don’t leak natural gas in the environment from

our oil and gas systems and we don’t leak methane out of our coal

mines any more. We capture it and convert it to energy.

All of those are profitable investments with existing technology

that can dramatically cut greenhouse gases. You just have to roll

up your sleeves and work with these other countries and help them

understand this investment opportunity.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. My time is up.

Mr. Waxman.

Mr. WAXMAN. I thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Connaughton, you heard what Dr. Karl had to say on the

state of the science on global warming. Is there anything he said

that you disagree with?

Mr. CONNAUGHTON. No.

Mr. WAXMAN. I am sure you are familiar with the joint statement on global warming issued last year by the National Science

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Academies of 11 countries, including the United States, Britain,

Russia, China, and India. The academies asserted that climate

change is real, there is now strong evidence that significant global

warming is occurring, and it is likely that most of the warming in

recent decades can be attributed to human activities. They also had

a call to action saying the scientific understanding of climate

change is now sufficiently clear to justify nations taking prompt action.

Does the administration disagree with the joint statement of the

national academies, and do you agree that United States should be

taking prompt action?

Mr. CONNAUGHTON. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences in

2001 was commissioned by President Bush to give a U.S. perspective on the climate science, and they released their report in June

2001, a report that the President issued in his June 2001 policy

statement. The statement that was released by the joint academy

last year is largely a nearly complete reflection of the report the

President, himself, commissioned and relied on in 2001.

Mr. WAXMAN. So you agree? The administration’s policy is to

agree with this position?

Mr. CONNAUGHTON. And let me take it a step further. The

joint——

Mr. WAXMAN. Well, the problem with taking it a step further is

that I don’t get a step further on my questions, so it would be easier if you could just answer yes or no.

Mr. CONNAUGHTON. Let me make clear, not only the President

but the G8 leaders in the Gleaneagle’s Plan of Action on Climate

and Clean Development last year jointly received that report and

agreed on the need for urgent action.

Mr. WAXMAN. OK. Now, in your testimony you tried very hard

to make the case that the administration is doing something meaningful, and here is why I don’t buy it: all of those programs, initiatives, partnerships, spending aims, all the things that you enthusiastically reported to us aim to get you to the President’s global

warming goal, but that goal actually allows U.S. emissions of global

warming pollution to rise by 14 percent by 2012.

Talking about so-called intensity targets lets you obscure this

basic fact, your plan is to let emissions go up by a lot. Are you trying to tell us that allowing U.S. emissions to rise by 14 percent in

a decade is prompt action?

Mr. CONNAUGHTON. It is significantly better than the alternative

path we were on, which is an even greater rise, Mr. Waxman. The

challenge we face—we faced it with water pollution, we faced it

with air pollution, and I could give you half a dozen other examples—is step one in any of these efforts to control a major environmental substance, step one is to slow the growth through reasonable investment. Step two, and air pollution is a good example, the

efforts in the 1960’s and the early 1970’s put us on a path to slow

the growth of harmful air pollutants. It was not until the

1980’s——

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Connaughton.

Mr. CONNAUGHTON [continuing]. It was really not until the

1980’s that we were able to stop the growth, and then now, as we

sit here today——

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Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Connaughton, excuse me.

Mr. CONNAUGHTON. Mr. Waxman, let me get the point.

Mr. WAXMAN. No, no. You excuse me because it is my time to

question you, not for you to give a monologue.

Mr. CONNAUGHTON. I am sorry. I thought you were looking for

a complete answer, sir.

Mr. WAXMAN. Well, complete answers can take volumes, but I

only have 5 minutes, because what you are saying is you are slowing the growth of emissions as to what they would otherwise be,

but that is only by 3 percent. Your goal barely even slows the

growth of emissions because emissions intensity improved at about

the same rate from 1990 to 2000. These types of shell games just

reinforce the point that the Bush administration has very little

credibility on this issue.

I want to review the administration’s actual record, not rhetoric,

on global warming. When President Bush came into office, one of

the first things he did was to backtrack on a campaign pledge he

made to regulate global warming pollution from power plants. He

declared that carbon dioxide is the greatest contributor to global

warming, and then he said it isn’t even a pollutant. He also renounced the Kyoto protocol. You have already responded to that.

The administration followed this with a tax package that promoted purchase of gas-guzzling Hummers and other highly inefficient vehicles and killed efforts to develop super efficient vehicles

in the near term to the partnership for a new generation of vehicles. Then the administration went to a world summit on sustainable development and joined forces with Saudi Arabia in opposing

targets and timeframes for increasing renewable energy worldwide.

And then the administration denied a petition to regulate greenhouse gases and is still in court defending that decision. The administration refused to raise efficiency standards for cars and opposed Senator McCain’s modest legislation setting mandatory caps

on global warming, pollution. The Cheney Energy Task Force, if

anything, increased not decreased global warming pollution. And

now the administration is trying to overturn efforts in California

and 10 other States requiring motor vehicles to reduce their emission of greenhouse gases.

If this is a firm commitment to sensible action, we might be better off with no action from this administration.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. You can answer that if you would like,

Mr. Connaughton.

Mr. CONNAUGHTON. Some of what you say is factually correct,

contextually out of place, and some of it is a gross distortion. I will

leave it at that, given the fact that Mr. Waxman doesn’t want a

long answer from me.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Well, his time is up, but if you want to

answer it you are welcome to. If not——

Mr. CONNAUGHTON. I have a long list. It is hard in my 5 minutes

to respond to each of those allegations. I look forward to further

conversations about it.

Mr. WAXMAN. I would certainly give him an opportunity to elaborate further because I have made some serious accusations.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. If you want to take a second, you are welcome to, and address a couple of the issues.

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Mr. CONNAUGHTON. Sure. Let’s start with CAFE, fuel economy

standards. It was the national energy plan led by Vice President

Cheney that made very clear, based on recommendations by the

National Academy of Sciences, another report that we commissioned, the Bush administration commissioned, on the need to get

on with improving fuel economy standards, but do it in a way that

doesn’t kill people.

CAFE is a 30 year old statute, well intentioned, proved to have

a bad design. The car companies down-weighted cars and we had

more traffic fatalities and thousands of new injuries. The Academy

gave us good advice on how to improve fuel economy safely. The

President called on Congress to lift the rider that had blocked us

from doing fuel economy standards. Secretary Mineta, a strong

Democrat, is the one that pushed for that, the Secretary of Transportation, and Congress lifted the rider.

We moved forward with the fastest schedule ever to set new fuel

economy standards for light trucks and SUVs, including Hummers,

for the first time, and we accomplished that goal, and we did it

twice. We set it for 2005 to 2007 and we set a new set of standards

for 2008 to 2011, and that had not been done in the generation

prior.

At the same time, 5 years ago the President called on Congress

to give us the authority to go after passenger cars. Congress still,

5 years later, has not given us that authority. We want it. We can

make safe improvements in fuel economy in the passenger sector,

too, just like we have done it for light trucks. But we didn’t stop there. The President called for nearly $1 billion in tax credits for the most fuel efficient vehicles. That was also

in the national energy plan in 2001. We finally got that 4 years

later in EPAC last year, supported in a bipartisan basis, which is

fabulous.

But we didn’t stop there. You said that we have opposed the new

advances in vehicle technologies. That is flatly wrong. In the State

of Union in 2003 the President put hydrogen powered vehicles on

the world stage and has unleashed a massive new Federal investment, nearly $1.7 billion, the largest, I think, one of the largest single technology investments the Nation has committed to. And he

has found a way to partner with dozens of countries internationally, not just to make this a U.S. initiative, which is what the partnership for a next generation vehicle was about, but with hydrogen

we have made it a global initiative to create a global opportunity

for this zero emission energy source.

But it didn’t stop there. The President also pushed for tax credits

to put more money back in consumers’ pockets. The Republicans in

Congress strongly endorsed that package, and if you look at the vehicle sales that followed those tax rebates for the purchase of

newer, more efficient, higher performing cars, it was a great outcome from a piece of good economic policy.

So I will just give you that as one example. I could hit five of

your others with the same set.

There is a popular mythology out there, sir, that we need to reconcile with this kind of a conversation, and there are lots of great

things we can be doing in a sensible way, so let’s just get on with

it.

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Shays. We have three votes on, but I am going to go to another round, get some questions out of the way. We will come back

afterwards.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. I am happy to have my opportunity to

ask questions.

I feel like there was a Faustian agreement between the manufacturers and labor, manufacturers particularly representing, tending

to be more Republican, laborers tending to be more Democratic, to

not move forward with what just strikes me as obvious. We exempted minivans, SUVs, and trucks from the standard, but cars

were under it.

There is no logic that they should be exempted, not under, and

I would say to you, Mr. Connaughton, I get the sense that the administration has been passive on this issue, and therefore, given

the record of the administration, it is going to be viewed as against

it. So clarify the position for me, if you would.

Mr. CONNAUGHTON. Well, on fuel economy, again, we have to cut

against what I call popular mythology and what actually occurred.

The national energy plan of 2001 specifically had as a component

the need to remove the barriers to setting new fuel economy standards, No. 1, and we called on Congress to do that. Secretary Mineta

sent two letters, and we have statements of administration position

related to various legislative efforts focused on implementing the

National Academy of Science recommendations. That goes all the

way back to 2001. I personally worked on that. I worked with

Norm Mineta on that.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me just ask you if you could sort of shorten your

answers a bit.

Mr. CONNAUGHTON. OK. And then following that we got the rider

lifted on light trucks. On our own initiative we added large SUVs

and Hummers, which were excluded. You are absolutely right. And

we now have fuel economy standards governing those vehicles for

the first time.

Mr. SHAYS. What are those standards?

Mr. CONNAUGHTON. I don’t have the precise numbers. It is about

a 15 percent improvement in the near term.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me just say to you that is where I have my problem. After September 11th I would have loved this administration

to have said to the environmental community, the energy community, we are going to be energy independent, Manhattan project,

whatever you want to call it, a race to the moon, and so I think

you would agree, while you have done those things, it is not the

kind of thing where he went out every day like he did on Social

Security and say, you know, this is what I want.

Therefore, given that in the beginning of this administration it

almost wanted the environmental community to dislike it so it

could be favorable with some—and, unfortunately, you are faced on

the environmental side, but, you know, you were put in a position.

If the administration was viewed as being pro-environment, some

Republicans thought that was bad. Now we are in the mess we are

in. I think that is why the administration is in the mess it is in.

A lot of the good steps it has taken it will not get credit for because

of that.

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I want to ask you, there were resolutions on Kyoto, and I am

wondering if you could speak to any of them. There was one resolution I believe on July 25, 1997 to which the vote was 95 to zero.

Are you familiar with that vote?

Mr. CONNAUGHTON. Yes, I am.

Mr. SHAYS. Would you explain what that vote was all about?

Mr. CONNAUGHTON. That was before the administration went off

to cut the final deal on Kyoto, and the Senate, in a bipartisan

basis, said, don’t come back with a deal that has two problems.

One, it is going to really impede economic growth, so don’t come

back with a deal that is going to cost us a lot of jobs. And don’t

come back with a deal that doesn’t include the major emitters in

the developing world.

The administration came back with that deal, a deal that was

bad economically, shifting jobs overseas as I discussed, and a deal

that didn’t seriously engage the large developing country emitters.

The administration, to its credit, spent 4 years trying to fix it.

They did not succeed even when they are in the lame duck——

Mr. SHAYS. You are talking about the previous administration?

Mr. CONNAUGHTON. The Clinton administration. Even when they

were in the lame duck period when they could have saddled the

Bush administration with a bad deal, they didn’t. So, to their credit, they knew that they needed to fix those problems, the economic

piece and the developing country piece, and it never happened.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Let me just ask you, Dr. Karl, you are pretty

emphatic. You leave no doubt global warming exists and mankind

is the biggest contributor. That is your statement. I happen to believe it. Is the debate ended within the administration about this?

Can we put that behind us, no longer have a debate coming from

the administration? Or is this debate with some Senators, Republicans in the Senate? Is there a continued debate or is global warming for real and, in fact, primarily caused by humans?

Dr. KARL. I think there isn’t much of a debate. I can speak probably more reliably in the scientific community about whether global

warming is real and whether humans are having an impact on it.

Where the debate in the science community currently is focused

today is will the changes be at the higher end of sensitivity to atmospheric changes and greenhouse gases or at the lower end. That

makes a big difference in what I indicated earlier.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me just say a concluding sentence. I think it is

dramatic that this is definitively being said to this committee. If

nothing else, just having you two make that statement is worth a

lot, and I thank you both.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Van Hollen, do you want to try to get your 5 minutes in?

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Whatever you want to do.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. Van Hollen, let me see how many

minutes are left.

I think with your indulgence—we have three votes, we will get

at the end of one. We will be back in about 20 minutes.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Mr. Chairman, I won’t be able to come

back. Can I provide questions to both Dr. Karl and Mr.

Connaughton and have them respond to those questions?

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. That would be fine. No problem at all.

They have expressed a willingness to entertain and try to be as

forthcoming as they can on these issues. Mr. Waxman and I are

sending a number of questions up that we didn’t have time to get

today. They have agreed to answer.

Thank you very much. We will recess for about 20 minutes.

[Recess.]

Chairman TOM DAVIS. The committee will come back to order.

While I am waiting for Mr. Van Hollen, I just had a followup.

Dr. Karl, your models are not exact, right? You just take the

variables and plug it in to the best of your ability, right?

Dr. KARL. Did you say models are not exact?

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Correct.

Dr. KARL. Yes.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. They are models.

Dr. KARL. Yes.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I mean, you have variables, you plug them

in, nobody understands what all the variables were together. To

what percent do you think they are reliable? We look at this as the

best data we can put together, and if you were given a reliability

factor and you are looking ahead 10 years and what happened and

how you projected it?

Dr. KARL. For the climate models looking ahead into the

future——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I know what our budget models are like

here in Congress, so, I mean, I hope you are doing better than that.

Dr. KARL. Well, there are two things that cause them to be in

error. One is whether or not the changes that we think might

occur, whether they actually do in terms of changes, for example,

in atmospheric composition, events that are unforeseen, volcanic

emissions, so there are scenarios that are put in the models that

are——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. May or may not occur?

Dr. KARL. May or may not occur. So that is one source of uncertainty. The other areas which would cause models to be less reliable have to do with what we discussed earlier as their ability to

take a complex system, run it in a computer, and if you had all our

understanding in one model you would not have a computer fast

enough to run that model, so you have to make some assumptions

and parameterizations, as the word is called.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. But the time line? I think you and Mr.

Connaughton would agree the trend line is essentially correct? Mr.

Connaughton, would you say that the trend line in their models is

one that you would agree with?

Mr. CONNAUGHTON. The trend line is at an order of scale in

which you could have relatively high confidence, as the scientists

will tell you about, and we recently published a report on temperature change that was the first assessment product that the science

panel put out.

But then as we get into these second order issues, that is when

the very important interface between the scientific community, in

terms of what they see physically, but also there is interface in the

policy community and economic community in terms of what you

see in human development, human effects. There is a lot of interVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:46 Oct 19, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00125 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\29932.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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face between projections about that, and we are constantly building

our levels of data into that and our levels of confidence.

When we talk about the nearly 2 billion to climate science, a big

chunk of it is dedicated to reducing our uncertainties.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. And how confident are you and Dr. Karl?

You agree with the basic trend, but he hasn’t given me a percentage, and if you don’t feel comfortable that is fine.

Mr. CONNAUGHTON. I am not qualified actually to express personal confidence, so I just take——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Or unconfidence?

Mr. CONNAUGHTON. What we get from the scientific community

as a policymaker is we get some—I call it we get a band width.

They say here is one end of the scale, and here is at the other end

of the scale, and here is our range of confidence. That is helpful for

policymaking, just like a budget projection. We do that with weather. We do it with air pollution. We have different levels of capacity

to have confidence in those projections, and climate is probably the

most complex puzzle we are dealing with right now. So you need

to accept it in that mode.

We know enough to commit this incredible program of work

going forward and commit the level of taxpayer resources that we

are putting in this. We know that much. And then we are constantly learning on how to adjust that.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

Mr. Van Hollen.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank

you both for your testimony. Mr. Connaughton, let me also echo the

statements of Mr. Shays with respect to congratulations on preserving many thousands of acres in the Pacific Ocean around the

Hawaiian islands. I think that was an achievement.

As you know, we get a very short amount of time to ask these

questions, so I am going to ask you, if you could, to keep your answers brief.

We heard the testimony this morning that you agreed with the

scientific statement that Dr. Karl made. Would you agree it is important for our political leaders, given the urgency of this issue, to

speak out clearly and let the American people know that this is a

challenge and that the scientific debate on the issues we discussed

this morning is behind us?

Mr. CONNAUGHTON. Yes, and it is also important to educate the

public on where the science is going in terms of what we are trying

to learn about the effects of climate change.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I want to just read a statement that President

Bush gave on July 6th to People Magazine in response to a question about global climate change. He said, ‘‘I think we have a problem on global warming. I think there is a debate about whether it

is caused by mankind or whether it is caused naturally, but it is

a worthy debate.’’

My understanding is that your testimony this morning is that

that debate is, in fact, over; that, in fact, global climate change is

real; and I understood you to accept the conclusions of Dr. Karl

that in recent times the majority of it is caused by human activity;

is that right?

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Mr. CONNAUGHTON. Yes, and I want to make sure you understand the context for where we are in our understanding of science

from a policy perspective. There is a lot of agreement top line on

warming, lot of agreement on human contribution to the problem.

We begin to get into issues about the extent to which humans are

a problem. We begin to get into issues of natural forces and human

forces and the effects they cause. So there is still debate as we get

into these lower level issues. At the top, a lot of agreement.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Let me just——

Mr. CONNAUGHTON. By the way, that is where the President is,

too.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. OK.

Mr. CONNAUGHTON. He has got a lot of agreement up top and he

is taking the science as we get it.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. The statement you both made this morning is

the majority of the problem in recent times has been human contribution. The President’s statement does not reflect that. This is

an important issue for the American people, and if the top political

leadership doesn’t let the public know that we are in agreement on

this issue I think it is a disservice to the people of the country. He

said he has a debate about whether—a debate not how much, a debate about whether it is caused by mankind or whether it is caused

naturally.

I don’t have time to go into this any more, but that is the President’s statement.

Mr. CONNAUGHTON. I need to clarify. The President has said

much more than that, and, in fact, he said very strongly what I

have said to you, so I do not want to leave this hearing with an

impression that the President is somehow in a different position

than what you are hearing from me today because that would not

be correct.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. All right. What I am worried about is the

President’s position as the last person who talked to him on this

issue. I am sorry, but that is my statement, not yours, and I understand what you are saying. But this kind of statement in the most

recent issue, one of the most recent, in People Magazine, which is

read by millions of people, would give you the impression that hey,

we really haven’t reached a scientific consensus on what I understand we have reached a consensus on, based on the testimony you

both gave this morning.

Mr. CONNAUGHTON. And I would disagree with that characterization.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. OK. Thank you. I said it was mine.

In the 2002 energy bill—so now we have a consensus we have

a problem. Now we have to figure out what we are going to do

about it.

Now, in the 2002 energy bill Senator Brownback put a provision

in that would have required large companies to disclose their

greenhouse emissions. The administration, the Bush administration’s statement or position on that bill opposed that provision, simply requiring them to report their emission levels. Can you explain

why we would not want to know what they were?

Mr. CONNAUGHTON. We went back and forth on the appropriate

mechanism for work with the industry. We didn’t think a mandaVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:46 Oct 19, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00127 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\29932.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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tory reporting system, per se, made a lot of sense, given the fact

we already had a functioning program that had been working since

1992.

What the President wanted to do was improve and fix that program, which we have now done. Just this year we have completed

all the protocols for actually state-of-the-art, industry-wide reporting on greenhouse gases. We then create a climate vision that got

the major emitting sectors making specific greenhouse gas reduction commitments. They are not just saying what they are doing,

but making commitments to reduce, and all of that infrastructure

is now underway, so I think we are there.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Is it your testimony we now know the amount

of greenhouse gases being emitted by American industry on a percompany basis?

Mr. CONNAUGHTON. Yes. We know it on a macro basis and we

have good data sector by sector, and we are getting better data

company by company, and that is what our new 1605(b) guidelines

are going to incentivize.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Let me ask you, California, as you know, has

set a law that set greenhouse gas emission standards for automobiles. Ten other States said that they are prepared to follow

suit. The Governor of California I believe is a strong proponent of

this bill. Can you tell me what the administration’s position is on

that?

Mr. CONNAUGHTON. To the extent the program is the equivalent

of setting a fuel economy standard, the courts have made clear that

is preempted by the CAFE law, which was enacted by a Democratic

Congress and signed by President Jimmy Carter back in the

1970’s, saying if we are going to have a fuel economy standard it

needs to occur on a nationwide basis because of the huge market

disruptions that would occur by doing in a State by State basis.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Let me ask you, would you adopt the California legal provisions as a national policy, you, the administration?

What would your position be on doing that?

Mr. CONNAUGHTON. We do not support that as national policy;

we support the CAFE program under the reform system that we

have now implemented and that is enjoying broad support. And, by

the way, we support fuel economy in the automobile fleet in all 50

States, not just in a handful of States.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. If I could, Mr. Chairman, that is why I asked

you. You said you objected to the California provision on some legal

technicality, and the CAFE standard, so my question was: are you

prepared to amend the national CAFE standard law and essentially put in place at the national level the California law? You

would agree that would get better—that would improve our ability

to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, would you not?

Mr. CONNAUGHTON. We don’t need to adopt the California law as

national law because we have a national law for setting fuel economy standards, and that is the corporate average fuel economy

statute.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I understand that. Mr. Chairman, if I could

just, I mean, obviously the people of California have decided that

is not adequate to achieve the reductions they want, and they want

to move ahead as a State. You say you are opposed to that because

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it is superseded by CAFE, but you are unwilling to increase CAFE

to get the same kind of emission reductions that the California law

would provide for; is that right?

Mr. CONNAUGHTON. You are comparing apples and oranges.

What we have done is set standards for the period through 2011.

The California program goes well beyond that. We have made no

decision as to what happens after 2011 because the CAFE statute

requires an administrative process led by technical experts on

product design and on economics to figure out the rate that makes

the most sense, given those factors that Congress—again, on a bipartisan basis, including some Members who were around back

then for part of the creation of that statute. We have a process for

doing that.

California seeks to leap ahead and do it arbitrarily. We think it

is much better to do it through a process that is based on the facts

and the economic evidence and the technical evidence.

Mr. WAXMAN. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I would be happy to yield.

Mr. WAXMAN. As a Californian and as someone who was here to

pass that law and the Clean Air Act, the whole premise of the

Clean air Act was modeled on the fact that California had taken

the lead on trying to reduce emissions that cause smog and other

pollutants that cause health problems. Here California wants to

take the lead on responding to this global warming climate change

issue, and yet the Republican administration that at least rhetorically talks about local decisionmaking wants to keep the local State

of California from going ahead of the Federal Government. I do believe that Mr. Van Hollen was correct when he characterized it as

using a loophole that the industry has suggested is a basis for challenging it, rather than let the States do actions on its own.

Are you against any experimentation at the State level or do you

think Washington knows best for everybody?

Mr. CONNAUGHTON. We actually strongly support work at the

State level to the extent it is not preempted by Federal law. In this

specific example there is probably a clear case of preemption, but

also I would be concerned, Congressman, about——

Mr. WAXMAN. It is not a clear case of preemption. It is the preemption argument that the administration is making along with

the industry to throw it out.

Mr. CONNAUGHTON. Actually, we already had the one round on

the preemption argument with respect to the California zero emission vehicle mandate and the court threw that out. But I would

also be cautious about using California as an example because

California often has rhetoric that exceeds its results. California did

lead early on in cutting air pollution, but as we sit here today California’s air quality is the worst in the Nation and they have no

prayer of meeting the current air quality standards. So I want to

be careful when separating, again, well intentioned, you know, although, maybe unsupported objective with real programs designed

to achieve reasonably ambitious outcomes that we have some confidence in attaining.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. This panel has got to leave. I promised

12:30. Let me give Mr. Kucinich a couple of questions. He is coming

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in. Can you bear with that, Mr. Connaughton, and then we will

move to the next panel.

Mr. KUCINICH. I thank the chairman. I thank the Chair for holding this hearing.

Mr. Connaughton, many European leaders are taking their cues

from science which is unambiguous on one point: to stabilize the

climate requires humanity worldwide cut emissions by 70 to 80

percent. As a result, Holland is now cutting emissions by 80 percent in 40 years. Mr. Blair has committed the U.K. to cutting by

60 percent in 50 years. Germany has obligated itself to cuts of 50

percent in 50 years.

Several months ago French President Chirac called on the entire

industrial world to cut emissions 75 percent by 2050. How long

would it take for the United States to reach a goal of emissions reductions of 75 percent below current levels with the administration’s current policies?

Mr. CONNAUGHTON. You weren’t here earlier, Congressman. I

want to sort of differentiate between very good, solid aspirations for

what we might achieve 50 years from now from sort of the hardnosed what can we achieve in reasonable timeframes and have

some confidence and success.

Mr. KUCINICH. Well, we breathe through hard noses.

Mr. CONNAUGHTON. Yes, we do. I do, as well. So when you ask,

we are on track to significantly slowing the growth of emissions in

the near term. I personally have high confidence that we will stop

the growth of emissions, especially if we make real progress on getting nuclear power back into our energy mix and if we can find a

way to commercialize the zero emission coal plants. Those are two

big breakthroughs for which there are huge policy obstacles right

now.

Mr. KUCINICH. It is kind of interesting you would say that, because the very notion of greenhouse gas intensity gives the administration cover to claim credit for reduction of greenhouse gases,

and that simply isn’t true. So-called greenhouse intensity or gas intensity would have gone down simply because of efficiency gains,

alone. So I am going to ask you again: what levels of greenhouse

gases do we need to achieve for our own well-being, and how quickly must we achieve them? I am asking you a second time.

Mr. CONNAUGHTON. Well, to take the first part of your question,

it is clear that massive new investments in efficiency are actually

helping us to dramatically slow the growth of greenhouse gas emissions, and it is resulting from billions and billions of dollars of private sector investment, aided by good Government policies—bipartisan Government policies, I would add.

In terms of what will it take until we stop and what will it take

to get to the levels that you described, I can’t give you an answer

right now. There is not a basis for giving an answer.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you. But I think it is important to give

that answer. I mean, we have other nations that are giving answers, and I think it is important if we are going to see the good

faith of the administration on this issue of greenhouse gas reduction. Other nations are declaring targets, shouldn’t we?

One section of the GAO report boasts of funnelling millions of

dollars in subsidies for nuclear power, but using nuclear power to

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effect any meaningful reduction in greenhouse gases would cost

trillions of dollars. Renewable technologies, on the other hand, are

much more cost effective to implement. Could you tell me and this

committee why does the administration favor nuclear power over

renewables, despite the poor economics of nuclear power?

Mr. CONNAUGHTON. We don’t favor one or the other. We need a

lot more of both. The cost profile on the renewable, many renewable sources right now are more expensive than their fossil counterparts, but they can be installed rapidly, so that is why you have

seen States like Texas, huge investment in wind power, and that

is fabulous. At the same time, nuclear power plants are really expensive to build but really cheap to operate, but they take longer

to install. So you just have two very different economic platforms,

which is why the policies directed at nuclear are different than the

incentives directed at renewables.

But I would note, Congressman——

Mr. KUCINICH. Let me ask you——

Mr. CONNAUGHTON [continuing]. This Congress on a bipartisan

basis——

Mr. KUCINICH. I want to note something. You are talking a cost/

benefit analysis here.

Mr. CONNAUGHTON. No, I am not, sir.

Mr. KUCINICH. Well, I hope you are, because are you taking into

account in your underlying assumptions the cost of nuclear waste,

which is stored and never disposed of? Do you take that into account in terms of the cost of nuclear power, or do you write that

off the books?

Mr. CONNAUGHTON. No. In terms of the total life cycle of cost we

do take that into account.

Mr. KUCINICH. Storage?

Mr. CONNAUGHTON. Storage. But what we have moving forward

right now, plank one occurred in the Energy Policy Act, but we are

trying to get to a new regime on the waste management and storage issue that would dramatically cut the cost of both management

and storage. That has not been factored in, but if we can make success there then the cost profile of nuclear becomes even better. And

by the way, it is safer and more proliferation resistant, and that

is really good.

Mr. KUCINICH. Do you take into account the nuclear proliferation

aspects of national security when you are talking about promoting

nuclear technologies as opposed to safe, renewable technology? Do

you factor that cost?

Mr. CONNAUGHTON. The answer is yes. You can do it in a qualified way. As a matter of policy, Secretary Bodman, shortly after the

State of the Union this year, launched the new global nuclear energy partnership which is directed specifically at the important

issue of proliferation. I think the objectives of that program would

be very consistent with some of the current concerns I have heard

you voice in the past, Congressman, about nuclear power.

One other observation as to the other countries. While they all

have—some of them have these long-term aspirational goals. You

missed my earlier testimony. When you look at what they are actually doing, the rate of progress that they are making today, it is

the case that the rate of progress in those key countries in Europe,

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here, and Asia we are all making about the same near-term rate

of progress.

By the way, that is a good thing because it is an improved rate

of progress, but you still have to differentiate a 50 year articulated

goal, you know, for which the current political actors will not be

around to see achieved, from what they are actually doing as a

matter of policies to produce specific results. The results are good,

but we are all pulling in the same direction at about the same rate.

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, thank you.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you. And, Mr. Connaughton, thank

you very much for your testimony and elaborating on the administration’s plan.

Mr. CONNAUGHTON. Thank you.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Dr. Karl, thank you. Did you want to add

one thing?

Dr. KARL. Mr. Chairman, I would like to give you a little more

direct answer to the question on reliability of climate models. I

think they are reliable enough to be a very useful guide into the

future, and we have improved them considerably in the last couple

of decades.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I do not think there is any disagreement

from Mr. Connaughton either. I just tried to get a percent. It is

tough, given all the variables. That is all I was trying to get. I

wasn’t trying to discredit you. We appreciate all the work that you

are doing.

I will dismiss this panel and we will now recognize our second

panel.

We will have Dr. Judith Curry, the Chair of the School of Earth

and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Institute of Technology; Dr.

John R. Christy, professor and director, Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville; Dr. Roger Pielke,

the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado at Boulder; and Dr. Jay Gulledge, senior research fellow for science and impacts at the Pew Center on Global

Climate Change.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Dr. Curry, we will start with you and we

will move right on down. Your entire testimony is in the record, so

what you say, you can supplement or highlight for the audience,

the cameras, and the Members, but we are going to ask questions

based on the total testimony.

You have a light in front of you. It turns green when you start,

orange after 4 minutes, and red after 5. To the extent we can keep

with that, we would appreciate it. Thank you.

Welcome to the committee, and thank you.

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STATEMENTS OF JUDITH CURRY, CHAIR, SCHOOL OF EARTH

AND ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES, GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF

TECHNOLOGY; JOHN R. CHRISTY, PROFESSOR AND DIRECTOR, EARTH SYSTEM SCIENCE CENTER, NSSTC, UNIVERSITY

OF ALABAMA IN HUNTSVILLE; ROGER A. PIELKE, JR., CENTER FOR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY RESEARCH,

UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO AT BOULDER; JAY GULLEDGE,

SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW FOR SCIENCE & IMPACTS, PEW

CENTER ON GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE

STATEMENT OF JUDITH CURRY

Dr. CURRY. Thank you.

I would like to thank the chairman, the ranking member, and

the committee for the opportunity to present testimony today.

My name is Judith Curry, and I am the Chair of the School of

Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Institute of Technology, and I have been conducting climate research for the past

20 years. Most recently, I have been conducting research on the

subject of hurricanes and global warming.

The prospect of increased hurricane activity on a warmer climate

is an issue of substantial societal concern. In my written statement

I have outlined in some detail the evidence for the impact of global

warming on increased hurricane activity. In my testimony today I

will focus on presenting the data, the documents that interpret the

increase in hurricane activity. All of the data that I am presenting

is publicly available from NOAA, and most of this information is

already published in peer reviewed scientific journals.

[Slide presentation.]

Dr. CURRY. Let’s begin by examining the historical data record

of north Atlantic tropical cyclones back to 1851. This figure shows

the numbers of named storms in blue, hurricanes in red, and category four and five hurricanes in green.

To highlight the decadal and longer-term variability, the data

has been smoothed to eliminate the year to year variabilities such

as that from El Nino.

Some cycles are apparent in data, but the most striking aspect

is the particularly high level of activity since 1995. If you compare

the statistics for the most recent decade with the previous decade

of peak activity centered around 1950, it would seem that the current period has 50 percent more name storms, 50 percent more

hurricanes, and 50 percent more category four and five storms than

the previous peak period.

This figure shows the total named storms in blue overlain by the

average tropical sea surface temperature in red. The period 1910

to 1920, with low storm activity, was associated with anomalously

cool sea surface temperatures in the north Atlantic. The most recent period of elevated activity is associated with anomalously high

sea surface temperatures. On average, an increase in temperature

a half a degree centigrade, which is 1 degree fahrenheit, implies an

additional five tropical storms per season.

Let’s take a closer look at the cycles. A 70 year cycle referred to

as the Atlantic multi-decadal oscillation, is evident from peaks

around 1880 and 1950 and valleys around 1915 and 1985. Also evident is a smaller 20 year cycle.

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Examination of the cyclic variations indicates that the next peak

in the cycle is expected around 2020; hence, it appears that these

cyclical variations cannot explain the high level of north Atlantic

activity we have seen in the past decade, 50 percent higher than

the previous peak in 1950.

What does this increase mean for the United States in terms of

land-falling hurricanes? In this plot of the number of land-falling

storms, the 70 and 20 year cycles are clearly seen. Recall the peak

in the current 70 year cycle is expected around 2020. While we are

presently 15 years from the peak in this current natural cycle, the

number of land-falling storms in the past decade has already surpassed the previous peak period in the 1930’s to 1950’s.

If we cannot explain the recent elevated hurricane activity by

natural cyclic variability, can we therefore assume the increase is

caused by greenhouse warming? Prior to the 2005 hurricane season, Dr. Kevin Trenberth published commentary in Science raising

the issue as to whether the recent increase in north Atlantic hurricane activity could be attributed to global warming.

I was skeptical of this idea at the time, since it did not seem reasonable to infer anything about the impact of global warming merely by examining data in the north Atlantic. Trenberth’s paper motivated our group at Georgia Tech to examine the global hurricane

data that was available from the satellite data base since 1970.

A paper published in Science last September showed that, while

there has been no increase globally in the number of hurricanes

since 1970, the proportion of category four and five hurricanes has

doubled. These are the most intense hurricanes. This implies that

the distribution of hurricane intensity has shifted toward more intense hurricanes.

The two dominant factors that determine hurricane intensity are

the tropical sea surface temperature and vertical wind shear. The

figure on the left shows the change in tropical sea surface temperatures for each of the regions where hurricanes formed. Since 1970,

there has been an increase of 1 degree fahrenheit in each of these

regions. By contrast, the figure on the right shows that there has

been no trend in wind shear. Our research has shown that the

global increase in category four and five hurricanes since 1970’s is

directly linked to the trend in tropical sea surface temperature.

What is causing the increase in global tropical sea surface temperatures? This tropical warming is consistent with a similar increase in global surface temperatures, which is shown by the black

curve in the figure. The cause and attribution of surface temperature trends over the last century has been extensively studied, as

summarized in numerous assessment reports using the results of

climate model simulations, as described previously by Tom Karl.

The results from one such climate model from the National Center for Atmospheric Research are shown in this figure. The blue

curve shows the response of the global surface temperature only

from the natural forcing, solar, plus volcanoes. The red curve shows

the response to natural forcing plus that caused by humans, including greenhouse gases. It has seen that since 1970’s the global surface temperature trend in black cannot be reproduced in climate

models without inclusion of greenhouse warming.

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So what can we conclude at this point about hurricanes and global warming? This research that we publish is new. Numerous uncertainties remain in our understanding of how global warming is

influencing hurricane activity; however, particularly in the north

Atlantic, where warmer sea surface temperatures cause more intense hurricanes, as well as more numerous storms, global warming is expected to continue to elevate the risk from hurricanes.

[End of slide presentation.]

Dr. CURRY. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Curry follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much, Dr. Curry.

Dr. Christy, thank you for being with us.

STATEMENT OF JOHN R. CHRISTY

Dr. CHRISTY. Thank you, Chairman Davis and Ranking Member

Waxman and committee members, who evidently are not here. I

am John Christy, professor of atmospheric science and director of

the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in

Huntsville. I am also an Alabama State climatologist.

I recently served as the lead author of the Climate Change

Science Program’s Reporter [CCSP], on temperature trends, and

was a panelist on the National Academy of Science’s Report on

Temperature Reconstructions for the Past 2,000 years.

I will be reporting today on research I have completed over the

past 2 years that has just appeared or will be appearing shortly in

publications. In one paper my research shows that in central California the changes in temperature indicate a pattern more closely

related to land use changes rather than the effects anticipated by

the greenhouse theory. Two other papers deal with atmospheric

temperatures and indicate that the atmosphere is apparently

warming at a more modest rate than projected by a greenhouse

theory.

Earlier this year I and three co-authors published a paper on

temperature trends in central California since 1910. This was actually a followup to work I did as a teenager growing up in San Joaquin Valley some 40 years ago when all I had was a pencil, graph

paper, a slide rule, and a fascination for climate. This new work,

though, was sponsored by the National Science Foundation.

What drew my attention to central California now was the apparent rapid rise in night time temperatures in the valley being

warmer than any I remembered as a teenager. In my written testimony I described in more detail how that work was accomplished,

but let me say here that there was a lot of manual digitization of

paper records. We utilized literally 10 times the amount of data of

any previous study in this region.

We discovered that, indeed, since 1910 the night time temperatures in the valley had warmed remarkably, about 6 degrees in

summer and fall, while the daytime temperatures in the valley actually fell 3 degrees in those seasons. This night time warming is

consistent with the effects of urbanization and massive growth in

irrigation around the 18 stations we used. The cooling daytime

temperatures are also consistent with irrigation.

But the real surprise was the temperature record of the 23 stations in the Sierra foothills and mountains. We found no change in

temperature since 1910. Now, irrigation and urbanization have not

affected the foothills and mountains to any large extent, but evidently nothing else had, either.

Those temperature observations did not match the output given

by models which included greenhouse effects specifically downscaled for California. These models show that the Sierras should

have warmed more rapidly than the valley.

While these results are provocative, we will, of course, await

more analysis. That is the way science works. However, we performed four ways to check potential errors of these trends and

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found that the night time warming in the valley was significant in

all cases, but the changes in the Sierras were not. These results

don’t agree with the current greenhouse warming theory when applied to this region.

While the bottom line here is that models have shortcomings in

reproducing the type of regional changes that apparently have occurred, this also implies that they would be ineffective at projecting

future changes with confidence, especially as a test of the effectiveness of certain policies.

Now, there was considerable media attention given to the CCSP

report about temperature trends at the surface and those in the

lower atmosphere up to about 35,000 feet. Much of it, in my view,

was misrepresented, they misrepresented the report, and in my

written testimony I deal with some of those issues.

The basic question that CCSP addressed was whether actual

temperature trends in the atmosphere were warming faster than

the surface, because that is a feature of climate model projections.

The number of observational data sets, or a number of observational data sets, indicate a slower rate of atmospheric warming

than models project. My new research sponsored by the Department of Energy, Department of Transportation, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration seeks to answer questions

left open by the CCSP.

In these studies, I included new observational data sets and

more formally assessed errors and uncertainties. In both papers we

show that atmospheric trends indeed appear to be less positive

than greenhouse theory projects, especially in the tropics, which

represent fully one-third of the Earth.

Now what does this mean? That greenhouse gases are increasing

in concentration is clearly true, and therefore they will have an impact on the radiation budget of the atmosphere. In our observational work we have not been able to show clear support for the

way this effect is being depicted in the present set of climate models.

To policymakers my point is the following: we cannot reliably

project the trajectory of the climate for large regions—United

States, for example—it would be far more difficult to reliably predict the effects of a policy that altered by a tiny amount any greenhouse emissions. The evidence I presented here is consistent with

that view.

Now, I feel I have some expertise not common to the average scientist that I believe is important to the whole discussion of climate

change. In the 1970’s I taught science and math in Africa as a missionary teacher, and I observed the energy system there. The energy source was wood chopped from the forest. The energy transmission system was the backs of women and girls. The energy use

system was burning the wood in an open fire indoors for heat and

light. The consequence of that energy system was deforestation and

habitat loss, while for people it was poor respiratory and eye

health.

The U.N. estimates 1.6 million women and children die each year

from the effects of this indoor smoke. That is 1.6 million die each

year now due to this primitive energy system. So the energy system will grow, as it should, to allow these people to experience the

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advances in health and prosperity that we in this country enjoy.

They are far more vulnerable to impacts of poverty and political

strife than whatever the climate system might do.

I simply close with a plea: please remember the needs and aspirations of the poorest among us when policy is made.

Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Christy follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Dr. Pielke.

STATEMENT OF ROGER A. PIELKE, JR.

Dr. PIELKE. Thank you, Chairman Davis, for the opportunity to

offer testimony today. My name is Roger Pielke, Jr. I am a professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado, where

I studied the intersection of science and policy.

I would like to start by reading a quote by former Representative

James Scheuer, 1992, who was speaking at a hearing not unlike

this one. He was speaking to representatives of the Federal research community. He said, ‘‘How much longer do you think it will

take before the Nation’s climate researchers are able to hone down

their conclusions to some very simple recommendations on tangible, specific action programs that are rational and sensible and

cost effective for us to take, justified by what we already know?’’

The main message of my testimony is that the questions about

what actions on climate change make sense in the short term

raised by Congressman Scheuer remain largely unanswered 16

years later. Until we better organize the climate science and technology enterprise to focus on policy options for the short term, the

climate debate is likely to remain in its present gridlock.

I am going to quickly go through eight take-home points in my

testimony that are spelled out in far more detail than I can present

here.

No. 1, human-caused climate change is real and requires attention by policymakers to both mitigation and adaptation, but there

is no quick fix. The issue will be with us for decades and longer.

The IPCC has concluded that greenhouse gas emissions resulting

from human activity are an important driver of changes in climate,

and on this basis alone I am personally convinced that it makes

sense to take action to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Of course,

the answer to what action is not at all straightforward. It involves

questions of on what time scales, at what cost, with what consequences, with what foregone opportunities, and what mix of adaptation and mitigation.

Two is a very important point: any conceivable emissions reductions policies, even if successful, cannot have a perceptible impact

on the climate for many decades. The long lead time until mitigation could have a perceptible effect on the climate system seem to

be well appreciated by many scientists and policy analysts, but

seems less well appreciated in the public and political debate over

climate change.

It is quite easy to postulate various alternative scenarios for future emissions, but at the same time it is similarly quite easy to

discuss various scenarios for global poverty, democracy in Iraq, or

the future state of the deficit. What matters for real world outcomes are not future scenarios but concrete, rational policy actions.

No. 3, the cost of action, whatever they may be, are born in the

near term and the benefits are achieved in the distant future. Due

to the properties of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and their

effects on the climate system, even if society takes immediate and

drastic action on emissions there could be no scientifically valid arVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:46 Oct 19, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00157 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\29932.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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gument that such actions will lead to a perceptibly better climate

in coming decades.

The point of this analysis is not to throw up our hands and do

nothing about mitigation, but the asymmetry in costs and benefits

suggests that if meaningful action is to occur on mitigation we

must think about different strategies, and in particular policy options that have more symmetry between the timing of costs and

benefits.

I fully intend that this perspective be viewed as an alternative

to the two-sided debate that has been caricatured as climate skeptics versus climate alarmists. Perhaps those holding this third position might be characterized as climate realists.

No. 4, many policies that result in a reduction in emissions also

provide benefits in the short term that are unrelated to climate

change. Examples of such short-term issues related to mitigation

include addressing the cost of energy, the benefits of reducing reliance on fossil fuels from the middle east, the innovation and jobcreating possibilities of alternative energy technologies, reducing

particulate air pollution, increasing transportation efficiencies, and

so on.

In coming decades, the only policies that can effectively be used

to manage the immediate effects of climate variability and change

will be adaptive. For example, even accepting a large role for

human-caused influences on hurricane intensities, greenhouse gas

mitigation offers little prospect for significantly reducing future

hurricane damages.

No. 6, climate policy, particularly international climate policy

under the Framework Convention on Climate Change has been

structured so as to keep policy related to the long-term climate

change distinct from policies related to shorter-term issues of energy policy and adaptation.

No. 7, following this political organization of international climate change policy, research agendas have emphasized the long

term, meaning that relatively very little attention is paid to developing specific policy options or near-term technologies that might

be put into place with both short-term and long-term benefits. The

U.S. global change research program and its successors, the climate

change science program, have never placed the needs of decisionmakers at the center of their mission, focusing instead on advancing scientific understandings or reducing uncertainties.

Part of the explanation for the situation lies in the fact that the

scientific community has benefited immensely from the current approach, and an emphasis on short-term policy and technological options would necessarily imply a different approach to climate

science and technology policy priorities.

Another part of the explanation is that it is quite easy for policymakers to put the burden of solving the problem onto the scientific

community, which also has the effect of using research policies as

a substitute for other types of action. With political advocates on

either side of the issue also looking to science as a leading element

of their public relations and political lobbying campaigns, it should

be no surprise that scientific and technological research on climate

has focused on long-term issues over the generation of practical options for short-term considerations.

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Eight, finally, the climate debate may have begun to slowly reflect these realities, but the research and development community

has not yet focused much attention on developing policy and technological options that might be politically viable, cost effective, and

practically feasible. I am convinced that as people begin to see the

limited performance of existing approaches to emissions reductions

and as the toll of climate-related disasters grow due to ever-increasing vulnerabilities, there will be a shift to a more short-term

focused approach to climate mitigation and adaptation. However,

given the institutional and political momentum which currently

characterize the climate issue, there is a substantial risk that the

issue will continue to display sound and fury, with most action

being symbolic or simply ineffectual.

The question is whether we can organize our intellectual infrastructure to invent and bring forward policy and technological options that will satisfy both the short-term and long-term facets of

this incredibly complex issue.

Through oversight of the climate change science program and the

climate change technology program, Congress might motivate the

evolution of these programs to focus more explicitly on the needs

of decisionmakers.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Pielke follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Dr. Gulledge.

STATEMENT OF JAY GULLEDGE

Dr. GULLEDGE. Mr. Chairman and ranking member and members of the committee, I appreciate this opportunity.

I just want to clarify that while I am replacing Dr. Hansen on

the panel, I am not representing him, and my testimony is my own.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. We appreciate your coming on short notice.

Dr. GULLEDGE. Thank you. I appreciate that.

[Slide presentation.]

Dr. GULLEDGE. I am senior research fellow for science and impacts at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, as well as an

Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Louisville, which

houses my academic research program on carbon cycling.

Dr. Karl sat up here earlier and gave you some very affirmative

questions and exhibited a lot of certainty about some things for the

science, and I want to give you a sense for why the science in recent years has really become quite solid and scientists have become

quite certain about the causes of climate change.

I would summarize the progress as under two broad categories:

reductions of uncertainties and observed changes in the climate

itself.

Dr. Karl showed you that the global surface temperature has, in

fact, risen over the 20th century, and it has increased by about 1.4

degrees fahrenheit over this time.

We see the same pattern of warming in the Arctic, and we see

that it is amplified there. The warming there has been on the order

of 2 degrees or more. Currently, even though we had quite a warm

period during the 20th century in the Arctic, we see that we have

exceeded that significantly at this point.

We see the same kind of pattern for sea surface temperatures.

This is just an example from the tropical Atlantic. Again, the current temperatures there have exceeded the warm period during the

middle of the 20th century.

Not only are we the warmest time in this past century, a number

of efforts have been made to document the temperature trends over

the last thousand years. None of these attempts have been able to

show that there has been a time that it was as warm in the past

thousand years as we currently see.

Now, these next two slides are very fundamental to what I am

trying to communicate here about reduced uncertainties. First, I

show a picture here of Antarctica, but globally there has been an

intensification of the water cycle of glaciers, both in mountains as

well as polar ice in the north and in the south. Back in the 1980’s

it was predicted that you should see an intensification of the water

cycle, which means more snowfall in the high elevations of glaciers

and more melting at the low elevations of glaciers. This has not

been confirmed globally. We see it in Greenland, we see it in Antarctica, and we see it in mountain glaciers around the world, including the tropics.

This was predicted more than two decades ago based on specifically how the greenhouse effect should drive changes in glaciers

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around the world. More recently, this year it has also been documented that the atmosphere above Antarctica has warmed dramatically relative to the rest of the world, and we weren’t sure

about that before and now we actually have that confirmation.

This slide is also very important. Also recently, data on the heat

content of the ocean over the last 50 years has been compiled, and

we now see that the ocean has been gaining heat over the last 50

years, at least—that is where we start the record—and this is an

immense amount of energy. You cannot get it from anywhere else

in the climate system. It has to come from outside the climate system and it is consistent with what we call an external forcing.

There are not many external forcings that we can think of. During

this time, for instance, there has been no apparent increase in the

intensity of the sun, but this is when the most increases occurred

in greenhouse gases.

Now, when you have greenhouse forcing, most of the energy getting trapped goes first into the ocean, more than 80 percent of it,

and it is here. This warming you see here is what we call the

warming in the pipeline. This energy will equilibrate with the atmosphere later. There is about another 1 degree of warming

trapped in here already. And we already see that the 1 degree of

warming we have had in the past 50 years has already caused the

immense continent of Antarctica to respond.

Now, the consequences are numerous. I am focusing on global

changes here. Mountain glaciers around the world have reacted to

these changes in climate, and here we have a reconstruction of glacier lengths related through a physical model, a mathematical

physical model to surface temperature. These are glaciers from

around the world. We see that in the 20th century it starts here

in the little Ice Age and remains stable until 1850, and then glaciers begin to retreat. This accelerates dramatically in the 20th

century, and glaciers respond to the small changes that we see,

global changes that we see during the 20th century. So this tells

us that, in fact, the climate is quite sensitive, even to the relatively

small climate change that is already in the bag.

Next we see that the arctic ice, sea ice, has reached its lowest

recorded extent in the year 2005.

Greenland, according to the latest measurements, which have

some uncertainty, is apparently having a net loss of ice. First observations of Antarctica suggest the same. This was published just

this year. The point of all of this is that we are seeing all these

impacts globally.

Finally, the next slide shows that we have finally—one of the uncertainties was whether or not sea level rise was accelerating. You

definitely should expect that. Over the last decade, the rate of sea

level rise has been 70 percent faster, based on satellite measurements, than the average over the 20th century, which does suggest

that there has been an acceleration. Time will tell whether that is

a persistent effect. Right now the rate of sea level rise would give

us 1 foot of additional sea level rise by 2100 without further acceleration.

To sum up, we have had reduced uncertainties. We now know

that the warming is truly global, even over Antarctica, which was

a big question. Warming has reached historic proportions. Glacier

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water cycle intensification is occurring globally. The ocean is

known to be gaining heat, and sea level rise appears to be accelerating.

Finally, the observed changes in the climate tell us that, in fact,

the climate system globally is quite sensitive to these levels of

changes, and so far the changes are small compared to what is projected for the future as a result of greenhouse gas forcing. We see

global glacier loss accelerating. The Arctic Ocean may be heading

for an ice free condition, according to recent research. The changes

generally have been faster than expected, which tells us we have

probably also underestimated the sensitivity of the climate system

in the past. That is based on the warming we have had so far, and

we know we have a similar amount of warming already in the pipeline.

[End of slide presentation.]

Dr. GULLEDGE. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Gulledge follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Dr. Christy, Dr. Gulledge points to reduced uncertainties. Is that

consistent with your new studies?

Dr. CHRISTY. Reduced sensitivities about what?

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Just generally the issues on climate

change and the variables, accuracy of data.

Dr. CHRISTY. In our work we start looking at climate on the

ground and in the air. We see continued uncertainties, that there

are significant differences between model projections in these

places I have shown. There are some other examples in there, too,

in the regional scale aspects of climate.

The global average temperature, that is a different story, but remember that all climate modelers knew what the answer was

ahead of time when they began reproducing the last 100 years or

so.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Dr. Curry, we are policymakers. We are

not scientists. Mr. Waxman and I are lawyers. We do the best we

can. But in the 1980’s you called yourself a skeptic about global

warming, but your research has now directed you away from that,

but NOAA disagrees with some of your findings on hurricanes. Is

there any way to reach a consensus on this to get everybody

around and reach a consensus?

Dr. CURRY. The issue of hurricanes and global warming has received intense scrutiny for only about the past year, and that is

sort of relatively new. Now, these things have to go back and forth.

We have to survive challenges by skeptics, etc. I think the subject

is rife for an assessment by a body such as the National Academy

of Sciences to get an independent body of scientists who can assess

the evidence, the data, the quality of the data, the published research that has been done, to make some sort of an assessment and

recommendation for clarifying the uncertainties.

You know, too much of this debate is going on in the media and

it has been polarized beyond anything that makes sense in terms

of the actual science. I think we do need an assessment. The National Academy of Science Climate Research Committee and Board

on Atmospheric and Science Research has proposed such an assessment. They have not yet identified funding. I encourage this committee to encourage such an assessment so we can at least sort out

the evidence that we have so far and try to make sense of it.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Dr. Pielke, in your testimony you stated

that available research and experience shows quite clearly that

progress is far more likely when actions align a short-term focus

with the longer-term concerns. I wonder if you could kind of elaborate on that?

Dr. PIELKE. Yes. In my testimony I refer to some research that

was done looking at some of the State and local initiatives related

to climate change mitigation. The question was: what makes these

successful? When do they work? When do they go beyond the statement of aspirations into actual progress on the ground? What those

researchers found was that when those local government entities

were able to line up—and this holds true for companies, as well—

their short-term motivations, whether it is reducing the cost of energy, improving transportation efficiencies, reducing air pollution,

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it is much easier for them to sell and put into place these policies

that may be justified as long-term climate change policies.

Certainly for State and local communities, such as the one I live

in in Boulder, any action that they take on energy policy is not

going to materially affect the climate, so it could be a very hard sell

to the citizens in those communities.

Similarly, if you look at the history of ozone depletion, ozone depletion gained traction as a political issue when substitutes were

invented. Substitutes allowed companies like DuPont to realize economic benefits in the short term as they were dealing with a decade-old, very long-term problem.

But I think if you look at any issue beyond scientific issues, such

as people saving for retirement, the Government gives tax breaks

for people who put that money aside to try to reconcile short-term

benefits with long-term benefits. It is just a common sense approach to public policy.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. OK. Dr. Christy, what precisely do you

conclude scientifically from your finding that the location of warming is not what is predicted by the models? Does that mean that

the increased greenhouse gas emissions are not going to alter the

climate or that they are not going to alter it as much, or that the

ways in which they would alter are very, very uncertain and unpredictable?

Dr. CHRISTY. From your description there, the latter two results

are that the radiated forcing must increase because of this extra

CO2. There is really no way around that. There will be extra joules

of energy stored in the climate system.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. There is agreement I think with everybody on that. That is not a fact in dispute. The question is then

how is that going to be expressed?

Dr. CHRISTY. Right. The uncertainty is there, and I think the

earlier panelists had mentioned them. In our data system—and we

are doing boots-on-the-ground kind of climate work here—don’t

match up very clearly with the scenarios we see in the global climate models.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. But the excess CO2, that is not a good

thing over time? Could you say that?

Dr. CHRISTY. If you ask a corn plant it might think more CO2 is

great.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. If you live in North Dakota, maybe it is

good?

Dr. CHRISTY. That, too.

Dr. GULLEDGE. Mr. Chairman, if I might add some perspective.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Please.

Dr. GULLEDGE. The testimony that I gave is based almost entirely on research published in the last 2 years and it is purely observational. There is no modeling results there. It is all on-theground research. It is what is happening on the ground in Antarctica. The glacier cycle, water cycle is intensifying. The atmosphere

above it is warming. These are things that the modelers did not

know ahead of time.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. What does that mean? So the ocean rises

2 feet over 100 years. What does that do to me?

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Dr. GULLEDGE. Well, it means, from my perspective as someone

who is asking questions about the basic physics of the climate, it

means that there is more energy being trapped in the climate system that is causing it to rise. Now, that is the nature of the testimony I am giving, is that it confirms our understanding that the

climate is responding in a sensitive fashion to the energy that is

being trapped into the system.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Natural changes have gone on, though, for

hundreds of thousands, for millions of years.

Dr. GULLEDGE. That is correct, and we are examining a variety

of possible forcings. As I said, the heat absorption of the ocean tells

us that this heat is coming from outside the Earth’s system. This

isn’t a transfer of heat from one place to another within a climate.

You have to look for an external forcing, and one that can be responsible for everything from the sea level rise to the intensification of the glacier water cycle on Antarctica.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. What is happening in Antarctica is really

manmade, is what you are saying?

Dr. GULLEDGE. It clearly——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Indirectly.

Dr. GULLEDGE [continuing]. Was predicted as the kind of response you would expect to see from greenhouse forcing, and it cannot be explained by something like changes in the sun. And it can

be explained by the amount of greenhouse gases that we have

added to the atmosphere.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. And the changes. What will occur is there

will be new species developed and you will have species go extinct

and water lines will change, but what does it mean 100 or 200

years from now.

Dr. GULLEDGE. You are asking about impacts?

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Yes.

Dr. GULLEDGE. It means the coastlines will be inundated. The

coastal cities will have more of a storm surge. Right now we have

coastal cities that care whether storm surge is plus or minus a foot.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Let me ask Dr. Curry, do you agree with

that, too, that we are seeing more storm surge today?

Dr. CURRY. Absolutely. There are some island nations that are on

the verge of just being subsumed. A big chunk of Bangladesh sits

about 2 feet above sea level. A big chunk of south Florida sits at

2 or 3 feet above sea level. We have seen from Katrina what happens when a big storm surge hits a city that is below sea level—

not good things.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. And is there a consensus that the weather

cycles of the last maybe decade, to some extent the warming of the

water in the Caribbean having an effect?

Dr. CURRY. Yes.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. The previous panel seemed to indicate

that.

Dr. CURRY. Yes. Observations clearly show the sea level rise.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. That is uncontroverted, in your opinion?

Dr. CURRY. Yes.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. How about you, Dr. Christy?

Dr. CHRISTY. Yes. The sea level has been rising for 18,000 years

and should continue to rise because there is more ice to melt in the

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system. About 130,000 years ago it was 18 feet higher as a result

of that natural period. Someone mentioned about a foot per century. That is entirely reasonable and you don’t even have to invoke

greenhouse warming, but greenhouse warming might accelerate

that a bit.

As a State climatologist I advise people on the coast, and I say,

look, it is not the 1 inch per decade that is going to get you, it is

the 20 feet that comes in 5 hours because of the storm surge. That

is so much——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. You think the storm surges are worse

today than they have probably been over the last——

Dr. CHRISTY. Not particularly. They are absolutely worse because

we have more expensive things in the way that are just saying,

come and hit me. You are going to see in the next century devastating hurricanes hit the Gulf Coast and the Atlantic Coast.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. How about the West Coast? Does Mr.

Waxman get free?

Dr. CHRISTY. I think he is safe.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. He has got earthquakes to worry about.

Dr. CHRISTY. Watch out for earthquakes.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Dr. Pielke.

Mr. WAXMAN. Just to say that statement that there be increases

in hurricanes, and my question to you is why.

Dr. CHRISTY. I am sorry?

Mr. WAXMAN. Why?

Dr. CHRISTY. No, I didn’t say an increase in hurricanes, I just

said there will be an increase in hurricane damage because there

is more stuff to damage.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. More stuff is built up.

Dr. CHRISTY. It is going to be devastating, and this fellow knows

a lot about that.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Dr. Pielke.

Dr. PIELKE. Yes. Earlier this spring in Germany I helped co-organize a workshop with Munich Reinsurance. The question we asked

was: given this global trend of increasing disaster costs, which is

going off the charts, can we attribute any part of that to humancaused climate change?

It turns out that the only consensus we could reach on that was

that we could not at this time attribute that. Some people believed

that it could be attributed, others not. What everyone agreed on,

that at least 80 to 90 percent of the trend in the increasing damage

could be attributed to more wealth, more population, more people

along the coast.

The largest signal in the effects that we see like Katrina’s and

others from extreme events are the decisions that we make every

day: where to build, how to build, at what value. That is driving

the impacts much, much more than any of the changes in climate

that might have been documented so far.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. OK. Mr. Waxman.

Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank each

of our witnesses for their presentations.

As the chairman said, we are not scientists, we are policymakers,

and it turns out that both of us are lawyers. You are a lawyer are

not you, Dr. Pielke?

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Dr. PIELKE. No, I am trained as a political scientist.

Mr. WAXMAN. Political scientist, but you are not a climatologist?

Dr. PIELKE. No.

Mr. WAXMAN. OK. So what we have in the four of you is different

views, and we try to figure out what those different views represent, but it is appropriate to hear different points of view. But

there seems to be among scientists overall a pretty strong consensus. The chairman asked about it. Dr. Karl stated that the current

debate in the science is no longer about whether humans are causing climate change but how sensitive the climate will be to a given

amount of CO2 in the future.

Dr. Gulledge, can you provide any more background in the state

of that important scientific question?

Dr. GULLEDGE. Yes, about how sensitive the climate is to

changes in forcing or amount of CO2 or, for that matter, any kind

of forcing that might change over time. This really is the $50 million question in climate science, and that is where the true scientific debate is going on in the science research at this time. And

by debate, of course, I mean people do their research and then they

compare their results and argue about them.

For a long time there was very little progress in understanding

the sensitivity. The range kind of stayed the same for a long time.

The bottom end is 1.4 degrees celsius, which is about 21⁄2 degrees,

up to about 6 degrees, with a mid range 2 to 4. Most of the modeling work comes out in that 2 to 4 range, meaning that for a doubling of CO2 you would expect 2 to 4 degrees increase in surface

temperature.

Recently there has been more progress——

Mr. WAXMAN. What does this debate mean to us as policymakers?

Dr. GULLEDGE. Well, the sensitivity of the climate is going to determine what the level of impacts is going to be.

Mr. WAXMAN. And does Dr. Christy have a different view, that

he thinks the impact is going to be less?

Dr. GULLEDGE. I can’t characterize his view on that.

Mr. WAXMAN. Is that accurate, Dr. Christy? Do you think it is

going to be less of an impact?

Dr. CHRISTY. It will be on the low end.

Mr. WAXMAN. The low end?

Dr. CHRISTY. Yes.

Mr. WAXMAN. So, therefore, if we view it on the low end, there

is less for us to do; if we view it as a higher-end problem, there

is more for us to do? Is that an accurate statement for policymakers?

Dr. CHRISTY. Maybe if I would just characterize it simply this

way: if the world uses 10 terawatts of energy right now and you

wanted to have a 10 percent impact on that, you would need 1,000

nuclear power plants, 1 gigawatt. So if you want to add 10 percent

impact on the emissions it would take 1,000 nuclear power plants.

Mr. WAXMAN. That is one way. The question is how much of a

problem we have, therefore how much of a solution. Your views

seem to be the problem is not as great.

Dr. Curry, Dr. Christy discussed a number of studies of his that

downplay the risk of climate change and dismiss the capabilities of

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climate models, and he seems to suggest that these studies undermine the arguments for taking prompt action to address global

warming. Do you want to comment on that?

Dr. CURRY. Yes. Looking at one very small location or region to

try to infer, climate models are not capable of resolving at the level

of one city or one small region at this point, so the issue of one

small region in California disagreeing with some inference about

what—climate models talk about things on larger scales, continental, southeast United States, that kind of a scale it can talk about.

It can’t talk about at the county level or the sub-State level.

I mean, that is not what we are able to do, so I don’t think that

we can disprove climate model simulations by looking at temperature records in one location. That is basically what I would say. So

I don’t think that those kinds of studies refute climate model predictions in any way.

Mr. WAXMAN. Dr. Curry, in your written testimony you note that

high-level NOAA officials and selected scientists from the National

Weather Service have repeatedly categorically denied a connection

between global warming and increased hurricane intensity, yet several peer-reviewed studies published in top science journals, including your own study, have found evidence of such a connection.

Have those studies been proven wrong in any way so as to provide a basis for the NOAA denials? And, if not, could you please

discuss the implications of a Government science agency such as

NOAA issuing such categorical denials while completely disregarding the most recent credible scientific evidence.

Dr. CURRY. The two papers that were published during last

year’s hurricane by Kerry Emanuel, and the one led by Peter Webster talking about the increase in hurricane intensity, these were

two papers that were very provocative, landmark studies done by

very reputable scientific groups. They generated an enormous

amount of attention, and they have basically been categorically ignored by NOAA and their testimony. They have specifically said

that it does not have to do with global warming.

It puzzles me because this seems to be driven by a few scientists

in NOAA. I don’t believe that if NOAA administrators had talked

to scientists at the National Climatic Data Center or to scientists

at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, that they would

have gotten that kind of assessment. So I don’t know what was

driving those kind of statements. Not to even mention that there

was a debate underway to me seems irresponsible because the

statements by NOAA are, by default, you know, the official Government position on this subject, and it is not consistent with the current published research and the scientific debate that is underway.

Mr. WAXMAN. Well, it would be good for us to hear from them

and see what they say, challenge them on that point, see their reaction.

I see the red light is on.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. You can do a couple more questions.

Mr. WAXMAN. I can do a couple more questions? I guess the thing

that is always perplexing to us when we hear about a scientific dispute is to figure out what that means in terms of how much time

we have to do something.

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Dr. Pielke, I remember the debate on the deterioration of the

ozone layer. It came up in 1977. Believe it or not, I was here in

1977. I worked on the Clean Air Act revisions. I remember people

coming in and saying the argument that chlorofluorocarbons is

causing deterioration of the upper ozone layer, that is just not established, that is a theory but we shouldn’t do anything about it.

By 1990 the Congress was looking at the Clean Air Act revisions

again and we put in a very strong provision, stronger than the

Montreal Protocol, because we felt that we ought to do something

about the problem, even though it was a global one and Montreal

Protocol hadn’t been worked out, I don’t believe. I guess we were

still working on it, and the fact we were working on it pushed them

to resolve it internationally.

If there is an issue and we decide we had better do something

about it, do you think we ought to be stopped in the United States

from doing something until everybody is doing it? Or do you think

that we ought to show some leadership and then others will go

along with us, particularly in the area of developing resources to

combat pollution or emissions where we can be out front if we take

the lead in it?

Dr. PIELKE. Let me say I am very familiar through my own research with your early efforts on climate change following ozone,

and they are to be commended because there was some very forward thinking there. It seems to me that this debate that we just

saw between scientists and talking about the science, it becomes irrelevant if we can come up with policies that make sense in the

short term without having to have some specificity about the longterm costs and benefits of some global policy. So the United States

should be in the lead. It should be participating internationally.

Most importantly, it should be continually bringing new options to

discuss.

Europe is having tremendous difficulty meeting their own targets. They need new options. The United States shouldn’t stick its

head in the sand. I agree with some of the critiques of the administration’s position. They are simply using the wrong metric of success, and asking what are the effects of your policies on outcomes

is the right question. But you can’t beat something with nothing,

and right now what I see is there is a lot of debate about let’s take

action, but not a lot of specificity about, all right, who is going to

take what actions on what time scale at what cost.

Mr. WAXMAN. Do you think it would be helpful for the State of

California, which is almost like an independent nation—10 percent

of the automobiles, or at least 10 percent, are bought and sold in

California—to have tighter emissions standards? It is not going to

solve the problem for the planet, but it certainly does drive action

by the Federal Government and internationally if they put out

standards and the technology to accomplish those standards is developed, and hopefully that is going to be, I think, an economic

boon to those who work on it in California.

Dr. PIELKE. Yes. I think the States are laboratories for experiments, and that the States should be allowed to see what they can

do using a variety of different approaches the Federal Government

can evaluate, and we need to evaluate at the same time what is

working, what is not working. If it works and they work as adverVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:46 Oct 19, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00193 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\29932.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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tised, scale them up to the Federal level. If they don’t, say, well,

that is too bad. We will try something else. But that is part of introducing new options is allowing States and communities to experiment.

Mr. WAXMAN. Well, that is one of my debates with Mr.

Connaughton, because it seems that the administration is telling

the States, don’t you go ahead of us, and then making sure that

the Federal Government moves as slowly as possible, even though

we already have some technology, and tell us basically to wait until

way, way later until we get a silver bullet like hydrogen.

I appreciate your comments, all of you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Van Hollen.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize. I had

another meeting to go to, so I didn’t have the benefit of all the oral

testimony. I have had a chance to look at some of the written testimony.

If I could just start with you, Dr. Curry, I agree it sends confused

signals when the head of the Weather Service, for example, doesn’t

even acknowledge this is a debate that is ongoing. There is no debate, is there, to the fact that surface water temperatures, for example, in the Gulf increased last summer, is there?

Dr. CURRY. In the scientific literature, no, but you will find certain scientists telling the media that it is not increasing.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. That surface water was not higher during the

last hurricane season?

Dr. CURRY. Yes. I participated in a debate where the person I

was debating actually said that, scientific debate, so what gets published in the scientific literature versus what gets out there publicly is diverging. That is what I am trying to say.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Right.

Dr. CURRY. So the published scientific research agrees that sea

surface temperature has increased since 1970.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. All right. Is there agreement, even though

skeptics, those that are trying to say something different than

what the scientific consensus is, do they agree that if surface water

temperatures are increasing that it would have the effect of increasing the intensity?

Dr. CURRY. Yes.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Everyone is agreed on that, but they are disputing that the underlying fact is so?

Dr. CURRY. Yes. People, the skeptics, may say, well, wind shear

may counteract all that. Wind shear is really more important.

Some people have said that, but, again, theory, models, and the

data support the link with sea surface temperature increase.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. All right. Is there a dispute on this panel as

to the increase in sea surface temperature? No? OK.

I would like to ask you if I could, Dr. Christy, because, as I understand your testimony, you have raised certain uncertainties

about the science, and obviously in every area there is a range of

predictions, but, as I understand it, you were on the panel that

drafted the American Geophysical Union’s official statement on climate change in 2003; is that correct?

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Dr. CHRISTY. That is correct, sir.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. And did you agree with the findings of that

panel?

Dr. CHRISTY. Yes.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. You did? All right. Because, as I understand

it, the statement acknowledges that the global climate is changing

and human activities are contributing to that change. So you agree

with that statement; is that right?

Dr. CHRISTY. Yes.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. All right. And I understand that, according to

the AGU, it is virtually certain that increasing greenhouse gas concentrations will cause global surface climate to be warmer. Do you

have any reason to dispute that?

Dr. CHRISTY. No, and the reason that is stated exactly that way

is there is no magnitude associated with that statement, and my

famous quote that was all over the papers and NPR and so on was,

here we are after changing deserts into farmland and forests into

cities and throwing dust and soot and aerosols in the atmosphere

and adding greenhouse gases, the climate just has to respond some

way. It should change because of human activities.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. So you have been on a number of panels, including the National Research Council, as well. Are there any findings or statements that have come out of those panels that you

served on that you disagree with?

Dr. CHRISTY. That is a big question, and I had problems with

some, yes.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. OK. Did you have a dissenting opinion in any

of those?

Dr. CHRISTY. In one case I said, please put a footnote in there

that says John Christy takes this view on this particular issue, but

the pressure was just so hard and placed upon me as sort of the

only person on there, that there had to be a consensus, and so we

went ahead with graying up one of the words.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. You grayed one of the words. If I could just

ask, on the surface temperature issue, because I just want to make

sure, if you agree that there is an increase in the surface temperature, and I understood no one to sort of disagree with that scientific

conclusion, would you agree that certainly one reason surface temperatures may be rising is a result of global climate change produced by human activity?

Dr. CHRISTY. The surface temperature has risen, and part of the

cause of that is due to the enhanced greenhouses that humans

have put into the atmosphere.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. OK. And you also agree that increased surface

water temperature leads to more intense hurricanes?

Dr. CHRISTY. I am not an expert on hurricanes.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. All right. Fair enough.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have one question on the issue

of short-term reductions that you mentioned. Have you put forward

a set of sort of policy recommendations as to what short-term steps

we can take?

Dr. PIELKE. I have some listed. They have gone by different

names as no regrets options, or co-benefits, or ancillary benefits. It

seems that we have the cart and the horse mixed up. We are trying

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to look to reduce greenhouse gases and say, well, look at all these

short-term benefits that come along with it. It seems to me turning

it around and saying, well, let’s do those things on technological innovation, energy efficiency, foreign policy, and hey, look, we get the

greenhouse gas thing for free on the side. It seems that we have

taken the most politically intractable part of this problem and put

it at the center.

If anyone had the answer we wouldn’t be sitting here today, so

that is why I think that the wonderful resources of our technologists, our scientists, ought to be put to the test, not of the scientific questions about hurricanes and temperature, but give us

some options, give us some things that you folks can turn into legislation, we can experiment with, and maybe has a real effect in

the short term.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I certainly agree that we should be pursuing

immediate options. I think one of the obstacles, frankly, to getting

people to move forward on some more immediate options is the fact

that some people continue to cloud the issue about whether there

is any reason for us to be moving forward.

For example, let me ask you, the administration’s budget this

year actually cut the amount of funding for energy efficiency programs. There is some increase in some of the renewable energy

programs, but wouldn’t you agree that one of the areas we could

get some very short-term gains in reducing greenhouse emissions

is through greater efficiency standards, and that it is short-sighted

to cut the budget for work in that area?

Dr. PIELKE. I would agree with that.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr MARCHANT [presiding]. Thank you.

Dr. Pielke, as a former Hill staffer, you know how things work

around here.

Dr. PIELKE. Well, I was an intern, so I got coffee and stuff, but

yes.

Mr. MARCHANT. You at least know how people like their coffee.

[Laughter.]

What unique message do you have for the Members and staffers

to help them as they navigate the politics to arrive at appropriate

responses to climate change?

Dr. PIELKE. I think one of the most instructive things for me is

to take a look at hearings over time on this issue, and if you don’t

look at the date they look about the same over a decade, 15 years.

The discussion is always on the science and trying to get some consensus on the science.

In my testimony I cite a poll done by the National Journal of

Members of Congress, and it asked Members of Congress, some select group, what are your views on global climate change, and I

don’t have the exact numbers in front of me but something like 98

percent of Democrats thought it is a real serious issue and 23 percent of Republicans, a big partisan divide there.

But they asked a second set of questions: what sort of policies do

you think make sense? They had to do with energy efficiency,

CAFE standards sort of things. There was much greater agreement.

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Scientists are going to be arguing about hurricanes and climate

change 10 years from now. I think that is a safe prediction. I think

the debate has to start moving on to a focus on options, and let’s

set aside the science. The science is plenty good enough and it has

been for a long time for action to take place. Let’s move the discussion. When we ask questions about hurricanes and climate change

I would like to see a followup question: what can we do about it?

What effect will energy policies have on hurricane behavior? How

about adaptation? What can we do to make building codes stronger,

land use policies?

Let’s move from, do we know how many hurricanes are going to

occur to, well, there are going to be a lot. There might be an awful

lot or a terribly awful lot, but the policies that we are going to be

dealing with are probably going to be the same in either case. So

my recommendation is, as interesting as the science is, let’s move

beyond and focus everybody. Policymakers a lot of times set the

agendas for the bully pulpit. Ask the policy questions, not the

science questions.

Mr. MARCHANT. Dr. Christy, Dr. Curry said that you can’t make

an assessment based on a localized region, like in your studies.

Would you like to comment on that?

Dr. CHRISTY. That is a correct statement, that one small region

like that isn’t something you would want to test your climate models on. What I did was I used lots of climate models on one region,

went to another region, did the same thing that I mentioned in

here but not in my oral testimony. The entire southeast is cooling

over the past 120 years, and not one single climate model in every

run we have ever checked has been able to reproduce that, not once

out of 50 some odd.

But then I think the bigger one is that when you look at something the size of the tropics, that is one-third of the globe. That is

not a trivial part. And so the carbon dioxide, the enhancement of

its concentration will have an effect on the climate, and there are

lots of reasons to not want to burn carbon for energy. It is quaint,

if you think.

A hundred years from now they will look back and say how

quaint it was that they burned carbon for energy back then. And

so I am not sitting here saying let’s not do anything about climate

change, but as a climate scientist looking at so many data sets that

we build ourselves we don’t see the catastrophic direction of the climate system.

Mr. MARCHANT. Your experience in Africa led to your concerns

about unintended consequences of our policy choices regarding

mitigating climate change. How should policymakers look at those

unintended consequences versus the pressure for action?

Dr. CHRISTY. Well, let me come to the State of Alabama. We have

many poor people in my State. If the regulatory climate is to say

let’s increase taxes and drive energy prices high so that is a way

to reduce CO2, that will have a very bad effect on the poorest in

my State, and I would be much against something like that. It will

have no effect on the climate. We would never be able to measure

the effect, in any case.

I really like a lot of the things Roger here has said about what

kind of policy decisions that should be made are those that have

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some effects that have many benefits, and I gave a little example

about the thousand nuclear plants can make a 10 percent dent in

the thing, but who wants to do that. I don’t know.

So just remember there are poor people out there. Energy makes

their lives healthier, it makes their lives longer, and to make energy less accessible to them is, in my view, not the right thing to

do.

Mr. MARCHANT. So you are saying that the thousand nuclear

plants could make a difference, if you just did them for ecological

reasons, but what if they are done for economic reasons as well,

that energy coming out of them is cheaper, as well?

Dr. CHRISTY. You know, I am not an energy expert, but I would

say you are dealing then with other issues like energy security. If

you had your own energy source, you wouldn’t have to deal with

all the things we see in the newspapers today. So there are a lot

of reasons to develop other kinds of energy than what we use now,

as long as we keep it affordable and accessible, because that is important for people’s lives, and especially people I deal with in Alabama.

Mr. MARCHANT. And affordability and accessibility almost

assures continued use and continued escalating use.

Dr. CHRISTY. Yes. I don’t think anyone here would disagree with

the statement that energy demand will rise.

Mr. MARCHANT. With cheaper.

Dr. CHRISTY. No matter what, regardless of price. It brings so

many good benefits immediately to human life, health, and longevity that it, especially around the world in the Third World, energy

use will rise.

Mr. MARCHANT. Mr. Shays.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentleman.

I am so, so sorry I was not able to be here. I do know I don’t

do this often, but I know there is written testimony that I can review, and this will be testimony I will review.

My sense is that we basically, Dr. Curry, can listen to your skepticism at first and your conviction now that we do have a global

warming problem, and that it is impacting the media, which sometimes likes to dramatize, that storms are being impacted because

of global warming. Your nodding of the head is a yes, correct? It

needs to be recorded.

Dr. CURRY. Yes.

Mr. SHAYS. And my sense to you, Dr. Christy, is that when you

look at sea level temperatures and so on it is just an added confirmation that global warming is a factor, as well, correct?

Dr. CHRISTY. Yes, that human effects are causing a change in the

radiation balance that leads to higher temperatures, yes.

Mr. SHAYS. When we put the two of you together, my sense with

you, Dr. Pielke, is that you are looking at it from a policy standpoint and, you know, there are things that can be done in the short

run, and so on; is that correct? Yes. And you, Dr. Gulledge, you

look at the overall policy of how we deal with this issue?

Dr. GULLEDGE. I am sorry, I am not a policy analyst. I am a scientist.

Mr. SHAYS. Then your point, your primary point that you want

me to hear? I am sorry that it is redundant.

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Dr. GULLEDGE. My primary point is that I agree very much with

Roger’s statements that this is the wrong panel sitting here. There

are not enough questions left about the science that we should actually be taking up your time, in my view.

Mr. SHAYS. In other words, case closed, answered?

Dr. GULLEDGE. Any differences you may have perceived about

the science on this panel are actually quite minor and stem more

from differences in perspective than understanding the science.

Mr. SHAYS. Right. And you speak from what background?

Dr. GULLEDGE. I am a scientist. I am an ecosystem ecologist. I

study the carbon cycle.

Mr. SHAYS. Well, for you it may not be significant; for me, it is

about time that we had people sit at a table and say what is the

obvious. I get the sense from you, Dr. Pielke, that even if we did

policies that were not addressing the problem that existed, it would

still be a benefit to our world?

Dr. PIELKE. If we organize our approach to climate change in

that manner. The way that the international approach is set up

under the Framework Convention is it separates out the long-term

climate policies from the sustainable development, energy efficiency, and so it separates those out, and so we don’t talk about

them at the same time.

Mr. SHAYS. So with this in mind, our first panel said global

warming is real and it is being caused in significant measure by

humanity, you all just adding voice to that as scientists, I would

like you to tell me your biggest regret and, if you could get the

President to do one thing, just one thing, what it would be.

But what is your biggest regret? I mean, for me a big regret

would have been not having minivans, SUVs, trucks, and cars all

getting the same mileage when we did it so people couldn’t go off

in that direction, or another one, that fuel was so cheap we didn’t

care about the wasting of energy. That would be a big regret, because I think, had we dealt with it differently, it would have had

a huge impact today. We would be in a different place.

I would like each of you to tell me what your biggest regret is

and what you would like to see happen. I will ask the chairman

to give me a little latitude, since there are only two of us, just to

pursue this. I will start with you.

Dr. GULLEDGE. Thank you. That is a very large question,

and——

Mr. SHAYS. I am going to start with biggest regret, and then I

am going to ask you to say the most significant thing we could and

should do now.

Dr. GULLEDGE. OK. I am going to step back from my profession

as a scientist and speak as a well-informed American citizen who

has followed this issue for a long time. My biggest regret as an

American is that the United States didn’t take leadership in multilateral, international negotiations to deal with climate change two

decades ago, and released its leadership role to other countries so

that in the end we ended up with something that our Congress

didn’t like and our country wasn’t engaged in developing, and now

we are just being left behind and we do not have a leadership role

on one of the biggest issues in the world. I feel terrible about that.

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Mr. SHAYS. I am so happy I asked that question, because that

one comment alone was worth coming here.

Dr. GULLEDGE. Now that is just my view as a citizen.

Dr. PIELKE. My view is fairly wonky. In 1990 when Congress was

debating creating legislation to create the U.S. global change research program there was a parallel effort proposed at the time

called MARS—Mitigation and Adaptation Response Strategies. It

was envisioned at the time to be as large as the scientific research

program, to focus on policy options. Through the mechanics of the

congressional process it got axed, so we focused——

Mr. SHAYS. What was that called?

Dr. PIELKE. MARS, Mitigation and Adaptation Research strategies. I can send you some information.

Mr. SHAYS. And what year was that?

Dr. PIELKE. It was 1990. And so, instead of focusing on response

strategies, the focus became on reducing uncertainties. Given that

we missed that opportunity to focus on response strategies, it

should come as no surprise that we are still talking about science

over policy.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. These are really helpful.

Dr. CHRISTY. I suppose my biggest regret was that the investment in the observing system overall from space, as well as the

surface, has lagged in terms of its ability to be precise and determine long-term changes with much less uncertainty.

Mr. SHAYS. From your standpoint, if we had better technology in

space looking at the Earth——

Dr. CHRISTY. And around the Earth, as well.

Mr. SHAYS. Right.

Dr. CHRISTY. Yes, on the surface. And I suppose my one remark

about the future would be——

Mr. SHAYS. No, not yet.

Dr. CHRISTY. OK. I am sorry.

Mr. SHAYS. I am asking the chairman to indulge me. I know we

got another—I didn’t see Mr. Waxman come back, so maybe he

won’t indulge me, but would you at least answer this question?

Dr. CURRY. OK. I would echo Jay Gulledge’s comments. The fact

that we don’t have a plan at this point and that we are not in a

leadership role is extremely unfortunate. As a scientist, I have

avoided making any kind of specific policy recommendations for

several reasons, so as to appear that I don’t have an agenda, and

that I am not personally qualified to evaluate all the technologies,

the politics, and the economics, but——

Mr. SHAYS. I will yield back. I am sorry.

Dr. CURRY [continuing]. But the fact that we do not have a plan

is very disturbing.

Mr. SHAYS. Do you mind if I just ask then this question?

Mr. WAXMAN. Fine with me.

Mr. SHAYS. Then just tell me the one thing each of you would

like to see—I realize there is lots, but maybe it is the first thing

or whatever, the one big thing that you would like to see happen.

Yes, sir?

Dr. PIELKE. I would like to see increased congressional oversight

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nology program going back to Public Law 101–606 that calls for

those programs to provide policy options.

Mr. SHAYS. By oversight, you want to see more money put into

it?

Dr. PIELKE. No. I want to see you bringing the leaders of those

programs and the executive branch here and saying, what are the

options that are resulting from this multi billion dollar investment?

Mr. SHAYS. OK.

Dr. PIELKE. You get a lot of good science. It is great science. But

you are not getting many options.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Thank you.

Dr. CHRISTY. I would just go along with the Hippocratic Oath:

first, do no harm. Think of the poor people out there. If energy

costs rise, that does specifically and directly affect them.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. The chairman is gaveling me, so the two of you

will be on record. I thank the chairman.

Mr. MARCHANT. Thank you. We have some witnesses that need

to catch some flights, so we are going to go to the third panel.

Mr. SHAYS. Fair enough.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, as this group leaves I just want to

comment that energy prices have doubled over the last 5 years and

it wasn’t because of our efforts to deal with global warming. Maybe

the prices would have not risen so high if we had done something

about energy efficiency, because that would have helped us in the

area of climate change, as well.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Mr. MARCHANT. We will now recognize the third panel as they

are coming up here. We will reconvene in about 3 minutes.

[Recess.]

Mr. MARCHANT. We are still missing one witness. Our first witness is Mr. Theodore Roosevelt, IV, chairman of strategies for the

global environment, the Pew Center on Global Climate Change.

Another of our witnesses present is Mr. Marshall Herskovitz, and

he is a producer, director, and writer of television and film. And

the other witness that we expect shortly is Mr. Andrew Ruben. He

is vice president of corporate strategy and sustainability of the

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

Welcome, gentlemen. It is customary for you to have a 5-minute

opening statement and then we will have questions.

Welcome, Mr. Roosevelt.

It is our custom to swear the witnesses in, so if you will stand

and raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. MARCHANT. Thank you.

Mr. Roosevelt.

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STATEMENTS OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT IV, CHAIRMAN,

STRATEGIES FOR THE GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT/PEW CENTER

ON GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE; ANDREW RUBEN, VICE

PRESIDENT, CORPORATE STRATEGY AND SUSTAINABILITY,

WAL-MART STORES, INC.; AND MARSHALL HERSKOVITZ,

PRODUCER/DIRECTOR/WRITER, TELEVISION AND FILMS

STATEMENT OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT IV

Mr. ROOSEVELT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Ranking

Member Waxman and members of the committee. It is a pleasure

to be here, to see old friends. I want to salute you and your committee for undertaking this hearing. I think it is extremely important.

As the chairman mentioned, I am the chair of global strategies,

which is the umbrella organization for the Pew Center on Climate

Change. I am also co-chair of the Alliance for Climate Protection

and am on the board of the World Resource Institute.

Earlier you just heard, I think, some very good testimony from

the panel on science, and also in the first panel. I am not going to

dwell on this other than to say I believe that the science on this

is compelling and shows clearly that human activities contribute to

global climate change. Sometimes one hears the phrase, the science

is not conclusive. I daresay all of us believe in Einstein’s general

theory of relativity, but I challenge certainly myself and probably

most of you could you prove that theory conclusively. I couldn’t

even prove conclusively Newton’s law of gravity, but when I take

this bottle and bring it over to the edge and push it over I know

that bottle would drop.

Prudence dictates that we take climate change seriously. A farmer who has got his crops and livestock in a barn knows the possibility of lightning hitting that barn is probably remote, but he will

take out a policy of insurance because he knows if lightning does

hit that barn he will be wiped out. We know the possibility of damage from global climate change is not remote, and the longer we

delay addressing this issue the harder it will be for us to find solutions.

At the Pew Center a variety of companies sit on our Business

Environmental Leadership Council. We call that the BELC. The oil

and gas industry is represented by BP and Shell; transportation by

Boeing and Toyota; utilities by PG&E, Duke Energy, and Entergy;

high tech by IBM, Intel, HP; diversified manufacturing by General

Electric and United Technologies. These are all companies that recognize climate change is real. They want to prepare themselves for

a carbon-constrained future and they need time to make the necessary changes. They know that the risks of inaction outweigh the

costs of action.

For example, Marsh, Inc., which just joined the BELC, said in a

white paper, ‘‘Climate change is a significant global risk. Businesses, if they haven’t already, must begin to account for it in their

strategic and operational planning.’’ Another leader in the insurance industry addressing climate change is Swiss Re, which is not

a member of the BELC, but calculates that Katrina resulted in $45

billion of losses and $10 billion each from Rita and Wilma. Obviously, no one can blame damage from one hurricane on climate

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change, but the evidence is pretty clear that, while the overall

number of hurricanes may not increase, the number of category

four and five hurricanes will, and with increased violence in hurricanes will come increased losses.

Some companies see attractive investment opportunities in meeting the need for renewable energy and increased energy efficiency.

BP has created an alternative energy division, and they plan to invest up to about $8 billion over the next 10 years. General Electric,

in its well-thought-out ecomagination initiative, plans to see revenues go to $10 billion over the next several years, which represents

a doubling of where they currently are. Venture capitalists invested

$1.4 billion in clean technology in 2005, up 43 percent from 2004.

The carbon disclosure project started with 35 companies in 2003

accounting for about $4.5 trillion of assets. Today there are 155 institutions with combined assets of $21 trillion that have signed

onto the carbon disclosure project.

Business, however, cannot do it alone. We need mandatory compliance structured in such a way as to take advantage of the tremendous power of markets and unleash the creativity of American

companies and businesses to meet the challenges when required to

do so. A relevant or perhaps great example of this is the extraordinary success of the 1990 amendment to the Clean Air Act. A key

element in the success of that amendment was the cap in trading

regime for sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxide. That cap in trading regime, which was put in in 1990, resulted by about 2003, 2004 in

a reduction of about a third of these emissions, and they did so

without, I believe, any legal suits as a result.

The elements for success in dealing with climate change will include greater conservation and efficiency in the use of energy and

the use of new and better technologies. Significantly improving our

energy efficiency will improve the competitive position of the

United States, and in many instances will result in lower operating

cost. Development of new technologies will open new markets for

us overseas.

In conclusion, I would like to leave you with two thoughts. Global

climate change is a serious issue and we cannot afford further

delay in addressing it. Second, I have immense confidence in the

power of this country to create effective policies to deal with climate change while maintaining economic growth as long as we can

muster the political leadership to do so.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Roosevelt follows:]

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Mr. MARCHANT. Thank you.

Mr. Ruben.

STATEMENT OF ANDREW RUBEN

Mr. RUBEN. Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Waxman and

distinguished members of the committee, my name is Andrew

Ruben. I am vice president of corporate strategy and sustainability

for Wal-Mart Stores. On behalf of Wal-Mart Stores, we appreciate

the opportunity to provide testimony on this important issue.

As our CEO, Lee Scott has said, business and the environment

are not mutually exclusive. We are passionate about making WalMart a more environmentally friendly company and believe that

greenhouse gases can be cost-effectively reduced throughout the

economy.

I have submitted in writing my testimony. I would like to summarize the testimony for you here.

Today I am prepared to share the various initiatives that WalMart has undertaken and to highlight how our learnings with environmental sustainability make us a better business. As the largest

retailer in the world, the largest private consumer of electricity in

the United States, and the owner of one of the largest private truck

fleets in the country, we recognize the effect we have on the environment.

We similarly recognize the opportunity we have for leadership.

Last year, Lee Scott announced Wal-Mart would make sustainability a key part of the company’s strategy and outlined three aspirational goals. Lee Scott talked about being supplied 100 percent

by renewable energy, creating zero waste, and selling products to

sustain our resources and the environment.

We also have more near-term goals. For example, we will reduce

the solid waste in the back of our stores, clubs, and distribution

centers 25 percent by 2008; our existing facilities will use 20 percent less energy within 6 years; and new facilities that are being

built will use 25 to 35 percent less energy in the next 2 years.

We are already making progress toward these goals. For example, we have recently retrofitted our entire fleet with auxiliary

power units. They are essentially more efficient diesel engines that

allow, while the truck is idling, will allow auxiliary power for heating and cooling of the cab. That change, alone, saves 10 million gallons of diesel per year, avoids 100,000 metric tons of CO2, and, by

the way, saves our business $25.5 million in the avoidance of that

fuel. It is a clear example about how these efforts make us a better

business.

Another example where we can help our customers is compact

fluorescent light bulbs. If the customers that go through our store

in a given week simply buy one high-efficiency compact fluorescent

light bulb, as opposed to today’s traditional incandescent bulb, that

will put $3 billion back into their pockets on electrical savings. It

will equate to 100 million metric tons of CO2, roughly five times

Wal-Mart’s global footprint, and, by the way, save a billion incandescent bulbs from the landfill.

Today less than 10 percent of the light sockets in the United

States currently use these high-efficiency compact fluorescent

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bulbs. You can start to see the immense potential we have in front

of us.

We realized that we have similar opportunity to work with our

suppliers. For example, we recently visited a factory, Dana Undies.

If you are wondering, yes, Dana Undies does make underwear. We

shared with them some of the learnings that we had from our

stores. We talked to the CEO of the company and the plant manager. After making changes from that conversation to their lighting

and their HVAC or heating and air conditioning systems, Dana Undies now sees a 60 percent reduction in their energy costs. It is better for us, it is better for our customers, it is better for the environment, and yes, it is also better for Dana Undies.

Some of the opportunities to create change are less obvious. For

example, we recently removed 2 grams of weight from our private

label of water that is on our shelves. That small change saved 5

million pounds of PET, virgin PET, from ever going into production

every year. Our produce buyers are looking at more ways to buy

locally grown produce, such as expanding a sourcing program for

peaches from two locations in the United States to more than a

dozen. That not only saves transportation; it also saves refrigeration, it saves packaging, while increasing the freshness of that

product while it reaches the stores.

Finally, packaging on something as simple as laundry detergent,

working with Unilever we introduced a product called, All Small

and Mighty. It is essentially a concentrated laundry detergent. It

is one-third the size of a traditional bottle. It saves packaging,

transportation, and water. In fact, if all detergent that was made

made similar changes, we would avoid thousands of deliveries to

our stores and to stores across the United States.

While this is a business strategy, we are sharing everything we

are doing. Simply stated, sharing these innovations and sharing

these learnings allows greater scale and allows change to occur at

a more rapid pace.

Two years ago I could not have imagined that we would have

over 100 environmental NGO’s, activists, and academics at our

headquarters in Bentonville, AR. Two years ago I would have never

believed that they would be coming to join 150 executives from

some of our largest suppliers. Yet, last week, all together with our

senior leadership, we brought these groups together and spent a

day addressing business’s potential role in climate change.

The members of this committee play an important role in what

you are doing today in bringing this topic to bear and having this

conversation. We appreciate the forum that you offer us and look

forward to any ways that we can help provide insight into what

has been going on at one business.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ruben follows:]

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Mr. MARCHANT. Mr. Herskovitz.

STATEMENT OF MARSHALL HERSKOVITZ

Mr. HERSKOVITZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member

Waxman, members of the committee for this chance to appear as

you investigate the issue of global warming. My name is Marshall

Herskovitz. I am a producer, writer, and director in Los Angeles.

I have made such films as Legends of the Fall, Traffic, Last Samurai, and in television Thirty Something. I currently serve as president of the Producers Guild of America.

I have had a long involvement with environmental issues, but I

believe the pressing urgency of global warming transcends any

other, and I have been concerned for several years now, as a communicator, that no clear vision regarding this crisis is being communicated to the American people.

Now, in spite of our science panel today, I feel that a consensus

is forming in the scientific community around the world, around

the number of 80 percent. That is 80 percent of carbon emissions

need to be cut. There is some disagreement as to whether that

should be done in 50 years, 40 years, or 10 years, but some very,

very, very intelligent scientists, including someone who was supposed to be here today, Dr. Hansen, and also the head of the Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change, have all said the real number is 10 years—80 percent carbon emission cuts in 10 years.

That is not even on the agenda of any legislative body anywhere

in the world, and there is a reason for that, and that is because

it seems like it is fundamentally impossible to achieve such a cut.

It is not how business works. It is not how government works. Such

precipitous action would seem to decimate any economy and dismantle the American way of life.

I, however, think these assumptions are totally incorrect, as I

will try to show, as is another assumption that is rarely said out

loud but is insidious, nonetheless, and that is the belief that we

Americans have grown so spoiled and are so unwilling to face hardship that we will sacrifice our children’s future for the sake of our

own present comfort, which is why I am grateful to appear before

this committee, because I am in the process of starting an organization whose purpose will be to overturn these assumptions and

communicate what we believe is a greater truth about our national

character.

We have actually been given a great opportunity at this moment

in America, a challenge that is not only far from impossible but,

in fact, has a blueprint for success that was laid down by our own

parents and grandparents 65 years ago.

In December 1941 this Nation entered a total and unconditional

struggle against the axis powers. Those words total and unconditional are very important. From that moment until August 1945,

as we well know, every single man, woman, and child in the United

States devoted themselves to the one goal of defeating our enemies.

Every aspect of people’s lives was affected: how they work, how

they drove, how they ate, where they lived, not to mention the millions who were killed and injured in battle.

Let us also remember that within the first 3 months after Pearl

Harbor every single automobile plant in the United States had

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been shut down and retooled for making tanks. Not one automobile

was manufactured in the United States between 1942 and 1946,

and I have never read of anyone objecting. No price was too great

if it meant protecting our freedom. But let’s look exactly at what

that price was. Again, I speak here of the economic cost, not the

human cost, which obviously we still honor today.

When all those automobile plants were being retooled, Ford,

Chrysler, and General Motors continued to be profitable. Ordinary

citizens put up with 3 years of food and gas rationing and other

privations, and the Federal Government ran up unprecedented

deficits. The result was that America emerged from the war stronger and richer than it had ever been.

Similarly, the effort necessary to fight global warming does not

in any way spell depression or deprivation for our country; rather—

and this is the key point—it is our current lack of action, or what

I fear will be our half action, that will inevitably lead to disaster.

A national commitment, a war against global warming would

cause all sorts of discomforts and discomfitures, but would also

stimulate new industries and new parts of the economy. Most of

the technology needed to cut those emissions already exist. What

we need is the national will and the willingness of our Federal

Government to take the lead, which is why we are starting this organization, because, as we have discussed here today, that national

will does not exist, and the American people are not generally

aware of any plan that would make the kinds of cuts our scientists

are calling for. And if they are not aware of it, how can they debate

it?

The ideas are out there. We have heard some of them today:

shifting industrial subsidies, trapping CO2 before it leaves coalfired smokestacks, plug in hybrids, cellulosic ethanol. There are

hundreds of ideas, brilliant ideas, all of them useless unless the

Federal Government either pays for them or indemnifies businesses against the extreme financial risks involved.

For the Federal Government to do that, it needs an unmistakable

mandate from the people, which will be the agenda of this organization: to use the tools of modern marketing to put those ideas before the American people. We will create TV commercials, print

ads, Web sites, editorials, events, daily sound bites for the news

media, whatever is necessary to make people aware of the remarkable opportunity that lies ahead of us.

As you have heard, millions of Americans are already acting to

solve this problem in their homes, in their businesses, in their local

governments. The effort being expended without the Federal Government’s real leadership is truly remarkable, but this crisis cannot be solved from the bottom up.

Since I am a storyteller I will postulate a slight adjustment of

history. What if the Germans had been planning to invade the

United States in 1942? Do you think we could have defeated them

with ordinary citizens pulling pistols from under their beds,

through local grocery stores barring their doors and windows? No.

The only way to defeat the Nazis was through the awesome

power of the American industrial machine, through the tens of

thousands of tanks and planes and guns, the liberty ships coming

out of dry docks at the rate of one a week, the millions of people

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working together for a common purpose, led by a Government that

was willing to endure deficits of 23 percent of its GDP in order to

make it happen.

We defeated the axis powers in less than 4 years. We put a man

on the moon in 7. We can unleash that awesome power again and

solve this problem in 10 years the same way we did it before: by

a total, unconditional partnership between Government, business,

and private citizens.

This is a moment of potential greatness for our Nation. We can

reframe the device of discourse that has plagued us for years. Global warming is not the province of the right or the left; it is a bipartisan issue, a national security issue, a survival issue. I believe we

must make these changes now, not in 30 years, if we want to stop

the catastrophe from happening.

I thank you for your consideration, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for

holding this hearing.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Herskovitz follows:]

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Mr. MARCHANT. Thank you, Mr. Herskovitz.

Do you believe that Americans are ready to make sacrifices that

you are calling for?

Mr. HERSKOVITZ. I think Americans are ready to put an enormous amount of effort into what I am calling for. I think when we

use the term sacrifice, we are already misconstruing what will take

place if we commit ourselves to this war. I think that what needs

to be done is mostly at an industrial level, mostly at a business

level.

But right now we are asking corporations and industries to take

on a responsibility that their shareholders will not allow them to

do. The Federal Government has to be the instigator of these situations. If you tell the car companies, oh, you have to make a car that

gets 50 to 60 or 70 miles to the gallon, which, by the way, technologically they can do, they are going to say to you, how do we know

we can sell it?

The answer is the Federal Government has to mandate it. It has

to mandate whatever business situation will allow that corporation

to succeed under those circumstances. That is what took place in

World War II, and I believe that is what needs to take place now.

Mr. MARCHANT. You talk about the Federal Government. Do you

think it is necessary for the Federal Government to make the laws?

What responsibilities would you place on local government, States,

cities, counties?

Mr. HERSKOVITZ. Well, a remarkable number of cities and States

are already doing that, but I think, as with so many things in our

country, the resources locally are finally limited. It is finally only

the Federal Government that can create the huge programs that

are necessary in order to make this work.

What we are seeing now and what I have seen in the last few

months as I have learned about this is just a remarkable

upswelling of energy at the local level, but this problem cannot be

solved at the local level. What we will find is if the Federal Government enables this, sets up these programs, you will see, just as in

World War II, this incredible energy move in to fill up all of the

opportunities that the Federal Government is going to create.

The energy is there. Look at these businesses. Look at Wal-Mart.

They don’t have to be doing this. There is a way in which many,

many people in this country are ahead of where the Government

is.

Mr. MARCHANT. Mr. Ruben, is Wal-Mart taking this new environmentally friendly policy to all of its operations, international as

well?

Mr. RUBEN. Yes.

Mr. MARCHANT. And what kind of success are you having outside

of the United States?

Mr. RUBEN. Well, the key to even the progress so far is that it

lives inside the business. So what I mean by that is this is not a

select group of people who sit on the side of the business talking

about what we can do for the environment; it is about the way decisionmakers operate in the business, to have a broader view of unintended consequences and what takes place. So in every market—

let me speak first from a market perspective and then from a centralized company perspective.

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In every market people are identifying new opportunities to save

energy, to save resources, to supply better products. On a centralized perspective, some of our learnings are coming in a global way.

For example, solar technology, we are learning quite a bit from

Central America, given the number of days of sunlight and the cost

of energy. So both from a market perspective as well as a company

perspective we are seeing opportunities being a global company.

Mr. MARCHANT. Thank you.

Chairman TOM DAVIS [presiding]. Mr. Roosevelt, I apologize for

not being here, but you mentioned the difficulties companies face

in implementing voluntary environmentally friendly policies, while

at the same time running the risk of falling behind in their industry. Given this conundrum, do you see any opportunities for the

Federal Government to further spur voluntary action in the corporate world?

Mr. ROOSEVELT. I think voluntary action has worked. We have

seen leadership. Well-run companies are doing the right thing. But

you need mandatory compliance; otherwise, you are going to have

a problem with the free rider. There will be too many companies

who will say, let’s earn short-term profits and we will not take the

long-term decisions that we need to make ourselves both stronger

as a nation and both stronger in our industry.

Perhaps the best example of that—and I don’t want to pick on

Detroit. We don’t want to see an industrialized ghetto in Detroit,

but 5 years and 10 years ago, if you were deciding you wanted to

buy stock in an automotive company would you have bought Ford

or General Motors or Toyota? It was pretty clear one company had

a better idea of the changes that were occurring in the environment, the business environment, and were taking appropriate steps

to become more competitive. We overprotected our companies.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Well, we did, in fact. I know that Mr.

Waxman and myself and Mr. Shays, we favored higher CAFE

standards. Had they complied with that, they would have been

ahead of the curve.

Mr. ROOSEVELT. Absolutely right.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. And they resisted it, they didn’t, and now

they are paying a price for it. That is one time where the Government knew better than the marketplace. One of the few times, but

it did.

Mr. ROOSEVELT. One of the rules, I think, of business—and in my

daytime job I am an investment banker—good industries generally

reinvent themselves at frequent intervals. Not-so-good industries

tend to think that the old way of doing it will survive forever. If

you go back and look at the catalytic converter, which is a good example, Detroit resisted that. They said, it is going to cost us

$1,000, and the only cars we will be able to produce in the United

States will be subcompacts.

I don’t see many subcompacts out on the highways today. And

you know what a catalytic converter costs; $100. They were off by

a factor of 10.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

Mr. Waxman?

Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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Mr. Herskovitz, thank you for being here. You are one of my constituents and obviously a leading producer involved with films. I

looked at your list of successful films for television and movies. You

do know how to communicate, and I am pleased that you are going

to be involved in organizing a group that will put pressure on the

U.S. Government to show the kind of leadership for our country

and for the world in dealing with this very serious, the most serious environmental problem we have.

Mr. HERSKOVITZ. Thank you.

Mr. WAXMAN. I feel that a lot of our policies need to be communicated two different ways. You are going to communicate more

from a grassroots activist organization to get us to try to lead on

this issue, but then the Government has to lead, as well, and business has to lead, and a lot of that is going to involve trying to communicate to people why they should buy a more fuel efficient product, why they should buy a more fuel efficient motor vehicle, why

we are all in this together to try to accomplish the goal of protecting ourselves and the planet from the dire consequences of global

warming.

Do you think that as you organize this group that you might be

available to give some suggestions to policymakers and the leaders

of this country on how best to communicate to people around the

Nation that we need to do things that we can do? For example, I

offered an amendment to the energy bill, and I said the bill was

primarily to produce more energy, drill here, drill there, here is

some money, billions here, billions there to the oil, coal, nuclear industries.

But I suggested the President could simply call on the American

people in a lot of ways to be more efficient in their use of fuel by

not taking wasteful trips, to try to be mindful of things they could

do now. I hope you will keep that in mind as you develop your policies to help us so we can call on you as established communicators

to get people to understand what is going on.

Mr. HERSKOVITZ. Certainly. Always willing to help in any way.

I think there has been a big mistake, by the way, in judgment. It

is odd, really. Most people I talk to about this problem make some

basic assumption that the American people are stupid. They always

say to me, well, you are going to need something like Pearl Harbor.

You are going to need some great event to show people that there

is a problem.

You know, I think we are capable in this country of understanding that there is a problem. The problem has been the communication of what this issue is. It has been completely muddled. It has

been completely mired in controversy and people have not known

what to think. As soon as our leaders start saying the same thing,

I think people are perfectly capable of understanding that there is

an emergency, even though it is only manifested by a glacier that

is melting 2,000 miles away.

Mr. WAXMAN. The President of the United States is always credited with having an enormous bully pulpit, but when the President

of the United States is represented by Mr. Connaughton who was

here earlier talking enthusiastically about all that they are doing,

which I think is far short of what needs to be done, the President’s

quotes that Congressman Van Hollen held up, where there is a deVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:46 Oct 19, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00238 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\29932.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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bate going on about the science, that was not a clarion call for anything or anybody to do anything.

Mr. Ruben, Wal-Mart is taking a leadership role in all of this.

Do you think that what you are doing voluntarily ought to be mandated on people, either through a market system that would be

brought into being by caps on emissions or some kind of fuel efficiency standards that would be mandated for new products?

Mr. RUBEN. There are some things that we see that we think policy action does make sense, and there are a vast number that we

think the competitive forces actually accelerate to go beyond there.

As an example of that, the compact fluorescent light bulb that I

talked about, and I mentioned it was less than 10 percent of the

sockets that could be using this bulb, and you had mentioned sacrifice. It is not a sacrifice to get someone to buy a bulb that saves

them every month. As a company that sells items to people, it is

not a sacrifice for us to sell these bulbs that allow people more

spending money in the economy.

There are a host of things that can be done right now to increase

that number of 10 percent. At a certain point that bulb right now

costs about $2 compared to $0.20 for the incandescent bulb. There

is a certain percentage of the population that will be able to make

that choice. It is a very good return on your money. Within 2

months you will get that money back.

Mr. WAXMAN. That is very well put and I thank you very much,

but I see the yellow light is on. I will ask Mr. Roosevelt a question.

I assume from your testimony you think mandatory controls with

a cap in trade would give the market incentives so that you

wouldn’t find a business out there realizing their competitors may

not be doing what they need to do, and therefore they don’t want

to spend the money to reduce emissions, either. Is that a fair statement?

Mr. ROOSEVELT. Yes. You have captured very succinctly what I

believe. The beauty about cap in trade is it gives businesses the alternative of when they want to make a capital expenditure. Let’s

say for whatever reasons the business says, I want to make this

capital expenditure, but I want to do it 5 years from now. They

have the opportunity to go off and buy and meet their emissions

requirements, but then 5 years from now they can make the capital

expenditure, and maybe they will do so well that they will become

a net seller of carbon credits. So cap in trade is a very flexible way

of working.

It is a little ironic that this is an idea that was invented by the

United States. The Europeans didn’t like it. Somehow they thought

this was a trojan horse that wasn’t going to work. Guess who is

now leading in cap and trade. It is the Europeans.

You did mention, if I can just take another second—and I see the

red light is on—you mentioned the bully pulpit, and that sort of

runs in the family maybe a little bit. One of the things that I

think——

Mr. WAXMAN. The bully or the pulpit?

Mr. ROOSEVELT. Perhaps both. One of the things that I think will

accrue to the United States if we take a constructive role in global

leadership on climate change is that we will start to regain some

of the moral ground that we have lost. If nations around the world

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see that we are doing the right thing in global climate change,

whether it be a Bangladesh, whether it be some of the Pacific isles,

whether it be some of the poor countries that are being affected adversely and will be affected sooner by global climate change, we

will regain moral ground and we need that to carry out other political initiatives.

Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you. I want to thank all three of our panelists. I think you have been superb.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Shays.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know time is running

out, but I am happy to take a chance on missing votes so I will be

happy to chair it if you need to leave.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. After about 2 minutes I am going to turn

the gavel over to you.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. You can finish up.

Mr. SHAYS. Just very quickly I want to say to you, Mr. Ruben,

your company is controversial at times because it is so large. I wish

it had better relations with some of the lowest of your paid employees, and I want to say that, but I also think you enable Americans

throughout the world, throughout this United States, to buy things

at a lower price, and it is in some ways a transfer of resources to

those who don’t have resources.

But I want to say thank you for doing what you are doing. Let

me ask you, given you are so big, are you letting others know how

you are doing this or are you trying to beat your competitors by letting them continue to do what they are doing? Are you sharing this

information with others and trying to help others?

Mr. RUBEN. We are absolutely sharing. In fact, one of two experimental stores that we have open on the ground is in McKinney,

TX. I was there this past week. The store manager there has become a part time tour guide. He has had just about every retail

competitor that we have through that store. Every time a competitor comes through that store and sees something they might be

able to adopt in their own practices, allows more people to participate in the technology, allows the scale of that technology to go up,

the price of that technology to come down, creates jobs through innovation, and is simply a good thing.

Mr. SHAYS [presiding]. I am going to ask the other two witnesses

to just describe this. What do they think is going to happen in the

next 3 to 4 years in public policy. I mean, I am starting to feel that

Americans are getting it, that whether it is hurricanes or whatever,

you know, they have finally bought in and are not influenced by

politicians who said global warming is not real. I am sure that

some people who said global warming is not real will deny they

ever said it.

But what do you think is going to happen in the next 2 or 3

years? Do you think the public is going to have significant perception? And do you think people like Al Gore, who said this in the

late 1980’s, are going to gain ascendancy as someone to listen to

again on this issue?

Mr. HERSKOVITZ. I think there is going to be increasing and

frightening evidence that will convince more and more people that

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we have to act very quickly. I think the trajectory of urgency is

going to go up very soon, and so I think public policy is going to

have to keep trying to catch up with what will really be public

opinion that this is a truly urgent problem.

Mr. SHAYS. And I just want to say I have always believed, and

you said it, you reached me in this comment. I think you tell the

American people the truth and they will have you do the right

thing. But when you have debates about whether someone earned

three Purple Hearts or whether someone fulfilled their national

service, and that was the major debate in the Presidential race, you

don’t educate people very much.

What do you think is going to happen, Mr. Roosevelt?

Mr. ROOSEVELT. I believe firmly that the American people are

now understanding it. They are looking for leadership. They want

to see well-thought-out leadership.

If I may go back to Mr. Herskovitz’ analogy around World War

II, arguably the greatest mistake we made in World War II was not

recognizing what was looming on the horizon and didn’t get ourselves prepared for it. We see this now on the horizon and we see

some very bright people, whether it be in the scientific community—I clearly salute Al Gore for an incredible movie. If anybody

in this room hasn’t seen it, please go see it.

But we all need to take personal responsibility for this and try

to change our personal carbon footprint. The American people, the

theme that has run through all three of us this morning is we believe that this country is ready. People will make the kind of sacrifices that are necessary. Just help us unleash the creativity that

exists in this country.

Mr. SHAYS. Well, I think we will end with that note. I had

thought it would happen 5 or 6 years sooner, but I believe it is

going to happen and I think you all have contributed to that and

I thank you very much.

I don’t have a gavel to hit. Would you just hit the gavel?

A. BROOKE BENNETT. We are adjourned. Thank you.

[Whereupon, at 2:30 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]

[The prepared statements of Hon. Elijah E. Cummings and Hon.

Dennis J. Kucinich and additional information submitted for the

hearing record follow:]

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