I
106TH CONGRESS
1ST SESSION
H. R. 2221
To prohibit the use of Federal funds to implement the Kyoto Protocol to
the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change until
the Senate gives its advice and consent to ratification of the Kyoto
Protocol, and to clarify the authority of Federal agencies with respect
to the regulation of emissions of carbon dioxide.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
JUNE 15, 1999
Mr. MCINTOSH introduced the following bill; which was referred to the
Committee on Commerce
A BILL
To prohibit the use of Federal funds to implement the Kyoto
Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention
on Climate Change until the Senate gives its advice
and consent to ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, and
to clarify the authority of Federal agencies with respect
to the regulation of emissions of carbon dioxide.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Small Business, Fam-
ily Farms, and Constitutional Protection Act’’.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS AND PURPOSES.
(a) FINDINGS.—The Congress finds the following:
(1) The provision of the Departments of Vet-
erans Affairs and Housing and Urban Development,
and Independent Agencies Appropriations Act, 1999,
that prohibits the use of Federal funds to implement
the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Frame-
work Convention on Climate Change prior to its
ratification should be extended and strengthened.
(2) The Environmental Protection Agency
claims that it has authority under the Clean Air Act
to regulate carbon dioxide as a ‘‘pollutant’’, although
the Administrator of the Environmental Protection
Agency has not yet proposed to regulate carbon di-
oxide under the Act.
(3) When the Congress enacted and amended
the Clean Air Act, it did not delegate to the Envi-
ronmental Protection Agency authority to regulate
carbon dioxide. Such regulation would constitute a
usurpation of legislative power.
(4) Furthermore, regulation of carbon dioxide
would necessarily have the effect of implementing
the Kyoto Protocol.
(5) Since a speech by the President on October
22, 1997, the Administration has called for enact-
ment of a program commonly known as ‘‘credit for
early action’’ or ‘‘early action crediting’’ as part of
its global climate change policy.
(6) Early action crediting is fundamentally a
strategy to prematurely implement the nonratified
Kyoto Protocol and to build a pro-Kyoto business
constituency.
(7) Early action crediting would reward some
big businesses for taking steps to comply with the
Kyoto Protocol prior to its ratification.
(8) Early action crediting would also encourage
participating big businesses to support ratification,
because participants would acquire costly paper as-
sets that could be used as emission credits under a
future regulatory system and that could be mone-
tized if the Kyoto Protocol were ratified.
(9) Early action crediting is not a truly vol-
untary program, because it would penalize non-par-
ticipants by reducing the supply of emission credits
available to them in the first Kyoto Protocol compli-
ance period.
(10) Early action crediting would increase com-
pliance costs under the Kyoto Protocol for small
businesses and family farms, which generally lack
the technical expertise and discretionary capital re-
quired for participation in emissions reduction
projects and lack the legal sophistication necessary
to negotiate early action agreements with Federal
agencies.
(11) Early action crediting would lose even the
pretense of being voluntary if it were administered
by the Environmental Protection Agency or any
other agency wielding powers of regulatory coercion.
(12) Companies already may voluntarily record
and report their actions to reduce greenhouse gases
under section 1605 of the Energy Policy Act of
1992 (42 U.S.C. 13385). That section is adminis-
tered by the Energy Information Administration, an
agency with no regulatory authority or agenda.
(13) Early action crediting is not needed to
protect early big business emissions reducers from
any extra costs under the Kyoto Protocol, because,
as a practical political matter, the Kyoto Protocol
will not be ratified and implementing legislation will
not be adopted without the active support of the pol-
icy makers and big businesses advocating early ac-
tion crediting.
(14) The most effective way for members of the
Congress to protect United States competitiveness,
small businesses, and family farms from the regu-
latory excesses of a possible future climate treaty is
to declare their unequivocal and unqualified opposi-
tion to the Kyoto Protocol.
(b) PURPOSES.—The purposes of this Act are the fol-
lowing:
(1) To safeguard the Senate’s constitutional
role in treaty making.
(2) To prevent implementation of the Kyoto
Protocol prior to its ratification.
(3) To protect small businesses and family
farms from incurring additional costs under a future
climate change treaty or domestic program to regu-
late greenhouse gas emissions.
SEC. 3. PROHIBITION ON FEDERAL ACTIONS TO IMPLE-
MENT THE KYOTO PROTOCOL.
(a) IN GENERAL.—Federal funds may not be used
to propose or issue rules, regulations, decrees, or orders
or used to propose or issue rules, regulations, decrees, or
orders or for programs designed to implement, or in prep-
aration for implementing, the Kyoto Protocol to the
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change before the date on which the Senate gives its ad-
vice and consent to ratification of the Kyoto Protocol.
(b) NO FEDERAL AUTHORITY TO REGULATE CAR-
BON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS.—Notwithstanding any other
provision of law, no Federal Agency has authority to pro-