Date: 2007-08-04
Speaker: TOM DAVIS (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Virginia

Mr. Chairman. I yield myself such time as I may consume. H.R. 3221. a 786page energy bill introduced by the Speaker this week. contains a major restructuring of our Nations energy policies. I come to the floor today to talk about the specific title of the bill. title VI. which promotes energy efficiency by our Federal Government. That is the jurisdiction which our Government Reform Committee wrote. Title VI of H.R. 3221 is known as the Carbon Neutral Government Act. It was marked up by the Oversight and Government Reform Committee as H.R. 2635 in June. After exhaustive discussions and negotiations with Chairman WAXMAN and his able staff. the committee approved the legislation by a voice vote. The committee put ina lot of work. and I very much appreciate the chairmans efforts to reach out and compromise with us. The provisions in the Carbon Neutral Government title represent a bold effort to put the Federal Government in the forefront and in a leadership position with regard to mitigating the buildup of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. I agree with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle that the Federal Government must be proactive and take an aggressive leadership role in mitigating thehafimful effects of climate change. To that end. the legislation would establish ambitious goals for the governments use of renewable fuels. energy efficient automobiles. and energyefficient buildings. "green" buildings. More specifically. this legislation would mandate that the Federal Governments greenhouse gas emissions be reduced to zero by the year 2050. The Federal Government is the largest energy consumer in the world and is currently responsible for emitting 100 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually. Meeting this goal of zero net emissions will be a significant step in the direction of minimizing greenhouse gas emissions and correspondingly reducing our impact on climate change. Moreover. I concur with Chairman WAXMAN and others that setting and meeting these ambitious standards will accelerate the pace of development and adoption of technologies that will be critical to addressing climate change in the U.S. and worldwide. That being said. we still have some reservations about the specific provisions in the bill. There is a provision in title VI of the bill with the seemingly nebulous title of "judicial review." more popularly referred to as the "citizen enforcement provision." This provision would allow individuals to sue Federal agencies for failing to comply with carbon reduction goals called for in the legislation. To make matters worse. the provision allows plaintiffs to collect potentially millions of dollars in damages and attorneys fees regardless of whether they can demonstrate any actual harm to themselves. I appreciate the gentleman from Californias working with us on this language and putting appropriate caps. and that makes the legislation amenable to myself. We have other Members who still have concerns. Another concern I have in this legislation sets the government up to fail. I mentioned earlier that title VI contains many laudable goals with respect to reducing carbon dioxide emissions by the Federal Government. But while eliminating all greenhouse gas emissions by the Federal Government in a few decades sounds great. in reality. this goal is going to be very difficult to achieve. As this bill moves forward. I trust we will be able to move away from the rhetoric. We need to identify realistic goals that our Federal Government can meet and achieve and look for ways that we can achieve it. Which raises a final concern: If you set unrealistic goals and then arm potential plaintiffs nationwide with the power to sue the government for failing to meet these goals. agencies will have little choice but to divert scarce resources away from their critical agency missions in order to ensure adequate ftlinding to support the carbon emissions requirement. While the majority included a provision at our request stating that agency plans on reducing greenhouse gas emissions must be "consistent with the agencys primary mission." I am concerned that we need some work to ensure that agencies continue to place primary importance on their underlying responsibilities to serve the American people. As great a threat as global warming is. the Federal Government also needs