OPINION/COMMENTARY

First, Do No Household Harm

The Senate is set to vote Thursday on a bill that would impose mandatory restrictions on emissions of greenhouse gases, affecting practically every business and consumer in the country.
While supporters claim that the climate-change legislation, S.139, introduced by Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), has been toned down in response to concerns about its negative economic effects, a new study by Charles River Associates finds that the impact would still be dramatic -- a cost of between $350 and $1,300 per family per year through 2020.
At a minimum, the study found, "refined petroleum product prices would rise by 12 percent to 16 percent" even under the milder, amended McCain-Lieberman bill. Under the most optimistic assumptions, "the associated consumer costs are estimated to be $350 per household in 2010, rising to $530 per household by 2020."
Coming on top of separate new research that shows clearly that the 20th Century is not the warmest period on record, the Charles River study should discourage Senators concerned about the uncertain U.S. economic recovery from approving McCain-Lieberman -- which would raise energy costs, reduce consumer spending, and kill jobs...

Another Setback for Kyoto

Coming on the heels of Russia's apparent decision not to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, the Wall Street Journal reports that the European Union's efforts to implement the agreement on their own may be stalling.

The EU is having trouble keeping its promises to cut so-called greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, by 8 percent from 1990 levels by the end of the decade.

--Based on current trends, the European Environment Agency predicts emissions will fall only 4.7 percent by the time the targets become binding between 2008 and 2012.
--Furthermore, the European Parliament is delaying consideration of a bill to regulate the trading of credits for greenhouse gas emissions reductions -- risking a 2005 deadline for implementation.
--Use of pollution credits would allow the EU to cut its Kyoto bill by about 20 percent from an estimated 3.4 billion euros.

Furthermore, EU diplomats say some governments are backing away from promises to give aid to poorer countries.

--The EU, along with several industrialized nations, promised two years ago to contribute $523 million to developing countries beginning in 2005 to help them combat greenhouse gas emissions.
--But EU environment ministers meeting Monday in Luxembourg failed to agree on the share each country will contribute, with Spain, Greece and Portugal arguing that they are poorer than their Northern European counterparts.
--The southern European countries want their combined contribution reduced by about 20 million (Euro) a year -- but countries are supposed to pay in proportion to their pollution, not their gross domestic product.

Source: Victoria Knight (Dow Jones Newswires), "EU Effort to Fight Global Warming Hits Money Snag," Wall Street Journal, October 29, 2003.

George W. AlGore?

The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) recently sued over the Bush administration's adoption of the thoroughly debunked National Assessment in the 2002 report to the U.N. The basis for the suit is the Federal Data Quality Act (FDQA), a new law intended to prevent the circulation of flawed data by government agencies. Thus far, the Bush administration has evaded every private-sector attempt to employ the FDQA. In its efforts to defend the indefensible National Assessment, the administration continues to fight against judicial enforcement of the FDQA, threatening to emasculate the law in the process.

The National Assessment is fatally flawed. It employs computer models that are proven to project climate less capably than a table of random numbers. Though the models also carry disclaimers admitting their futility at producing regional and even national results, the Assessment nonetheless purports that they detail dire calamities broken down with specificity even to the state level.

CEI's suit challenging the Assessment's junk science places "global-warming" alarmism before the courts. In response, the administration is not just protecting the National Assessment: The word is out on K Street that the White House will actively seek to eviscerate the FDQA and its troublesome requirement that data disseminated by the government be objective and have utility for its intended purpose. According to the Bush administration, regulators cannot be held to FDQA's requirements. By implication, their position is that the sole regulatory reform achieved by the Republican Congress contains nothing but toothless exhortations of regulators to do the right thing...