15 Jul 1999 Kyoto Treaty Early Crediting Would Tamper with Senate Jury

In testimony today before the House Subcommittee on National Economic Growth, Natural Resources and Regulatory Affairs, David Ridenour, Vice President of The National Center For Public Policy Research who also represents members of the Cooler Heads Coalition, will denounce efforts to encourage corporations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as a bribe to win business support for the highly controversial Kyoto Protocol.

Noting that science doesn’t even prove that man-made gases are warming the planet, Ridenour argues that early crediting legislation proposed by Senator John Chafee and a similar proposal supported by Rep. Rick Lazio to encourage businesses to reduce emissions according to the goals of the Kyoto Protocol would hurt small business while aiding select corporations. The Kyoto Protocol is the unratified treaty negotiated by the Clinton Administration in 1997 that would require the United States to significantly reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 2012.

Early credit programs would enable the President to offer companies making voluntary reductions in their greenhouse gas emissions prior to 2008 emissions credits that these companies could either use or sell after 2008 when the Kyoto Protocol goes into effect. However, small businesses and family farms lack the political contacts and financial resources to negotiate credit deals with the Clinton Administration. As a result, large businesses would likely get the biggest share of early credits while small businesses would be saddled with a disproportionate share of the burden if Kyoto is ratified.

The real motive of early credit legislation may be a desire by the Administration to build a pro-Kyoto lobby in the corporate community. "I have great concern that early crediting would give federal officials greater leverage with the corporate community to affect the outcome of important deliberations before the U.S. Senate," says Ridenour, "As Senator Robert Byrd said of a high-profile Senate deliberation, ‘Don’t tamper with this jury.’"

The Environmental Policy Task Force is a project of The National Center For Public Policy Research, a non-partisan, non-profit education foundation. The Task Force was established to promote innovative, workable solutions to environmental problems – solutions that minimize the suffering of working Americans while still protecting the environment.

The Cooler Heads Coalition is a coalition of consumers groups, taxpayer organizations and non-profit foundations dedicated to providing balanced information on the science and economics of the global warming debate.

For more information, contact John Carlisle at The National Center For Public Policy Research at 202-507-6398 or [email protected].