Edition: U.S. / Global

Despite Opposition in Party, Bush to Seek Emissions Cuts

Published: March 10, 2001

The Bush administration, some influential Republicans in Congress and several big owners of coal-burning power plants have joined in advocating something long sought by environmental groups and Democrats: cuts in the plants' emissions of carbon dioxide, a heat-trapping greenhouse gas widely thought to contribute to a global warming trend.

The cuts would come as part of a larger bill controlling carbon dioxide and three other emissions from the power plants: sulfur dioxide, which causes acid rain; nitrogen oxides, which contribute to smog; and mercury, a toxic heavy metal.

Mr. Bush promised in his campaign last fall to seek such a bill, and Christie Whitman, the new administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, has reasserted that pledge in recent days.

Cuts would constitute the nation's first restrictions on carbon dioxide, a gas that has no direct effect on human health -- in fact, it is the bubbles in beer -- but that many scientists have concluded is already altering ecosystems and weather patterns as it accumulates in the atmosphere.

But the prospect has spawned a fierce lobbying effort by conservative Republicans and some coal, oil and industry groups, which are urging Mr. Bush to abandon his campaign stance and any mention of carbon dioxide.

The opponents say laws requiring carbon dioxide cuts would harm the economy and clash with the administration's goal of raising supplies of fossil fuels.

''This is a colossal mistake,'' said Myron Ebell, director of global warming policy for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a Washington group that advocates free markets and limited regulation and has attacked the administration recently. ''If they persist, there will be war.''

Still, many people on both sides of the issue say chances have never been better for legislation to limit the emissions from power plants, which produce about 40 percent of the nation's carbon dioxide output.

Mr. Bush's commitment on carbon dioxide -- articulated in a couple of short sentences deep in an energy policy paper released on Sept. 29 -- was a sharp shift for a politician who had long avoided making definitive statements on the seriousness of global warming.

The change went largely unnoticed in the campaign, but has now bubbled up like a suddenly opened bottle of warm seltzer because of a confluence of recent events.

First, several Republicans in important positions in Congress are preparing to propose power-plant legislation that would limit carbon dioxide, most significantly Senator Bob Smith, a New Hampshire Republican who is chairman of the Senate Environment Committee.

Mr. Smith and other proponents of the bill say the bill is needed to simplify life for utilities facing a growing, unpredictable maze of federal and state laws governing all manner of emissions.

At the same time, the energy task force, headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, is rushing to complete its initial plan for turning Mr. Bush's promises on energy and the environment into programs.

And legislatures in many states where air pollution is an issue -- including New Hampshire, Ohio, Wisconsin and Michigan -- are moving toward passage of bills that limit the four emissions. Growing numbers of power-plant operators now regard as inevitable some sort of restrictions, and would prefer one federal standard to a patchwork of confusing regulations.

Some environmental advocates, Democrats and moderate Republicans say that Mr. Bush's support for a comprehensive bill could provide crucial momentum. Past efforts foundered because of the political divide between the Clinton administration and Congress.

''Having George W. Bush seriously looking at carbon dioxide as part of a four-pollutant approach on power plants really demonstrates that you can't ignore CO2 any more,'' said Jennifer L. Morgan, climate policy director for one conservation group, the World Wildlife Fund.

Opponents of the legislation include coal and oil companies, business groups, and conservatives in Congress who doubt that climate change poses a significant threat and fear that restrictions on utilities would be costly -- and would eventually be applied to other carbon dioxide sources, notably cars and trucks.

More than half the nation's electricity is produced by burning coal, which generates the most carbon dioxide per watt of any fuel. So any restrictions on carbon dioxide would probably lead to a shift toward other options, like natural gas, and would inevitably have some economic impact, though estimates range widely.

Some conservatives also fear that any greenhouse-gas limits would signal that the Bush administration is planning to complete the Kyoto Protocol, a treaty negotiated under the Clinton administration that would commit the United States and 37 other industrialized countries to larger cuts in greenhouse gases. The treaty has not yet been ratified by any industrialized country.

Negotiations about vital details broke down in November and are scheduled to resume in July. During the campaign, Mr. Bush criticized the treaty, saying that it would harm the economy by raising fuel prices and that it unfairly excluded large developing countries like China and India from obligations to reduce their gas releases.