U.S. Is Pressuring Industries to Cut Greenhouse Gases

January 20, 2003
By ANDREW C. REVKIN






In an aggressive effort to show that President Bush's
voluntary climate strategy can work, senior administration
officials are traveling the country collecting written
promises from industries to curb emissions of gases linked
to global warming.

White House officials, insisting on concrete commitments
measured in tons of gases, have rejected written offers
from some industry groups to take nonspecific actions,
several industry officials said. The administration and
industry leaders plan to unveil a broad array of pledges at
the White House on Feb. 6.

This is the administration's latest and most intensive
effort to demonstrate that voluntarily controlling
emissions can make mandatory reductions unnecessary. Mr.
Bush has said such reductions will harm the economy. The
effort has no teeth, officials and company representatives
say, other than the growing realization in industry that
without measurable success from voluntary reductions, it
will become ever harder in coming years to stave off
legislation requiring companies to act. Senators of both
parties introduced such legislation in Congress this month,
and states are acting on their own as well.

The administration's intent, once all the industries'
commitments are tallied, is to meet Mr. Bush's stated goal:
an 18 percent reduction, by 2012, in emissions of
greenhouse gases for each unit of gross domestic product.
Overall emissions would continue to grow, but more slowly.

Some company officials and other opponents of regulation
have criticized the administration's effort as a mandatory
program disguised as a voluntary one.

"This is meant to give the impression that the
administration is doing something to control CO2
emissions," said Myron Ebell, a climate policy expert at
the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which promotes free
markets and limited government. "The danger is that they
could easily get pushed from that position into actually
regulating emissions, which would be very expensive,
pointless."

At the same time, many scientists, environmental groups and
political foes of Mr. Bush have said his target is so
modest that no matter what industries do to achieve it, it
will not help stem climate change. Most other
industrialized countries have chosen to pursue binding
reductions in emissions through the Kyoto Protocol, the
climate treaty Mr. Bush rejected shortly after taking
office.

"Over a decade ago, the United States committed to
voluntary greenhouse gas reductions, and emissions have
continued to rise," said Elizabeth Cook, an expert on
corporate environmental policies at the World Resources
Institute.

Citing an expanding body of research pointing to rising
concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases
as a cause of global warming, she and other critics said
more action was needed.

White House officials said the new effort was just the
beginning of a protracted campaign for voluntary
reductions. "We're not declaring victory here and going
home," an administration official said. "It'll be an
ongoing thing from here."

Many big companies, expecting that regulation of greenhouse
gases is inevitable, have already moved independently to
set up voluntary caps and trading schemes in which
companies that aggressively cut their emissions acquire
pollution credits they can sell to other companies. The
list of such companies includes most of the country's
biggest energy, mineral and industrial concerns, including
DuPont, Motorola, Waste Management Inc. and American
Electric Power, a Midwestern utility that is the largest
emitter of greenhouse gases in the Western Hemisphere.

The newest effort began on Thursday, with the start of the
Chicago Climate Exchange, under which big manufacturers and
energy companies agreed to cut emissions and trade credits
with one another.

As they considered the administration's initiative,
industries at first resisted committing themselves to
specific targets.

The American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry's
principal trade group, initially offered the White House a
proposal for efforts on emissions, but without a specific
timetable or targets. It cited the difficulty of getting
all its members to agree on a single plan - and of
measuring emissions from every facet of far-flung
operations.

That was rejected, but after several rounds of discussions
with the administration, the institute - like other
industry groups - agreed to emissions changes that would
mesh with Mr. Bush's 2012 goal.

"Oil, gas and other industries have all had significant
discussions in trying to achieve the types of commitments
the administration is desiring," said Robert L. Greco III,
a senior manager at the institute. "Industry is committed
to supporting this type of approach and is willing to step
up to further the objective of the president's program."

Trade groups for companies pumping oil, mining coal, making
cars, synthesizing plastics, smelting metals and
manufacturing microchips have been recruited and have
scrambled to settle on various targets for reducing or in
some cases eliminating emissions.

These include some of the most influential voices for
industry in Washington, the American Chemistry Council,
National Mining Association, the Alliance of Automobile
Manufacturers and the Edison Electric Institute, which
represents power-plant owners.

Talks are still under way, and agreements could change, but
some details are starting to emerge.

Under the program, magnesium producers have agreed to
eliminate releases of a potent heat-trapping greenhouse
gas, sulfur hexafluoride, by 2010. The gas is very rare,
but each molecule has 23,600 times as much heat-trapping
potential as a molecule of carbon dioxide.

Chip makers have said that by 2010 they will cut emissions
of perfluorocarbons, another potent warming gas, 10 percent
below 1995 levels.

Among other actions, all the major oil companies have
agreed to scour pipelines and oil fields for leaking
methane, another powerful heat-trapping gas. Coal companies
have promised to expand efforts to capture methane and
other greenhouse gases escaping from mines.

Individual companies are being asked to set more general
goals.

Under a simultaneous initiative, also to begin on Feb. 6,
the Business Roundtable, which represents 140 of the
country's biggest companies, is working with the White
House to obtain commitments from its members to start
assessing their activities and considering ways to reduce
their impact on climate.

Although that effort is theoretically voluntary, the
Business Roundtable has already promised to deliver 100
percent of its members.

Some industry officials have quietly objected to the heavy
pressure to sign on.

On Jan. 8, James L. Connaughton, chairman of the White
House Council on Environmental Quality, addressed a private
gathering of leaders of electric utilities at the Ritz
Carlton in Naples, Fla. Several executives who were there
said his insistence on substantive commitments prompted
some of them to label the effort the "mandatory voluntary
climate program."

The administration's push has intensified as criticisms of
its cautious climate policies have increased, and more
aggressive alternatives have been proposed.

On the day Mr. Connaughton spoke in Florida, Senator John
McCain, Republican of Arizona, and Senator Joseph I.
Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, unveiled a bill that
would require restrictions on emissions. California and New
York are moving toward restricting greenhouse gases from
vehicles.

Administration officials acknowledge that they are trying
to tread a fine line. They do not want to alienate voters
in states like West Virginia, where the economy revolves
around coal, a major source of carbon dioxide, but they do
want to appease moderates, particularly women, for whom
global warming is a growing concern.

But in seeking that path, many experts and lobbyists for
different factions said, the administration could end up
satisfying no one and doing little to solve the problem.

Many people involved in the White House effort, including
government officials and executives from industries, say it
is unlikely to lead to improvements much beyond those
already taking place as the economy shifts from old-style
manufacturing and businesses grow less wasteful.

And the effort, aimed mainly at manufacturing, encompasses
only a small portion of America's greenhouse-gas emissions.


For example, while the auto industry is agreeing to curb
gases from its assembly lines, it has not been asked - nor
has it promised - to reduce gases from the tailpipes of the
cars and trucks it builds.

Nevertheless, Ms. Cook, at the World Resources Institute,
said there was some value in finally pushing a broad array
of industries to start looking for ways to reduce their
impact on climate. Once they have committed to change, she
said, it will be hard for them to reverse course.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/20/politics/20CLIM.html?ex=1044117551&ei=1&en=340f79e1c52d8fba