FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 1 November 2007Contact: Josh Dorner, 202.675.2384 Significant Improvements Needed to Lieberman-Warner BillSierra Club Looks to Full Committee Markup to Strengthen Bill (Washington, D.C.)--Today a subcommittee of the Senate Environment andPublic Works Committee voted 4-3 to move the America’s Climate Security Act(S. 2191), introduced by Senators Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and John Warner(R-VA), to the full committee for hearings and a markup. The committee’schairwoman, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), has announced plans to move thelegislation forward rapidly. Statement of Carl Pope, Sierra Club Executive Director "We are pleased that today’s subcommittee markup included incrementalchanges to improve the bill and we will continue to work vigorously tostrengthen this proposal as it moves forward. While we support moving thebill into full committee, it unfortunately still falls far short of whatscience requires and what economic fairness demands and thus we cannot yetoffer our support for the bill. Just as bold action is needed to addressthe challenge of global warming, bold changes will need to be made to thislegislation before we are able to support it. Our support is notcontingent on perfection, but rather on whether a bill offers us areasonably good chance of achieving our widely shared goals: preventingcatastrophic global warming and bringing a clean energy future to life. "It is essential that we get markets moving immediately to begin reducingour emissions and speed our transition to the clean energy economy. Thiscan only be achieved by setting a strong, science-based short-termtarget--a 15-20 percent reduction in total emissions by 2020. The bar mustalso be set where science demands in the long-run--a reduction of 80percent by 2050. Our window of opportunity to avoid catastrophic changesto our climate is rapidly closing--perhaps faster than any of us previouslyimagined--and this bill’s targets do not match up with the urgent challengethat scientists have lain before us. "Polluters must pay for the damage they do to our climate--period. Thisbill continues to give hundreds of billions of dollars in allowances topolluters for far too long and also returns a significant portion of theproceeds from the allowances that are auctioned off right back to thosesame polluting industries. Instead of private windfalls, we must have a100 percent auction or allocation for the public benefit to give us thefunds we need in order to ensure a just transition for workers, protectconsumers from rising energy costs, and make the investments in newtechnology needed to make the new clean energy economy a reality. "Senator Boxer has provided exemplary leadership on this issue and has astated goal of improving the bill. We very much look forward to workingwith her and other members of the committee to produce a bill that issufficiently strong to address the challenge before us. Barring thesesignificant changes, we do not believe that this bill should be enacted." # # # 
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
To unsubscribe from the IOWA-TOPICS list, send any message to:
[log in to unmask]

Check out our Listserv Lists support site for more information:
http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/faq.asp

Sign up to receive Sierra Club Insider, the flagship
e-newsletter. Sent out twice a month, it features the Club's
latest news and activities. Subscribe and view recent
editions at http://www.sierraclub.org/insider/