Attorneys general of 11 states push Bush to address global warming
BOSTON (AP) – Attorneys general from 11 states sent a letter Wednesday to President Bush calling on him to end the administration’s “regulatory void” and address the growing threat of global warming. The letter from the 11 Democrats criticizes the Republican president for failing to create a national policy to curb carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles and power plants that contribute to global warming.
The four-page letter applauds the administration for a May report detailing the seriousness of the global warming problem, but argues that the administration “has yet to propose a credible plan that is consistent with the dire findings and conclusions being reported.”
“What we’re asking the administration to do is to deal with it and to deal with it now,” Massachusetts Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly said in an interview Wednesday. “There is a consensus with the issuance of the report that we have a serious environmental and public health problem caused by global warming.”
Although all the signers are Democrats, Reilly said it was not about politics.
“This is about our environment and it’s about our future,” Reilly said.
“By acting now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the Bush administration can provide regulatory certainty to the business community, can spur private sector investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency, and can lay the groundwork to avoid the potentially disastrous environmental, public health and economic impacts of global warning,” said New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.
Many scientists say global warming already is under way, increasing average temperatures by a couple of degrees in some places.
“Far from proposing solutions to the climate change problem, the administration has been adopting energy policies that would actually increase greenhouse gas emissions,” said the letter, first reported in Wednesday editions of The New York Times.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan responded Wednesday that Bush “is moving forward on a bipartisan, common-sense approach to address climate change.”
“The president’s plan will reduce growth in greenhouse gas emissions while sustaining the economic growth needed to invest in new technologies that can lead to a cleaner environment,” McClellan said.
He noted that associations of both the state governors and state environmental commissioners have passed resolutions rejecting calls for mandatory reductions of carbon dioxide emissions.
States have been left to create a patchwork of inconsistent regulations, the attorneys general charged in the letter.
They called the issue “the most pressing environmental challenge of the 21st century.”
Other attorneys general who signed the letter are from Alaska, California, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Vermont.
The group is pushing for a cap on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants as well as requirements to increase the average fuel mileage standards for automobiles.
The four-page letter applauds the administration for a May report detailing the seriousness of the global warming problem, but argues that the administration “has yet to propose a credible plan that is consistent with the dire findings and conclusions being reported.”
The U.S. Climate Action Report 2002, released in May, said that average temperatures have increased 1 degree Fahrenheit over the past century, while the sea levels have risen four to eight inches. It projects an increase of 5 to 9 degrees over the next hundred years.