James M. Jeffords: “I stand to applaud the efforts of Senators Lieberman and McCain for pushing forward with a sensible and modest plan to…”

“I stand to applaud the efforts of Senators Lieberman and McCain for pushing forward with a sensible and modest plan to address the threat of global warming. I would prefer that we were debating a bill reported by the Environment and Public Works Committee, but the chairman of the committee has made it clear that he will never act on such legislation. That is unfortunate, since the evidence presented to our committee of jurisdiction is more than sufficient to justify taking prudent actions now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. There are those who say that climate change is a hoax, a concoction of radical environmentalists and a liberal media. That is simply hogwash or maybe the whitehouse effect. Global warming has been documented by hundreds and hundreds of credible scientific studies, including many world class institutions such as the National Academy of Science, the American Geophysical Union, and the International Panel on Climate Change. To ignore and dismiss the threat of climate change to the economy and the environment is like insisting the earth is flat. It flies in the face of reality. The Climate Stewardship Act uses the same type of efficient cap-and-trade system that Congress established in the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions and acid rain. My bill, S.366, the Clean Power Act, uses that system to reduce carbon dioxide pollution from power plants to 1990 levels.”