These are policies and financial funding and incentives have to come at the national level, and that's why we also have to deal with issues around federal preemption.

The voices of consumers and the voices of civil rights protection need to move away from the kid table to the front table.

We need those benchmarks and we really need to tie the productivity in meaningful modifications and by that, I mean principal reductions.

It's essential that we take very firm and strong action at the Federal level.

What would be the effective price for carbon in order to hit that goal and any schedule in terms of price increases?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me thank all of our witnesses for their testimony.

For you, Dr. Ekwurzel, Dr. Hansen has proposed that in order to address the price impact on the consumer, you essentially have a rebate, a 100 percent rebate.

Let us assume that is the path we want to reductions on that schedule. What would be the effective price for carbon in order to hit that goal and any schedule in terms of price increases?

What is important is you really need to provide more choices for the American consumer.

I cannot tell you exactly. By the way, the $115 is per ton of CO2, not carbon.

I guess the question on the minds of many consumers is not Dr. Hansen's approach a more direct approach to ameliorating that cost impact on a consumer?

I like the carbon price as the tuning knob because it is a stable one with a linear, while in the case of caps, there is too much volatility.

As President Obama said last night, this is America, we lead. And it is time that we led on this critically important issue.

The Chesapeake Bay is experiencing radical changes. And it is related to global climate change.

If the United States does not lead, it won't get done. That is the responsibility that we hold.

I really came to this hearing to try to learn more about this issue.

We have technology changing all the time, and with the use of the communications through the Internet, competition is not what it was when these laws were developed.

I represent rural areas in Maryland, and they do have this issue, but it has not been a dominant issue.