Mike Levin: “I cannot support the Climate Stewardship Act of 2003 since its effect, if enacted, will be the loss of more…”

“I cannot support the Climate Stewardship Act of 2003 since its effect, if enacted, will be the loss of more manufacturing jobs to countries which have few, if any, environmental standards. That won't help the environment, and it will hurt our economy. Climate change is not something we can tackle by shifting industries and their emissions to other countries, or by shifting manufacturing jobs to China or other countries which have no limits on emissions of greenhouse gases. The bill before us reflects a unilateral approach to a problem which can only be solved globally. Let me give one example of how this bill would promote job loss in the U.S. with no benefit to the global environment. In the past decade, a large number of companies have moved their manufacturing plants overseas. Take, for example, a U.S. manufacturing company that had seven plants in the U.S. in the 1990s. Today it has only five left, because two moved to countries with cheaper labor. Assume that those five remaining domestic plants each emit 20,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide for a total of 100,000 metric tons. Under this legislation, reasonable estimates are that the company's cap could be placed at around 90,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide credits. The company, already under heavy competition because of cheap labor costs overseas, faces a choice: pay to reduce emissions at its five plants by 10 percent, or move another one of its plants overseas, say to China.”