Cord Byrd: “This past weekend I noted an article in the Washington Post that led with these lines: Administration officials…”

“This past weekend I noted an article in the Washington Post that led with these lines: Administration officials preparing an alternative to the 1997 global warming agreement that President Bush disavowed in March are focusing on voluntary measures for reducing greenhouse gas emissions--an approach unacceptable to most U.S. allies in Europe and Japan. Mr. President, last month, I came to this floor to urge the Bush administration not to abandon the progress of the multiyear international negotiations on global climate change. In particular, I urged this administration not to endanger many of the gains that the United States has made in recent years as it has tried to forge a workable, responsible international climate change agreement. So I welcome the subsequent announcement by administration officials that they intend to participate in talks on the Kyoto Protocol scheduled to take place in Bonn, Germany, in July. But an insistence on the part of the United States strictly on voluntary measures would certainly place in jeopardy such gains and would, I believe, undermine the credibility of our Nation at the bargaining table in the future. I cannot agree with a strategy that abandons consideration of binding commitments in favor of voluntary efforts alone.”