Harry Reid: “with a sense of continued disappointment and dismay I read accounts of the administration's performance at the recent…”

“with a sense of continued disappointment and dismay I read accounts of the administration's performance at the recent international climate change meetings in Montreal, Canada. The President has been crystal clear in his complete rejection of the Kyoto Protocol treaty that all other major industrialized nations have signed, except the United States and Australia. Yet he has regularly failed to put forward a constructive alternative that will ever result in stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. Worse, his negotiators have disrupted other nations' efforts to begin binding discussions for the post-Kyoto Protocol period. This is not and cannot be a partisan issue. But the President's stubborn insistence on ignoring credible science and his administration's efforts to water down clear scientific evidence of manmade global warming has hobbled many Republicans' ability to act sensibly on this matter. We have a moral obligation to take on our enormous share of responsibility for this global problem before it is too late. Ignoring the problem is madness and a luxury we do not have the time for. The scientific data continues to flow in and none of it is good. I urge my colleagues not to fall for the temptation of the administration's voluntary ``technology-only'' strategy. That will fail to produce any significant reductions in the timeframe necessary. There is abundant cause for concern and for faster action.…”