Mike Enzi: “anyone who has picked up a copy of this legislation and read it has to be forgiven if he or she was soon reminded of the…”

“anyone who has picked up a copy of this legislation and read it has to be forgiven if he or she was soon reminded of the words of Yogi Berra, ``It's deja vu all over again.'' After all, it is not as if this topic is unfamiliar to us. When the debate first began on the Kyoto talks, the U.S. Senate made a clear and direct statement of principle on the subject. We drew a line that was not to be crossed by the president and his negotiators in their effort to reach an international climate change agreement. By a vote of 95 to 0 the Senate passed Senate Resolution 98, also known as the Byrd-Hagel resolution, that sent a clear message to the world that the Senate would not support any climate change agreement that did not include all nations equally. We also said we would not support an agreement that would cause serious harm to our economy. We crafted our message to the administration to counter the concerns that had been raised that a global climate change policy could be imposed on the United States that would ``result in serious harm to the United States economy, including significant job loss, trade disadvantages, and increased energy and consumer costs.'' The Senate was also concerned that efforts to reduce global emissions would be imposed only on developed nations, where the best emissions controls and most advances in emissions reductions already exist, and not on underdeveloped nations where emissions would continue without any effective controls.”