CEO’s ASK BUSH TO BACK CLIMATE PROTECTION

[Anonymous]

CEOs Ask Bush to Back Climate Protection
WASHINGTON
(Jan. 07) – The chief executives of 10 major corporations, on the eve
of the State of the Union address, urged President Bush on Monday to
support mandatory reductions in climate-changing pollution and
establish reductions targets.”We can and must take prompt action to
establish a coordinated, economy-wide market-driven approach to climate
protection,” the executives from a broad range of industries said in a
letter to the president.Bush, who in the past has rejected mandatory
controls on carbon dioxide and other “greenhouse” gases, was expected
to address climate change in his State of the Union speech Tuesday
night, but has repeatedly argued that voluntary efforts are the best
approach.Major industry groups such as the Chamber of Commerce and
National Association of Manufacturers continue to oppose so-called “cap
and trade” proposals to cut climate changing pollution, mainly carbon
dioxide from burning fossil fuels.But the 10 executives, representing
major utilities, aluminum and chemical companies and financial
institutions, said mandatory reductions are needed and that “the
cornerstone of this approach” should be a cap-and-trade system.The
officials, expected to elaborate on their plan at a news conference
later Monday, include the chief executives Alcoa  Inc., PB America
Inc., DuPont Co., Caterpillar  Inc., General Electric  Co., and Duke
Energy  Corp.In the letter they urged Congress to enact legislation “to
significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”Asked about this issue
at his daily news briefing Monday, White House press secretary Tony
Snow told reporters that “there’s been some talk about, sort of,
binding of economy-wide carbon caps in the speech, but they are not
part of the president’s proposal.”The first days of the new
Democratically controlled Congress has seen a rush of legislation
introduced to address climate change, all of which have some variation
of a cap-and-trade approach to dealing with climate change.Among those
pushing cap-and-trade climate bills are two leading presidential
aspirants, Sens. Obama, D-Ill. and John McCain, R-Ariz.Essentially such
a mechanisms would have mandatory limits of greenhouse gas emissions,
but would allow companies to trade emission credits to reduce the cost.
Companies that can’t meet the cap could purchase credits from those
that exceed them or in some case from a government auction.Also signing
the letter to Bush were the executives of Lehman Brothers, PG&E 
Corp., PNM Resources, FPL Group  and four leading environmental
organizations. 

[Author]

January 23, 2007 at 10:06 AM