EEE会議（Re: 米国の新エネルギー法案をめぐる動き）..........................................................2003.10.3


目下米議会の上下両院合同委員会で審議中の新エネルギー法案については、エネル
ギー重視派と環境（温暖化防止）重視派の間で激しい攻防戦が続いていますが、とく
に前者の中心人物であるPete Domenici上院議員（共和党、ニューメキシコ州選出）
らの強引なやり方が反発を強めているようです(10/1のメール参照）。そこで、環境
保護にも理解があり、比較的穏健なJohn McCain（共和党、アリゾナ州選出）、
Joseph Lieberman（民主党、コネチカット州選出）両上院議員が中心になって、同法
案の議会通過を容易にするため温暖化防止（CO2排出規制）の側面を強化する修正案
を用意しているようです。ただ、問題は、あまり妥協を急ぐと、例えば原子力発電所
の新設のための財政補助などブッシュ政権が狙っている一連の原子力促進策までが犠
牲にされる可能性もあり得ることで、大統領選挙の思惑も絡み、今後の動きが益々注
目されます。 在米の会員諸氏には、この辺についての情勢分析や情報提供を随時お
願いできれば大変幸いです。
--KK

**************************************************

Sponsors Ease Bill on Gases That Warm the Climate
By JENNIFER 8. LEE

Published: October 2, 2003


WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 ・The two senators who are sponsoring legislation to
fight global warming announced on Wednesday that they would soften the bill
to gain support for a vote expected this month.

"By modifying the bill, we expect to build additional momentum for the
measure in the Senate," Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, said at
a Senate hearing on climate change.

Mr. McCain and Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, have
proposed limits for greenhouse gases from the industrial, utility,
commercial and transportation sections of the economy, which together
produce nearly 80 percent of American global warming emissions. Households,
agriculture and smaller businesses would be exempt.

The modified bill would, as the original did, try to bring carbon dioxide
emissions down to the levels of the year 2000, starting in 2010, but it
drops a follow-up phase calling for 1990 levels starting in 2016.

To ease the impact of these constraints, the bill sets up a framework for
companies to buy and sell the rights to emit carbon dioxide, similar to the
highly successful 1990 acid rain program. Opponents of carbon dioxide
regulation call their legislation the equivalent of an "energy tax" since
the gas is a product of the use of coal and oil.

A study of the new proposal by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology estimates that the costs to be passed on to consumers would be
$10 to $20 per family per year; the original plan, with its lengthy
timetable, could have cost $30 per family annually in the early years,
growing to as much as $400 per family by 2020.

The original plan and the revised version are far less aggressive than the
limits in the Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty rejected by President
Bush, which would require industrialized countries to cut greenhouse gas
emissions to below 1990 levels by 2012. This would be the first Senate vote
on a global-warming issue since 1997 when it adopted a resolution, 95 to 0,
that said the United States should not sign any international agreement on
climate change that would seriously harm the American economy.

Mr. Lieberman and Mr. McCain have tried to bring their proposal to the floor
for two years but have been stymied, by the opposition of the White House,
which prefers voluntary controls, and by Senator James M. Inhofe, the
Oklahoma Republican who is chairman of the Senate environment committee.

The hearing on Wednesday and the coming Senate vote are the byproduct of the
July negotiations over the energy bill, to which the senators tried to
attach their proposal as an amendment. Instead, Senator McCain gained an
agreement with Senate leaders for a vote on their proposal as a stand-alone
bill this fall, with six hours of debate and no unexpected amendments.

Environmental groups have unified to lobby for the bill, which has some
bipartisan support, including that of a few northeastern Republican
senators. But the bill is unlikely to win enough support to pass.

Still, environmental groups say the vote remains a milestone for fighting
global warming because the simplified measures essentially make this a yes
or no vote on whether carbon dioxide regulation is needed.

"It's not about the specifics or mechanics of the program," said Jeremy
Symons, the climate change director for the National Wildlife Federation.
"It's about whether or not you think something should be done or if you
think it should be researched indefinitely."