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Bush to propose new targets for greenhouse gases

US President George W. Bush is proposing new targets for curtailing the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions in an attempt to short-circuit what aides call a potential regulatory “train wreck” if Congress doesn’t act on climate change.

Bush was expected to lay out a revised climate strategy yesterday by calling for “realistic” emission reduction targets and “principles” he believes Congress should follow in crafting global warming legislation.

Still, he remains opposed to a Senate bill that would require mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions, calling the proposal unrealistic and economically harmful, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said.

Bush planned to speak forcefully in a Rose Garden address about concerns he has over a possible rush to address the Earth’s warming through a hodgepodge of regulations under existing federal laws such as the Clean Air Act and the Endangered Species Act.

Senior White House officials last week told a group of conservative Republican lawmakers in a private meeting that the administration wants Congress to act on climate change to avoid regulating carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases under existing laws.

‘TRAIN WRECK’

Perino declined to give specifics on the president’s climate announcement, but on Tuesday reiterated the administration’s concerns about a potential regulatory “train wreck” as a result of climate-related court rulings.

“Recent court decisions hold the very real prospect that the federal government will regulate greenhouse gas emissions with or without a new law being passed,” Perino said. “To us, having unelected bureaucrats regulating greenhouse gases at the direction of unelected judges is not the proper way to address the issue.”

Several of the conservative Republican lawmakers who heard the White House presentation last week said they viewed it as a move toward endorsing a limited type of “cap-and-trade” emissions reduction proposal, targeting power plants, and a reversal of long-standing administration climate policy.

NO SPECIFICS

Bush was not expected to present any specific proposals — cap-and-trade or otherwise — but outline broad principles that he believes climate legislation should include.

The new White House climate initiative comes as Bush appears, in the view of many congressional Democrats and environmentalists, as increasingly irrelevant in the climate debate both on the domestic and international stage.

All three presidential candidates — Democratic Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and Republican Senator John McCain — support mandatory limits on greenhouse gases.
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