Shocking, huh?
Sept. 4 (Bloomberg) -- The Bush administration hasn't dropped its objection to a nationwide cap as a means of cutting U.S. greenhouse gas emissions even as states impose limits, the chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality said. ``There is great power in market-based approaches such as caps and trades,'' James Connaughton said in an interview in Hong Kong on Sept. 2. ``It's just a question of if it's the appropriate tool at the appropriate time when it comes to CO2, and our policy judgment to date is it's not.''
President George W. Bush in 2001 rejected the Kyoto Protocol, which would have required emissions to be cut 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2012, because he said it would hurt the U.S. economy. With state initiatives in California and in the Northeast aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions, political pressure is increasing on Bush to drop his objection to caps.
Poorly imposed caps on greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide could cause energy-intensive industries to move overseas, taking both their pollution and their jobs with them, Connaughton said. ``In a nation very concerned about its energy security and about substantially increased costs of electricity, which are a particular burden on the poor and those with fixed incomes, we need to be careful about imposing high energy costs with little environmental yield,'' Connaughton said.
It will take several years to assess the effectiveness of initiatives by California and seven states in the Northeast of the U.S., including New York and New Jersey, aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions, Connaughton said.
EDIT
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=aBI..9s9mYQg&refer=homeYeah, better study it some more, huh Jim?
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