|
White House Prevarications
The Washington Post
December 27, 2005
IVEN ALL THE fuss about what government officials in Washington say off the
record, it's surprising how little attention is paid to some of the things they
say on the record. Take, for example, the subject of U.S. emissions of the
greenhouse gases that cause climate change. Earlier this month, we noted that
the emissions figures cited by U.S. officials attending the international
climate change conference in Montreal seemed dubious: Although the negotiators
claimed U.S. emissions had fallen by 0.8 percent between 2000 and 2003, that
drop actually reflected the recession of 2000-2001, not any substantive
environmental policy change. In fact, as we noted, emissions had begun rising
again in 2002 and 2003, and they looked set to rise again in 2004 -- to levels
higher than they reached in 2000.
James L. Connaughton of the White House Council on Environmental Quality
disputed our editorial; he noted, among other things, that the 2004 figures had
not yet been published. But now the Energy Information Administration, one of
two government agencies that tracks climate statistics (the Environmental
Protection Agency is the other) has released its 2004 numbers. As many
predicted, they show a hefty 2 percent rise in greenhouse gas emissions, the
largest growth in five years. Thanks to that rise, U.S. emissions now account
for about 25 percent of the world's total. When the EPA figures are released,
they are expected to show the same trend, despite the EPA's different methods
of calculation.
What, then, of Mr. Connaughton's other claim -- that the Bush administration
has put in place "more than 60 mandatory, incentive-based and voluntary federal
programs" to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases? An earlier version of that
claim was examined two years ago by the Government Accountability Office. Its
report, published in October 2003, noted that of the 30 elements of the
administration's then-recently proclaimed agenda on greenhouse gases, only
three were new programs -- as opposed to existing, repackaged programs -- that
were actually intended to reduce future emissions in a measurable way. If it
can't get its numbers right, why should we take seriously the White House's
declared intention to forge a "constructive and effective approach" to climate
change at all?
|
|