Global Warming Treaty Will Cost 124,000 Texas Jobs

By CAROLE RYLANDER - Chairman, Texas Railroad Commission

Last December, White House negotiators committed the United States to reduce greenhouse gas emission by seven percent in the period between 2008 and 2012, measure against the base year 1990. As the Wall Street Journal recently reported, however, because the U.S. economy has grown since 1990, the real cut would be over 30 percent from current levels of emission and preliminary results from even more recent analyses suggest a cut of 37 percent would be required.

The Clinton-Gore global warming program to implement the Kyoto Protocol will result in burdensome taxes on oil, gas and coal, which supply over 96 percent of the total energy need in Texas.

But the limits on emissions will only apply to industrialized nations. Developing countries, including China, India and Brazil, would not have to comply -- now or in the future -- though the newly emerging economies led by China and India, will account for 45 percent of the projected increase in world energy consumption by the year 2015.

The costs of the program are staggering. Preliminary studies suggest that by 2010, the U.S. would lost 2.4 million jobs. Texas alone would lost 124,6000 jobs and $6 billion in tax revenue. We'll lose 20 percent or more in the output of refining, basic chemicals, steel, aluminum, cement and paper mills. And this program will not only cost us paychecks and jobs, but preliminary data indicate that we would pay a new 65-cent tax increase on every gallon of gasoline.

This is a case of science fiction dictating public policy. There is no hard evidence that global warming is occurring or how it would occur. Common sense demands that until we know the facts the Administration should not pursue measures that will

seriously weaken America's industrial capacity.

Robert E. Davis, associate rofessor of Climatology at the University of Virginia, wrote: "The world is not coming to an end because of global warming. In fact, based on records from the last 100 years and our current understanding of climate science,, there is little cause for alarm over this issue." Davis explains that the temperature of Earth's surface has risen about one degree since 1860, but most of that rise occurred before 1940. In 1969, Dr. J. Murray Mitchell, then a project scientst for climatic change with the Environmental Science Services Administration, reported that the global warming trend had endid in the 1`940s and that termperatures had begun to cool, which supports Robert Davis' research. In addition, satellite measurements of planetary termperature showed January of 1997 was the coldest January in the 19-year record of such measurements.

Further, natural causes seem to be the root of the earth's temperature fluctuations. Dr. Mitchell maintained then that changes in temperture have much more to do with volcanic activity and fluctuations in the heat output of the sun. The U.S. office of Technology Assessment reports that 90 percent of greenhouse gases are produced by nature's own processes. The late Roger Revelle, Vice-President Al Gore's guru on this issue, stated that "the scientific evidence for greenhouse warming is too uncertain to justify drastic action at this time."

According to Thomas Gale Moore of Stanford University, it has been estimated by pro-environmental activists that attempting to slow the production of greenhouse gases would cost $500 billion to $750 billion annually worldwide.

By contrast, the World Health Organization estimates the cost of immunizing children against six major killers at $14.60 a child -- around $400 million annually to treat the 20 percent of the world's children who now go without immunization.

Closer to home, what if the U.S. invested $400 million to improve conditions in the colonias or to clean the border environment?

Let's solve real problems rather than chasing ghosts conjured up by the false prophets of an impending environmental apocalypse.

As long as the Federal government continues to choke the oil and gas industry with environmentally extreme regulations, and the consumer with outrageous taxes, we will remain depandent on the Middle East to meet our energy needs. I want to back out that foreign crude with our own Texas oil and natural gas, not just for paychecks and jobs, but for America's energy independce

Study Charts Cost of Kyoto Pact

A study by the research or-ganization WEFA reveals the Kyoto global-warming pact will cost a Texas family of four $828 a year by the year 2010.

A spokesman explained the figure refers only to direct, out-of pocket costs caused by higher prices and taxes levied to discourage energy use. It does do not include the economic impact of fewer job opportunites and a reduced level of economic activity.

Other states will be hit even harder, according to the study. A family of four in Montana will pay an additional $2,740 a year in direct costs. In all, 39 states will pay more than Texas. In New Mexico, the lowest cost state, a family of four will pay $732 in added living expenses.

Because the Senate over-whelmingly expressed dissatisfaction with the treaty, it's unlikely Clinton will submit it for ratification. It is more likely, as Peggy Venable of Texans for a Sound Economy predicts, "President Clinton, Vice-President Gore and EPA Administrator Browner will simply ignore the ratification process and implement the Kyoto Protocol through the budget process and regultory fiat." She urged congress to deny funds for tax credits and subsidies aimed at reducing emissions of greenhouse gases.

"The Founding Fathers," Venable said, "never intended for a presdient to have the power to eliminate billions of dollars from the American economy with the stroke of a pen.