Principles for climate change offered

Copyright © 2009
Gallup Independent
By Kathy Helms
Diné Bureau

DENVER — A coalition of business leaders Friday released a consensus set of “common sense” principles they say should govern congressional action aimed at controlling greenhouse gas emissions.

“These principles reflect the thinking of leaders from many different industries as well as folks in agriculture, small business, veterans groups and consumer organizations,” Western Business Roundtable President and CEO Jim Sims said.

The roundtable’s consensus principles on climate legislation include federal action on greenhouse gas reduction programs should be developed and implemented by the U.S. Congress on a bipartisan basis, not by federal agencies acting unilaterally to implement policy outside of the Congress.

The roundtable said federal action should encourage the rapid research, development, demonstration and deployment, through public-private partnerships, of a broad spectrum of supply-side and demand-side technologies and practices, including energy efficiency, renewable technologies, fossil energy technologies, carbon sequestration and nuclear energy.

Other recommendations are to incorporate a fully transparent cost-benefit assessment of any carbon dioxide emission reduction program so that consumers can be made aware of the potential economic impacts of policies prior to their implementation.