Sen. Warner joins the fight to limit greenhouse gas emissions

WASHINGTON

After four decades in the thick of efforts to strengthen and ready for battle the world's most powerful armed force, John Warner has taken on a dramatically different kind of fight.

In the final months of a his 30-year Senate career, the 81-year-old Virginia Republican is helping lead an ambitious campaign to persuade Congress and the Bush administration to restructure the nation's economy to attack global warming.

After months of lobbying and negotiation, the "Climate Security Act" co-authored by Warner faces a test vote as early as this afternoon in the Senate. The courtly Virginian is considered key to securing enough Republican support to get it passed.

Warner said his devotion to military matters is as strong as ever and is helping drive his new focus on climate change. He is convinced that natural disasters linked to global warming have huge implications for the nation's security.

But the real inspiration for his initiative started with the memory of a long ago trip west and a young man's first chance to make his own way.

In 1943, as war raged across Europe and the Pacific, Warner's father, a Washington physician, told him that soon it would be his turn to serve his country and that he needed to get ready.

"I'll pay your way one-way to go somewhere and work for 90 days," his father told him, "and you better make enough money to get home or you're going to stay there."

Warner ended up in northern Idaho, fighting fires and clearing trails for the U.S. Forest Service.

"It was a breathtaking experience.... Those forests were pristine," he said. "We used to fish in the streams and drink water out of the streams. I can see the trees. Just magnificent.

"I'm carrying those memories always."

Two years ago, on a political trip to Idaho, Warner recruited a Forest Service ranger to lead him back to the panhandle.

"I was absolutely devastated when I saw those forests," he said.

For mile after mile, the lush green countryside had been turned brown. The ranger told him the forests are being destroyed by beetles that once were kept in check by cold winters but now flourish year-round, Warner said.

His escort was a 25-year Forest Service veteran. He told Warner, "I do remember what you saw, but you can't find that in these forests today."

Warner returned to Washington resolved to delve deeper into climate change. As senior Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, he claimed a seat as the ranking member of the global warming subcommittee. Its chairman was a moderate senator with whom he'd worked in the past on defense issues: Joe Lieberman of Connecticut.

In 2005, Warner had voted against a "cap-and-trade" plan to curb greenhouse gas emissions by setting up a federally regulated market of emission allowances. He told Lieberman he'd like to work on a new proposal.

Then, in the spring of 2007, Warner began to hear warnings about global warning from retired generals and admirals. A group including former Army Chief of Staff Gordon Sullivan and Adm. Joe Prueher, a Virginia Beach resident who once commanded American forces in the Pacific, issued a study that cast climate change as a serious threat for the U.S. military.

The report warned of future wars over energy and water in areas where global warming has triggered droughts. It predicted that millions of people in coastal communities could be left homeless as melting polar ice raises sea levels. The military, particularly the Navy, would be hit hard by such disasters, with piers submerged and training areas reduced to marshland.

Sherri Goodman, a Pentagon official in the Clinton administration, directed the study and was among those briefing Warner on it.

"I think he was moved," she said. Warner came to see that "this is an issue too important just to be left to environmentalists."

As word of Warner's interest spread, he also began to hear more from a chorus of environmental groups that has been pressing for global warming legislation for years. And he got more encouragement from his two daughters, he acknowledged.

Tony Kreindler, a spokesman for the Environmental Defense Fund, puts Warner in a group of lawmakers, many of them regarded as conservatives, who are feeling pressure from children and grandchildren "to sort of get right" on the environment.

The bill Lieberman, Warner and California Democrat Barbara Boxer, chairwoman of the environment committee, will present to senators today would put a cap on most greenhouse gas emissions beginning in 2012 and then gradually reduce the amount of those gases that could be discharged each year.

The bill focuses on electric utilities and other industries that are responsible for close to 90 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. Beginning in 2012, they would be issued annual carbon allowances. Those could then be sold, permitting firms able to reduce their emissions below their annual limits to profit from their investment in cleaner plants and improved fuel efficiency.

At more than 500 pages, the legislation is complex and would create a new federal bureaucracy, Warner acknowledged. His Republican colleagues have given him a respectful reception, but some may find it hard to swallow, he said.

Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., the ranking Republican on the environment committee, is the bill's most vocal opponent. He has written that the legislation "would likely devastate national and local economies in addition to putting a severe strain on the American family."

There is considerable uncertainty about how the bill would affect the economy, Warner acknowledged, and that makes it tougher to sell to his colleagues. But he and Lieberman have built in safeguards, including giving future presidents the power to relax the emission caps if energy prices rise too high, he said.

Still, the Bush administration has signaled its opposition. In April, the president endorsed a cap on greenhouse gas emissions. But Bush wants to delay it until 2025 and warned that he would block any bill that would "raise taxes... or demand sudden and drastic emissions cuts that have no chance of being realized and every chance of hurting our economy."

Proponents are expected to win today's test vote on a motion to proceed to a full debate on the bill. But neither Warner nor Lieberman is predicting they will get the 60 votes needed later to cut off debate and force a final vote.

Still, environmentalists say they are gratified to have gotten this far.

"Without Sen. Warner's leadership, we would not be having a debate in the United States Senate on global warming," said Jeremy Symons, director of the National Wildlife Federation's global warming program.

"I look upon this as a train in the station," Warner said. "And she's all ready to go, but the president and others have got hands on the brakes and won't let it go."

Action on climate change is "so important for America's image," he added. "We've got a terrible image around the world. We are the No. 1 polluter, the No. 1 consumer per capita of petroleum products. It's important that we show some leadership."

Dale Eisman, (703) 913-9872, dale.eisman@pilotonline.com