Transcripts

Former V.P. Gore Stumps For Environmental Green on Capitol Hill

PAUL KANGAS: Academy Award winner and former Vice President Al Gore made a high-profile appearance on Capitol Hill today. Gore urged lawmakers to address climate change. As Stephanie Dhue reports, the issue is consuming an increasing amount of political energy.

STEPHANIE DHUE, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT CORRESPONDENT: Al Gore's Oscar cemented the former VP's status as the star spokesman on climate change. In testimony today, Gore gave a passionate pitch to lawmakers, asking them to address the issue now.

AL GORE, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT: The cost to our economy of not solving this crisis would be devastating. And so, if go about it in the right way we can save money. If we don't confront the problem, the cost to the economy would be enormous.

DHUE: Lawmakers may not need much prompting. There are already nearly a dozen bills in the works addressing climate change. They include establishing a carbon cap and trade program and setting carbon reduction targets. Those proposals range from including all sectors of the economy to just addressing power plant emissions. Gore advocates a comprehensive approach and added more ideas to the debate. He wants to put a moratorium on building new coal fired power plants that aren't equipped to capture carbon emissions, to require companies to disclose carbon emissions to the Securities and Exchange Commission and to create a carbon tax. Texas Republican Congressman Joe Barton called Gore's ideas flawed.

REP. JOE BARTON (R) TEXAS: Your suggestion of a carbon tax is something that would harm our competitiveness, raise cost to American families, export jobs and actually do very little to improve our environment.

DHUE: Analysts say complicating the climate change debate is how different industries may be treated under various proposals. For example, what might work to reduce power plant carbon emissions might be too complicated for the transportation sector. Analyst Christine Tezak explains the dilemma.

CHRISTINE TEZAK, ANALYST, STANFORD WASHINGTON RESEARCH: This week, folks from the automotive industry were up on Capitol Hill, saying, sure bring us cap and trade. Well, how do you apply that to the automotive industry. Who gets the credit to trade? The manufacturer? The owner of the vehicle? I mean, these are threshold decisions that are going to make a holistic approach throughout the economy, that will work, more challenging.

DHUE: Democratic lawmakers have promised a bill to address climate change this session, but analysts say passing a comprehensive bill that restricts carbon emissions could take three to four years. Stephanie Dhue, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT, Washington.