Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act of 2007 - Background

Background

Senate Bill 309 (S.309) proposes to amend the Clean Air Act of 1970 to include CO2 emissions as a regulated pollutant in the U.S. It establishes a regulatory framework to nationally regulate CO2 emissions through a set of programs, regulations and market-based incentives. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is the agency directed to implement and enforce the provisions of the bill.

Bernie Sanders (Rep-VT) and Barbara Boxer (Rep-CA) proposed S. 309 in January 2007. This bill aims to reduce incrementally U.S. CO2 emissions from the highest polluting sectors, transportation and electric generation. Its goal is to reduce emissions to 80% of 1990 levels by 2050. In this report we discuss global warming and provide an analysis of how S.309 could be implemented if Congress passed it. The analysis focuses on the programs required to successfully implement this bill in the first year, from setting caps on emissions by industry through to designing a budget and staffing plan and implementation.''

There have been introduced seven bills that address the global warming emissions. The Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act was passed based on it vigorous reduction deadlines on earlier timeline compared to other bills. This bill proposed the common “cap and trade” system, which became the major attraction to the bill. In 2010 the Global Warming Pollution Act should freeze global warming emission and continue to reduce year after year. As the consequences, it was predicted that the global warming emission should be reduced by 14% by 2020 and 83% by 2050. Moreover, the bill establishes strict parameters fro power plants and automobiles and invests into new clean energy technologies. The President, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Al Gore publicly supported the bill.