AAMA: Bar Use of EPA Funds to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions
23 July 1998
AAMA Supports Barring Use of EPA Funds to Implement Unratified Kyoto ProtocolWASHINGTON, July 22 -- The American Automobile Manufacturers Association (AAMA) today urged Congress to bar the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from spending money on regulatory initiatives implementing the unratified Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Language contained in H.R. 4194, the Fiscal Year 1999 VA, HUD and Independent Agencies Appropriations Bill, would prevent EPA from spending money to develop binding regulations to implement the Kyoto Protocol to the Framework Convention on Climate Change because the Protocol has not yet been signed or ratified. In a letter to Members of the U.S. House of Representatives, AAMA President and CEO Andrew H. Card, Jr. wrote, "AAMA and its member companies, Chrysler, Ford and General Motors, urge that the bill's language barring the use of EPA funds to implement the Kyoto Protocol be retained without change." Card noted that "the language in question takes no position on the merits of the Kyoto Protocol, nor does it prevent EPA from encouraging voluntary programs and promoting research and development. It simply says that EPA should not take steps to implement the Protocol through regulations or other binding actions before the Senate has given its advice and consent to ratification." While the State Department has stated that the Administration won't seek to implement the Protocol before Senate approval and Presidential ratification, the EPA has taken several actions aimed at developing controls for greenhouse gas emissions even where there is no explicit statutory authority for doing so, Card noted. "No nation in the world has yet ratified the Protocol. EPA should not begin to implement it," Card wrote. "We urge you to support retention of the Committee language as a reminder of this fact." AAMA is the trade association whose members are Chrysler Corporation , Ford Motor Company and General Motors Corporation . Visit the AAMA on the World Wide Web at http://www.aama.com.