Whitman details Bush emissions policy

Christie Todd Whitman spoke with CNN on the North Lawn of the White House.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush's new global warming plan calls for voluntary measures aimed at reducing polluting greenhouse gases and offers tax incentives to encourage American businesses to comply. It also backs more research.

Part of the plan is the Clear Skies Act, which aims to reduce power plant emissions and take a market-based approach to cutting air pollution.

Bush is expected to unveil the specifics Thursday, and considers it an alternative to the more restrictive Kyoto international treaty.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christie Todd Whitman spent some time talking about the proposal with CNN's Paula Zahn.

ZAHN: The one word that really stands out in all of this is voluntary. The program is voluntary And in spite of the tax incentives -- not only that you'll be offering companies, but individuals, as well -- what makes you think people will sign onto this one?

WHITMAN: Well, first of all, we already have a number of businesses that have come forward and we'll be announcing from the EPA a new program next week that includes these companies. But there's an important part of the program that really provides a basis for them to do this, which is that they will be held harmless. In other words, the regulatory climate can change and there could be mandatory caps put on greenhouse gas emissions some time in the future.

The companies who go early will be protected. They'll get credit for what they've done. So that is a powerful incentive along with the tax incentives that the president has put in.

The Clear Skies program is a separate program. That will be mandatory caps on SO2, NOX and mercury. And that's a program that really is going to save thousands of lives and prevent a lot of asthma cases that we see in children particularly. That's a very exciting program and that is a mandatory one.

ZAHN: The president hasn't even made his speech and already the critics are lining up. Philip Clapp, who is the president of the National Environmental Trust, which is a private lobbying group, had this to say about this approach: "The president's global warming proposal appears to be another faith-based initiative. We should have faith that major corporations will line up to volunteer cuts in their carbon pollution. That approach has failed for a decade since the president's father set up the first voluntary program."

Why not make mandatory caps on emissions release?

WHITMAN: Well, what we're seeing is a real impact on global climate change, on greenhouse gas emissions through voluntary programs. There's a lot going on voluntarily and I think it's a shame when we don't take credit for that.

What we have to understand here is there may be something coming down the road with a change of administration. We want to make sure we have a program in place that gives business the opportunity to meet these goals in a way that can keep them moving forward. There's a lot of money being put in this budget into technology and technology development so we're sure exactly which of these gases are the most important ones to go after and who is producing the most of them.

So while we are asking businesses to step forward to reduce their emissions, and, as I said, next week we'll be announcing a program with some pretty important partners with us who have already stepped up to this, we are also saying that we're putting a lot of money in technology and research and technology transfer to bring the developing countries along.

ZAHN: You said you want this plan in place in the event that there will be a change down the road in the administration. But the fact remains that the progress of this won't even be checked till the year 2010. Why not earlier than that?

WHITMAN: Because that gives you time to meet those goals. We're not going to, none of the countries that are signing up for the Kyoto protocol, frankly, if they do end up ratifying it, are probably going to meet their targets in any time frame that's any faster than that. That is a good time frame. It's a do-able time frame. There's no point misleading people by putting dates out there that we know are not going to be achieved.

What this program does, it goes after the intensity of emissions. It says we're going to reduce that intensity by 18 percent in 2010.

This is 2002. That's not a long time when you're thinking about the kind of investment that's going to be required to make the changes. When you combine that with the Clear Skies program, which is a mandatory program and is going to be very clean, very clear, very quick. You're going to see a real impact on the quality of our environment and the air we breathe.

ZAHN: But I think even you would have to acknowledge in order for this plan to be effective globally, you're going to have to get support from other countries and how are you going to do that at a time when 178 other countries are already committed to Kyoto and they think this falls well short of what those goals are?

WHITMAN: Well, as long as everybody's moving forward, it should have a positive impact. But again, I think you'll see that a number of the countries that say they're going to be ratifying the Kyoto protocol are actually going to find the targets in that protocol very, very difficult to meet. And they're going to be looking for another way to join in. And what we're saying is look, this isn't an alternative to Kyoto. Those countries that want to do Kyoto, fine. Go ahead and do it. That will have its impact.

This is what we are focusing on and we are welcoming other countries to join with us if they want to. And I suspect you're going to see some other countries saying we want to take this approach that will allow our businesses and industries and economies to grow but will reduce the intensity of the greenhouse gas emissions as we go forward and provide an opportunity to review to make sure we're doing the right thing. There's always, you can always put in mandatory in the future if that's what you think you have to have in order to reach it. You can constantly check. But let's get people to put their creativity behind finding the solutions, which they do far more rapidly if it's voluntary than if it's mandatory.

ZAHN: What about the perception that this plan is simply too American-centric and there's no incentive for these other countries to sign on because they can't benefit from the same tax incentives that Americans can?

WHITMAN: Well, actually, the technology transfer, the really important thing here for us and if we're looking at the greenhouse gas emissions problem overall is the developing countries. We don't want them to continue to pollute the way we did, say, during the Industrial Revolution. Technology transfer becomes very important there and the president has a lot of initiatives directed toward that.