Fourteen US senators co-sponsored a bill Wednesday urging the United States to rejoin international negotiations to reduce greenhouse gases, as the Kyoto Protocol went into force in scores of countries around the world. The bill's chief backer, California Democrat Dianne Feinstein, lamented the decision by the George W. Bush administration to pull out of the international climate change treaty. "More than 140 nations, including all 25 members of the European Union, Russia and China, have ratified the agreement to reduce man-made emissions of greenhouse gases," Feinstein said, in introducing the bill on the Senate floor.
"Of the worlds 38 industrialised countries, only the United States, Australia and Monaco have not ratified the protocol," she said, noting that the United States is the biggest single source of greenhouse gases.
"I believe the United States is making a huge mistake and is missing this important opportunity to protect our planets environment," said Feinstein.
The legislation urges Washington to "demonstrate international leadership and responsibility regarding reducing the health, environmental, and economic risks posed by climate change," and to carry out "reasonable and responsible actions to ensure significant and meaningful reductions in emissions of all greenhouse gases."
The bipartisan bill was co-sponsored by several prominent senators, including Republicans Olympia Snowe and John McCain, and Democrats Joe Lieberman and Barbara Boxer, among others.
The Democratic Leadership Council, a coalition of party centrists, also rued Washington's decision to boycott the Kyoto Treaty.
"Without question, the specific commitments that the Kyoto Protocol asks the United States to make must be reworked, but that's no excuse for walking away from the process," the group said in a statement Wednesday.
The DLC accused US President George W. Bush of pandering to "the Ostrich Faction of conservative activists, who deny all the evidence of climate change as a matter of ideology."
The Democratic group noted that some individual US states, including California, Michigan, Nebraska, Montana, New Mexico and several others, have taken their own steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, in the absence of federal action.
Last year, California enacted its own legislation to cut carbon emissions from automobile tailpipes," according to the group. "This year, Michigan ... has called for a two billion dollars in state investment in jump-starting the fuel cell technology that will ultimately be Detroit's salvation, and that would also radically reduce carbon emissions," the DLC said.
Still, the group maintained, "action on climate change should be an urgent national priority," not a matter handled by local jurisdictions.