Another excuse gone.

Byline: The Register-Guard

The Bush administration has offered a number of rationales to justify its refusal to seek mandatory limits on carbon dioxide and other gases that contribute to global warming. One of its favorites has been that doing so would cause massive damage to the U.S. economy.

A new finding by the administration's own Energy Information Administration contradicts that claim. The agency, an independent arm of the Energy Department, concludes that mandatory limits on emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases would have little effect on economic growth rates over the next two decades.

Bush has played the economic card time and again since entering the White House and abandoning his 2000 campaign pledge to support regulatory controls on carbon dioxide emissions. He has used it to justify his refusal to join other nations in signing the Kyoto accord and to repeatedly block bipartisan efforts in Congress to establish a nationwide emissions limit.

The EIA based its analysis on the possible effects of a proposal by the National Commission on Energy Policy. The commission proposed a market-based approach that would limit the amount of carbon dioxide, methane and other gases emitted by power plants, factories and mines. The plan would cut greenhouse gases by 7 percent over what is currently forecast for 2025.

The agency estimated that the plan would cost each U.S. household $78 per year and would reduce the gross domestic product in 2025 by roughly 0.1 percent.

The EIA also considered the impacts of other commission recommendations. They included a 36 percent increase in average fuel economy for vehicles, a doubling of the current budget for federal energy research and development, and new tax incentives for building nuclear plants and gasifying coal. Combined with the impact of the greenhouse gas limits, the estimated reduction in the nation's gross domestic product in 2025 totaled about 0.4 percent.

The Bush administration has run out of excuses for avoiding mandatory limits. The president, along with some congressional allies, still clings to the Crichtonesque fiction that there's no conclusive scientific evidence to support the global warming theory. Yet the evidence is now so abundant and compelling that the science behind climate change is virtually unchallenged in scientific circles and in the rest of the world.

As the administration continues to do its ostrich act, an increasing number of states are taking steps to limit greenhouse gas emissions on their own. The Oregon Legislature is considering a bill that would make it the ninth state to adopt the same strict auto pollution standards as California.

One by one, the rationales for inaction have fallen by the wayside. If the president fails to act strongly and decisively on global warming, his legacy will be that of a leader who failed to address the most urgent environmental issue of our time.