09.06.18

GLOBAL WARMING
MAVERICK
WILL JOHN MCCAIN BE THE LAST REPUBLICAN LEADER IN THE
SENATE TO ADDRESS THE REALITY OF CLIMATE CHANGE?
BY TIM PROFETA
“He was just doing his job.”
When I asked a longtime staffer to Sen. John McCain why the senator battled to address
climate change in the early 2000s, that was his answer.
A simple answer, but one essential to understanding how McCain led those early efforts
to combat the challenge when no one else would step forward.
Although others had brought climate change as an issue to the Senate, McCain, a
Republican, and Democratic Sen. Joseph Lieberman were the first to bring climate
legislation that aimed to reduce emissions. That attempt was their bipartisan 2003 Climate
Stewardship Act. As Lieberman’s counsel for the environment, I helped write this
legislation.
Science Informed Policy
In 2000, McCain was the chair of the Senate Committee for Commerce, Science and
Transportation, which had jurisdiction over the US Global Climate Research Program.
That program, established in 1990, aimed to assist “the Nation and the world to understand,
assess, predict and respond to human-induced and natural processes of global
change.”
McCain wanted to oversee the program’s activities and began a series of hearings on
it. He sought out and gained insights from institutions he trusted in the hearings — including
the U.S. Navy, McCain’s former professional home and a hub of defining research
at the time — to learn more about climate science.
Armed with knowledge of the science, McCain proceeded to “do his job” to take on
the challenge posed by climate change.
The hearings he called sparked conversations that led him to develop and co-sponsor,
with Lieberman, the first legislation aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions by
industries across the economy.
The legislation attempted to institute a market-based program to reduce emissions
from electricity, manufacturing and transportation sectors of the economy. Those
sectors represented 85 percent of US emissions that at that time contributed to climate
change.
This legislative step was particularly difficult for McCain as a Republican. Climate
change legislation was, and remains, a tough political challenge as it requires regulating
the sources of energy that underlie so much of our economy.
In 2000, the only recorded vote in the US Senate on climate change was a 1997 resolu-
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