106. Energy Department Data Released Today Confirm that President's Global Warming Plan Would Accelerate Pollution.

warming plan will allow more greenhouse gas pollution to occur at a faster rate than if the nation maintained the pollution trends of the past five years, according to the second edition of a National Wildlife Federation (NWF) report released today. Beneath the Hot Air 2003, which analyzes new data released today by the United States Department of Energy, finds that the Bush administration’s claim that their global warming plan would slow pollution is nothing more than hot air when it comes to protecting people, wildlife and the environment.

“The pollution increases we have seen for the past five years were bad enough for the environment, but the White House’s global warming plan would allow more pollution to occur at an even faster rate,” said Jeremy Symons, National Wildlife Federation’s Climate Change and Wildlife Program Manager. “The Bush administration needs to come clean with the American public and acknowledge that its so-called plan will make the problem worse instead of better. It’s time for them to throw it out and start over.”

The Department of Energy data featured in NWF’s Beneath the Hot Air 2003 report indicate that the amount of heat-trapping carbon dioxide that the United States is adding to the atmosphere each year increased by 4.9 percent over the past five years. This growth is due to the nation’s increasing dependence on coal, oil and natural gas. If these trends were to continue for the next ten years, the nation’s carbon dioxide emissions from energy would be expected to grow by ten percent.

According to the White House’s own data, the President’s global warming plan translates to an emissions increase of 13 percent over the next decade if White House forecasts of economic growth are correct. The President’s plan obscures its endorsement of a large increase in the nation’s global warming pollution by using an “emissions intensity” target that links the amount of greenhouse gas emissions to the size of the economy rather than identifying concrete emissions targets.