Lawmakers say U.S. not all bad on climate change

By David Fogarty

NUSA DUA, Indonesia (Reuters) - The United States might have earned global ire for refusing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, but not every American is a climate villain, U.S. lawmakers and activists at climate talks in Bali say.

Rep. Edward J. Markey and 10 House committee chairmen, in a letter to a top U.N. figure at the Bali talks, highlighted what they said was the willingness of Congress and voters to act against a policy of delay adopted by the administration of George W. Bush.

"As world leaders and the United Nations meet in Bali to plan a future without global warming, the world must know that President Bush's avoidance of action is not the status quo here in America," said Markey, Chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.

"With Congress, the states, cities, and Americans from coast to coast looking to act immediately on global warming, the international community must know they have significant support here in the United States," he said in the letter to Yvo de Boer, the head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat.

"In total, 55 percent of the U.S. population lives in a state that has already established rigorous mandatory greenhouse gas reduction targets," the Massachusetts Democrat added.

Among the House committee leaders supporting the letter were Tom Lantos of the Foreign Relations Committee; Henry A. Waxman, Oversight and Government Reform Committee; and George Miller, Education and Labor Committee.

A U.S. youth delegation met their government's negotiating team in Bali on Wednesday to demand tougher action against global warming.

The United States is the world's top emitter of greenhouse gases and says Kyoto is a failure because it doesn't commit big developing nations such as China and India to emissions targets.