1993 GCC National Action Plan Letter to DOE

This document is a July 8, 1993 letter from John Shlaes, Executive Director of the Global Climate Coalition, to Abe Haspel, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic and Environmental Policy at the Department of Energy. The industry-funded GCC opposed greenhouse gas regulations through direct engagement and collaboration with affiliated climate deniers from 1989 to 2002. Its membership spanned across the automotive, utility, manufacturing, petroleum, and mining industries.

In the letter Shlaes referenced his meeting with Haspel the week prior, noting “the enormity” of Haspel’s task as the DOE developed “baseline assumptions and data” for the National Action Plan (NAP). Shlaes stated, “The U.S. National Action Plan can be a leadership document if it is developed in a rational and considered fashion, taking into full account economic and other consequences, including uncertainties.”

The letter then outlined “specific objectives” for the NAP, “specific areas” to develop analysis, and “key questions” the NAP should address.

“Specific objectives” for the NAP included:

  • Taking into account “the degree of uncertainty” regarding the outcome of actions; being “completely transparent with respect to assumptions, methodology, and the results; and containing “a comprehensive analysis of the economic impacts of the proposed actions.”

“Specific areas” to develop analysis included:

  • Baseline economic and energy price assumptions
  • Energy Policy Act of 1992
  • Baseline emission projections
  • Economic impacts and cost effectiveness
  • Voluntary actions
  • International effects
  • Carbon sinks and joint implementation

Topics of “key questions” the NAP should address included:

  • Economic growth rates assumptions
  • Energy price assumptions
  • Effects of 1992 National Action Plan
  • Baseline emissions
  • Proposed actions, costs, emission reductions, and other effects
  • Effects of recent major legislation
  • Diffusion of specific technologies

This document is part of the private collection of Nicky Sundt, a Washington-based climate change science, policy and communications expert.



Interested in more GCC documents? See more in the full Global Climate Coalition collection.

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