ENGROSSED SENATE
CONCURRENT
RESOLUTION NO. 41	By:	Lamb, Jolley, Sykes, Russell, Paddack, Ford, Stanislawski, Newberry, Branan, Myers, Johnson (Mike), Barrington, Adelson, Schulz, Ivester, Coffee and Justice of the Senate

			and

		Osborn of the House

A Concurrent Resolution opposing federal cap and trade proposals and certain United States Environmental Protection Agency regulations; and directing distribution.

WHEREAS, federal legislative proposals designed to control pollution by providing economic incentives for achieving reductions in the emissions of pollutants, otherwise known as cap and trade, would result in significantly higher production costs for many of our state businesses, especially Oklahoma's two principal industries: agriculture and oil and gas; and
WHEREAS, the potential benefits of agricultural offsets from cap and trade proposals are unavailable to many producers, are far outweighed by the costs and would be harmful to the entire United States agricultural system – one of the most productive systems in the world; and
WHEREAS, such cap and trade proposals threaten our nation's energy security and move our national energy policy away from clean burning domestically produced natural gas; and
WHEREAS, many oil and gas producers oppose cap and trade legislation because they fear Americans will see only higher energy prices and job losses as a result, and they continue to stress the importance of producing clean-burning, domestically produced natural gas resources as the best way to help reduce pollution; and
WHEREAS, the Obama administration’s latest economic projections show that the proposed cap and trade legislation would result in planting trees on fifty-nine million acres of crop and pasture land thereby threatening the capability of our nation’s agricultural producers to feed a growing world population and causing a significant rise in consumer food prices; and
WHEREAS, intense public scrutiny has revealed how unsettled the science is on climate change and the unwillingness of many of the world’s climatologists to share data or even entertain opposing viewpoints on the subject; and
WHEREAS, the recent climate summit in Copenhagen resulted in demands for the United States to transfer billions of dollars to the developing world to fight climate change, but produced no meaningful agreement; and
WHEREAS, in addition to their concern over federal cap and trade legislation, our nation’s farmers would be further burdened by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s proposals to selectively regulate greenhouse gases under the federal Clean Air Act, and on their behalf, we oppose any attempt to enact such regulation.
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE SENATE OF THE 2ND SESSION OF THE 52ND OKLAHOMA LEGISLATURE, THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES CONCURRING THEREIN:
THAT the Oklahoma State Senate strongly opposes federal cap and trade proposals and supports any legislative action that would suspend the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the provisions of the federal Clean Air Act.
THAT the members of this body strongly urge the members of the United States Congress to block further federal involvement in climate change legislation that would be detrimental to the agricultural and oil and gas producers of this nation, and on their behalf, we further send this message to Congress:  “Don’t Cap Our Future”.
THAT copies of this resolution be distributed to the members of the Oklahoma congressional delegation.
Adopted by the Senate the 10th day of February, 2010.

	
Presiding Officer of the Senate

Adopted by the House of Representatives the ____ day of _______, 2010.

	
Presiding Officer  of the House
	of Representatives