Graham-Rudman-Hollings refers to U.S. legislation in the 1980s that sought to bring the federal budget deficit under control. It didn’t work because it based its “budget cuts” on projected spending, and thus required cuts from some imaginary baseline of what would have happened absent the “budget cuts.” As former Bush Administration spokesman Ari Fleisher explained in 2001:

Graham-Rudman-Hollings was, in essence, an approach based on deficit projections of what government had to do to bring deficits into certain lines. And it lead to a lot of gimmickry, and to other issues that were complicating the process of government.

Efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are currently in their “Graham-Rudman-Hollings” phase, and this is a condition, ironically enough, shared by both the current U.S. approach as well as that under the Kyoto Protocol.


Under the Kyoto Protocol there is a complex policy called the “Clean Development Mechanism” that – simplified – provides emissions reductions credits to countries that invest in developing countries to generate clean technologies. According to a recent press release (PDF) from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change:

According to the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat, the Kyoto Protocol’s clean development mechanism (CDM) is as of today estimated to generate more than one billion tonnes of emission reductions by the end of 2012. In addition to the implementation of climate-friendly policies at home, the 1997 landmark treaty allows industrialized countries to meet their emission targets through the treaty’s flexible mechanisms. “We have crossed an important threshold with these emission reductions”, said Richard Kinley, acting head of the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat. “It is now evident that the Kyoto Protocol is making a significant contribution towards sustainable development in developing countries”.

Emissions reductions are calculated off of a baseline of what would have occurred absent the CDM investment. So it would be more accurate to say that the CDM represents a smaller increase in emissions than otherwise estimated would have occurred. Nonetheless, CDM projects each represent an additive increase in total global GHG emissions.

Now contrast this with the Bush Administration’s stated goal of reducing “greenhouse gas intensity” which is a measure of how much GHGs are produced per unit of economic activity. From an official U.S. government “fact sheet“:

In February 2002, President Bush committed the United States to a comprehensive strategy to reduce the greenhouse gas intensity of the American economy (how much we emit per unit of economic activity) by 18 percent by 2012. Meeting this commitment will prevent the release of more than 500 million metric tons of carbon-equivalent emissions to the atmosphere.

The Bush plan has been widely criticized for basically following a business-as-usual approach, as reductions in greenhouse gas intensity are occurring throughout many global economies. According to the White House lead on climate change, James Connaughton, last month:

But when it comes to carbon, what we found is by focusing on intensity we can find the lowest hanging fruit for outcomes. It does not diminish the importance of counting absolute reductions.

One formal difference between the Bush plan (a critique is here) and that of the CDM (a critique is here) is that the CDM is part of a framework that seeks to reduce overall emissions. But the practical reality is that both programs, whatever their positive merits, cannot be honestly be justified as “reducing emissions” as they in fact make very small contributions to reducing the increase in GHG emissions. Consider that most countries participating in Kyoto will all but certainly fail to meet their modest emissions reductions targets.

For advocates of immediate action emissions reductions, under all current and proposed policies (that I am aware of) the future looks like an extended period of uninterrupted growth in greenhouse gas emissions, accounting games notwithstanding. All of the debate about action on emissions will be of little practical effect unless there are policy options on the table that can actually achieve real emissions reductions, not just a reduction in the rate of increase. Right now, there does not seem to be evidence of such options, and so long as the climate debate remains in its Graham-Rudman-Hillings phase, don’t expect to see such options, or much more importantly, significant efforts to create them. The conclusions of one scholarly article on Graham-Rudman-Hollings is worth thinking about:

Gramm-Rudman-Hollings legislation has failed to control the budget deficit. However, the yearly ritual of preparing budgets that conform to the legislated requirements of this Act creates the illusion of deficit control and removes the incentive for developing real deficit controls.

It is great to argue that something should be done, but at some point the discussion has to be moved to what actions are worth doing and with what effects.