Last month I testified before a House subcommittee examining the cost of the Kyoto Protocol. The Congressional staff had rounded up the usual suspects – a gaggle of environmentalists to tell us that the world was doomed if the US failed to reduce its energy use by 50 to 70 percent; representatives of commercial research groups who argued convincingly that meeting Kyoto’s goals would reduce growth, eliminate jobs, and increase costs; plus a refreshing smattering of private citizens. To give balance, the hearing also included a few of us economists, as well as some flacks from the Administration to preach the virtues of subsidizing renewable energy.

Usually this column reports on studies of what might happen under global warming or analyzes the economics of trying to reign in greenhouse gases. Today we will consider another question. To paraphrase Queen Guinevere in Camelot, "What do the common folk say?" Among said common fold were a farmer from Georgia, an auto worker from the small town of Pendleton, Indiana, a retiree from Maryland, and a self-described homemaker from Virginia. Also appearing before the committee were a member of the Indianapolis/Marion County City Council, a state senator from Rhode Island, and a member of the Michigan House of Representatives, all closely in touch with their constituents (a.k.a., common folk).

The farmer, Mr. Sam Darwin, grows corn, popcorn, wheat and soybeans on land that has been in his family since 1814. With his wife, son, daughter-in-law, daughter, and son-in-law, he works 3000 acres. Darwin traveled to Washington to express his concern that the government might limit a farmer’s use of diesel fuel, restrict tillage, curb methane emissions from animal waste, circumscribe the use of fertilizer, and restrain transportation and agricultural processing. His earnings from the farm must support three families; he feared that this treaty would cut his net farm income nearly in half. Darwin projected that the bill for diesel fuel alone would raise his expenses by more than $20,000 per year, enough to make a difference between being in the black or trailing red ink.

Auto worker Donald Crawford, a union member whose plant turns out automobile lighting parts for GM, lives with his wife and three children in a small community that depends on the auto industry and on farming. Having reviewed the Kyoto Protocol, he testified that he believed it would destroy "many industries, but none more so than agriculture and the automobile industry." He likened the effect of the global warming treaty to the catastrophe of the energy "crisis" of the 1970s. After the runup of gasoline prices during that decade, he noted, Deco Remy went from 16,000 employees to 2,500, while Guide Lamp, where Mr. Crawford works, nearly halved its labor force, from 4,500 to the 2,800 employed today. He testified that most of those jobs went abroad. To him, the future under Kyoto looked anything but bright. Crawford lamented the loss of jobs for young people – his own three children, he said, are leaving the state for better opportunities elsewhere.

The autoworker stressed that his community depended on farming as well, which would also suffer under the Kyoto Protocol. He emphasized that farmers in Indiana went deeply into debt during the last energy crisis and cannot afford another jump in fuel costs. As a world citizen, he expressed concern about the global food supply should farmers in this country be unable to stay in business.

The Kyoto Protocol, said Crawford, "just encourages us to export our fossil fuel emissions to Third World countries, along with our jobs. It does not make sense." He concluded that "Higher fuel prices; higher food costs; higher prices for all goods produced in the United States, will hit no one harder than the young, the old, and the poor."

Robert Johnson, the senior citizen from Maryland, explained that he had long been involved with the environment and with conservation. In the 1960s he had built a house with much greater insulation than required with the consequence that his heating bill today is half that of his neighbors with smaller houses. He once drove a car that got 68 miles to the gallon and won a fuel-efficiency competition.

This seasoned environmental activist outlined the drastic effect that the Kyoto treaty would have on his budget. In 1997, his family spent $2,845 on energy and gasoline. He projected that, under Kyoto, those costs would rise by $1,100 – more than one-third.

To bolster his point, Johnson described a widow, living in Washington, DC, who spends 83 percent of her pension on her house payment. The treaty, he said, would decimate her net income of $114 a month for non-housing expenses. Johnson, too, feared for the future of America’s work force, and dreaded what the increase in costs of electricity and gas would do to our quality of life. He feared that America would become weaker militarily and could lose its sovereignty to the United Nations.

Judy Kent, whose husband is the "full-time breadwinner," takes care of their two children. Earlier, when he was in graduate school, she was the "breadwinner." She now drives 20,000 miles a year, mainly in taking her youngest son to pre-school every day and to transport both children to friend’s homes, to after-school classes, to weekly religious education, and on the necessary daily errands. Not only does she fear the rise in gasoline outlays, but she worries that Kyoto would boost electricity bills, household fuel prices, and the cost of everything she buys in the supermarket.

Should Kyoto be implemented, this woman said, her electric bill could go up by $1,400 or 50 percent. Surging gasoline prices could push up her auto costs by over a third and lead her to cut back on some of her children’s extracurricular activities. She and her husband would probably be forced into smaller cars which, as she pointed out, are more dangerous. Her 76-year-old mother, living on a limited fixed income in California, would find it much more expensive to visit Kent and her siblings, who are scattered across the United States. Family get-togethers could become a rarity.

Kent also noted that in 2010, when the treaty is projected to be fully in effect, her daughter will be 22, a new college graduate, looking for a promising job. Given the harm that this treaty could do to the economy, she wondered, would her daughter be able to find a good position?

This Virginia resident believes that consumers and taxpayers are not "buying that ‘gloom and doom’ forecast." She urged the Congress to insist that the administration provide better research and a clearer analysis of what the future would hold under this agreement. She concluded: "Enacting the global warming policies should not be fear-based, it should be fact-based."

The state and local elected officials, two Democrats and one Republican, shared the skepticism of these "common folk" about the Protocol. They testified that the treaty would be harmful to their constituents, to their communities, and to their states. They did not believe that the science was established, nor were they convinced of the harmful nature of climate change. Like the "common folk" they represented, they urged that the Congress not rush into anything.

You know, the "common folk" have lots more wisdom than many of their representatives, the so-called "environmental experts," and this Administration’s pundits.