The United States Congress debated legislation in recent weeks that would set "some very stringent goals" for national greenhouse gas reduction by implementing changes in automobile and other fuel efficiency and increased usage of renewable fuel among other policies.

A major goal of the United States government is to make its automobiles more environmentally-friendly, she said.

"We've put billions of dollars into this kind of research, from simple electric cars with a plug-in battery that would be a variation on the hybrids that are already on the road, to something that's quite revolutionary and might take several decades to develop and that would be something that would produce only water as a byproduct in the end," she said.

The U.S. is also researching technology that would produce cleaner emissions from coal, she added.

"That's something that is so important to the U.S. and China," she said. "We both rely very heavily on coal because we have so much of it in both of our countries."

The upcoming presidential election in the United States will not push these goals down on the agenda.

"I have observed both of the candidates not only in the presidential election but in their time in the Senate," McMurray said. "I would say they are closer together on environmental policy than they are apart.

"I think most of our industry and most of our Congress and most of our citizens have looked at the two's policies and decided that that's not something where they can make a choice based on one or the other so they're going to have to pick something else."

(China.org.cn July 9, 2008)