[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                  BUILDING A 100 PERCENT CLEAN ECONOMY: 
                PATHWAYS TO NET ZERO INDUSTRIAL EMISSIONS

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

             SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND CLIMATE CHANGE

                                 OF THE

                    COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                     ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                           SEPTEMBER 18, 2019

                               __________

                           Serial No. 116-61
                           
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]                           


      Printed for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce

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                        energycommerce.house.gov
                        
                              __________

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                    COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE

                     FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey
                                 Chairman
BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois              GREG WALDEN, Oregon
ANNA G. ESHOO, California              Ranking Member
ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York             FRED UPTON, Michigan
DIANA DeGETTE, Colorado              JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois
MIKE DOYLE, Pennsylvania             MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas
JAN SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois             STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana
G. K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina    ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio
DORIS O. MATSUI, California          CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS, Washington
KATHY CASTOR, Florida                BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky
JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland           PETE OLSON, Texas
JERRY McNERNEY, California           DAVID B. McKINLEY, West Virginia
PETER WELCH, Vermont                 ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois
BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico            H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia
PAUL TONKO, New York                 GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida
YVETTE D. CLARKE, New York, Vice     BILL JOHNSON, Ohio
    Chair                            BILLY LONG, Missouri
DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa                 LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana
KURT SCHRADER, Oregon                BILL FLORES, Texas
JOSEPH P. KENNEDY III,               SUSAN W. BROOKS, Indiana
    Massachusetts                    MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma
TONY CARDENAS, California            RICHARD HUDSON, North Carolina
RAUL RUIZ, California                TIM WALBERG, Michigan
SCOTT H. PETERS, California          EARL L. ``BUDDY'' CARTER, Georgia
DEBBIE DINGELL, Michigan             JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina
MARC A. VEASEY, Texas                GREG GIANFORTE, Montana
ANN M. KUSTER, New Hampshire
ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois
NANETTE DIAZ BARRAGAN, California
A. DONALD McEACHIN, Virginia
LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER, Delaware
DARREN SOTO, Florida
TOM O'HALLERAN, Arizona
                                 ------                                

                           Professional Staff

                   JEFFREY C. CARROLL, Staff Director
                TIFFANY GUARASCIO, Deputy Staff Director
                MIKE BLOOMQUIST, Minority Staff Director
             Subcommittee on Environment and Climate Change

                          PAUL TONKO, New York
                                 Chairman
YVETTE D. CLARKE, New York           JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois
SCOTT H. PETERS, California            Ranking Member
NANETTE DIAZ BARRAGAN, California    CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS, Washington
A. DONALD McEACHIN, Virginia         DAVID B. McKINLEY, West Virginia
LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER, Delaware       BILL JOHNSON, Ohio
DARREN SOTO, Florida                 BILLY LONG, Missouri
DIANA DeGETTE, Colorado              BILL FLORES, Texas
JAN SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois             MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma
DORIS O. MATSUI, California          EARL L. ``BUDDY'' CARTER, Georgia
JERRY McNERNEY, California           JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina
RAUL RUIZ, California, Vice Chair    GREG WALDEN, Oregon (ex officio)
DEBBIE DINGELL, Michigan
FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey (ex 
    officio)
                             
                             
                             C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page
Hon. Paul Tonko, a Representative in Congress from the State of 
  New York, opening statement....................................     1
    Prepared statement...........................................     3
Hon. John Shimkus, a Representative in Congress from the State of 
  Illinois, opening statement....................................     4
    Prepared statement...........................................     6
Hon. Frank Pallone, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the 
  State of New Jersey, opening statement.........................     7
    Prepared statement...........................................     8
Hon. Greg Walden, a Representative in Congress from the State of 
  Oregon, prepared statement.....................................     9
    Prepared statement...........................................    11

                               Witnesses

Bob Perciasepe, President, Center for Climate and Energy 
  Solutions......................................................    13
    Prepared statement...........................................    15
    Answers to submitted questions...............................   270
Jeremy Gregory, Ph.D, Executive Director, Massachusetts Institute 
  of Technology, Concrete Sustainability Hub, on behalf of 
  Portland Cement Association....................................    25
    Prepared statement...........................................    27
    Answers to submitted questions...............................   276
Gaurav Sant, Ph.D, Professor and Henry Samueli Fellow, UCLA 
  Samueli School of Engineering..................................    47
    Prepared statement...........................................    49
    Answers to submitted questions...............................   281
Ross E. Eisenberg, Vice President, Energy and Resources Policy, 
  National Association of Manufacturers..........................    55
    Prepared statement...........................................    57
    Answers to submitted questions...............................   286
Julio Friedmann, Ph.D., Senior Research Scholar, Columbia 
  University Center on Global Energy Policy......................    67
    Prepared statement...........................................    69
    Answers to submitted questions...............................   293
Jason Walsh, Executive Director, BlueGreen Alliance..............    75
    Prepared statement...........................................    77
    Answers to submitted questions...............................   297

                           Submitted Material

Letter of September 17, 2019, from Rebecca Walsh Dell, Ph.D, 
  Industry, Strategist ClimateWorks Foundation, to Mr. Tonko and 
  Mr. Shimkus, submitted by Mr. Tonko............................   127
Report of May 2019, Climate Action, from Lakshmi N. Mittal, 
  Chairman and Chief Executive, ArcelorMittal, submitted by Mr. 
  Tonko..........................................................   132
Report of November 2018, Mission Possible: ``Reaching Net Zero 
  Carbon Emissions from Harder-to-Abate Sectors by Mid-Century,'' 
  The Energy Transitions Commission, submitted by Mr. Tonko......   180
Summary Report of August 2019, ``Carbon Utilization--A Vital and 
  Effective Pathway for Decarbonization,'' by Jeffrey Bobeck, et. 
  al, Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, submitted by Mr. 
  Tonko..........................................................   218
Report of July 2018, ``Decarbonizing U.S. Industry,'' by Doug 
  Vine and Jason Ye, Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, 
  submitted by Mr. Tonko.........................................   260
Fact Sheet, Fertilizer and Climate Change: ``Safeguarding the 
  Future of our Food and our Planet,'' The Fertilizer Institute, 
  submitted by Mr. Tonko.........................................   266
Statement of American Iron and Steel Institute, submitted by Mr. 
  Tonko..........................................................   268

 
 BUILDING A 100 PERCENT CLEAN ECONOMY: PATHWAYS TO NET ZERO INDUSTRIAL 
                               EMISSIONS

                              ----------                              


                     WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2019

                  House of Representatives,
    Subcommittee on Environment and Climate Change,
                          Committee on Energy and Commerce,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in 
the John D. Dingell Room 2123, Rayburn House Office Building, 
Hon. Paul Tonko (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
    Members present: Representatives Tonko, Clarke, Peters, 
Barragan, Blunt Rochester, Soto, DeGette, Schakowsky, Matsui, 
McNerney, Ruiz, Dingell, Pallone (ex officio), Shimkus 
(subcommittee ranking member), Rodgers, McKinley, Long, Flores, 
Mullin, Carter, Duncan, and Walden (ex officio).
    Staff present: Adam Fischer, Policy Analyst; Jean Fruci, 
Energy and Environment Policy Advisor; Caitlin Haberman, 
Professional Staff Member; Rick Kessler, Senior Advisor and 
Staff Director, Energy and Environment; Brendan Larkin, Policy 
Coordinator; Dustin Maghamfar, Air and Climate Counsel; Nikki 
Roy, Policy Coordinator; Mike Bloomquist, Minority Staff 
Director; S. K. Bowen, Minority Press Assistant; Ryan Long, 
Minority Deputy Staff Director; Mary Martin, Minority Chief 
Counsel, Energy and Environment and Climate Change; Brandon 
Mooney, Minority Deputy Chief Counsel, Energy; Brannon Rains, 
Minority Staff Assistant; and Peter Spencer, Minority Senior 
Professional Staff Member, Environment and Climate Change.
    Mr. Tonko. Good morning, everyone. The Subcommittee on 
Environment and Climate Change will now come to order.
    I recognize myself for 5 minutes for the purposes of an 
opening statement.

   OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. PAUL TONKO, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 
              CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW YORK

    Today's hearing will examine greenhouse gas emissions 
associated with the industrial sector, which includes a wide 
range of manufactured products and processes, including several 
energy-intensive and trade-exposed industries.
    Many of these industrial products are critical to our 
economy, including steel and cement, chemicals and fertilizers, 
glass, paper, and aluminum products, to name a few. Despite 
their importance to our lives, they are also a large and 
overlooked source of emissions and projected to grow through 
mid-century.
    We cannot achieve meaningful climate targets, such as our 
economy-wide net zero by mid-century goal, without 
significantly reducing industrial emissions but industrial 
emissions can be difficult to directory. They are often 
produced from high temperature long-duration heat production 
and chemical reactions. Unlike much of the power sector and 
light-duty vehicles, in many cases, cost-effective low-carbon 
solutions are not commercially available yet and there is no 
one solution to cut across all the diverse subsectors.
    While decarbonizing industry certainly has its challenges, 
there are near-and long-term solutions. In the near-term, there 
are well-developed technologies and strategies that, if given 
the proper incentives and policy certainty, industry can start 
to make investments. These include improving energy efficiency, 
deploying CHP systems, CHP systems, fuel switching, and 
increasing recycled content. The Federal Government could help 
form markets and provide assistance to incentivize these types 
of actions right now. For example, the public sector is a major 
purchaser of steel and cement. Through the power of procurement 
policy, we can drive market demand for low-carbon industrial 
products.
    Longer-term options will require significant Federal 
investments in RD&D for technology development, such as: carbon 
capture, utilization, and storage; breakthroughs in chemistry 
and materials; and the use of hydrogen. Some of these 
innovative options may take several years to become widely 
deployed but will likely be necessary to achieve major 
reductions in the sector. It is critical that we focus Federal 
efforts today in order to achieve targets that are still 
decades away.
    Unlike other sectors, many energy-intensive industries face 
global competition. Poorly designed policies risk the leakage 
of pollution, production, and jobs overseas. Many of us know 
the consequences of de-industrialization. I do not have to look 
any further than my own hometown in New York's 20th 
Congressional District.
    Manufacturing has always been a gateway to the American 
middle class. It was the lifeblood of my and many other 
communities across the country and, sadly, we know what happens 
to communities when production moves overseas. Our policy 
preferences should seek to both spur decarbonization and 
promote domestic advanced manufacturing.
    Rebuilding, retooling, and reinvigoration American 
manufacturing must be a fundamental component of our climate 
response. That is why I believe it is imperative to understand 
and to seek to mitigate potential competitiveness concerns, 
rather than dismiss them. At the end of the day, it is good for 
both us and global climate action if these manufacturers 
continue to operate here, where they employ Americans and 
produce more cleanly than their foreign competitors.
    In order to succeed, Congress must provide the assistance 
necessary to enable the United States' industry to achieve 
ambitious targets on a reasonable and certain time line. This 
will likely need to be done with a mix of incentives and 
requirements.
    Without a doubt, decarbonization of the industrial sector 
will be challenging. And I hope today we can better understand 
those challenges and the potential solutions but, above all, we 
must recognize that industrial decarbonization is necessary and 
possible with the right mix of well-designed policies, Federal 
investments, and market development.
    Through smart climate and industrial policy, Congress can 
help American manufacturers transition to cleaner production 
while investing in the technologies, the practices, and the 
people that will make us globally competitive long into the 
future.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Tonko follows:]

                 Prepared Statement of Hon. Paul Tonko

    Today's hearing will examine greenhouse gas emissions 
associated with the industrial sector, which includes a wide-
range of manufactured products and processes, including several 
energy-intensive and trade-exposed industries.
    Many of these industrial products are critical to our 
economy, including steel, cement, chemicals, fertilizers, 
glass, paper, and aluminum products to name a few.
    Despite their importance to our lives, they are also a 
large and overlooked source of emissions and projected to grow 
through mid-century.
    We cannot achieve meaningful climate targets, such as our 
economy-wide, net-zero by mid-century goal, without 
significantly reducing industrial emissions.
    But industrial emissions can be difficult to decarbonize. 
They are often produced from high-temperature, long-duration 
heat production and chemical reactions.
    Unlike much of the power sector and light-duty vehicles, in 
many cases cost-effective, low-carbon solutions are not 
commercially available yet. And there is no one solution to cut 
across all the diverse subsectors.
    While decarbonizing industry certainly has its challenges, 
there are near- and long-term solutions.
    In the near-term, there are well-developed technologies and 
strategies that if given the proper incentives and policy 
certainty, industry can start to make investments.
    These include improving energy efficiency, deploying CHP 
systems, fuel switching, and increasing recycled content.
    The federal government could help form markets and provide 
assistance to incentivize these types of actions right now. For 
example, the public sector is a major purchaser of steel and 
cement.
    Through the power of procurement policy, we can drive 
market demand for low-carbon industrial products.
    Longer-term options will require significant federal 
investments in RD&D for technology development, such as carbon 
capture, utilization, and storage; breakthroughs in chemistry 
and materials; and use of hydrogen.
    Some of these innovative options may take several years to 
become widely deployed but will likely be necessary to achieve 
major reductions in the sector.
    It is critical that we focus federal efforts today in order 
to achieve targets that are still decades away.
    Unlike other sectors, many energy-intensive industries face 
global competition. Poorly designed policies risk the leakage 
of pollution, production, and jobs overseas.
    Many of us know the consequences of deindustrialization. I 
do not have to look any further than my hometown.
    Manufacturing has always been a gateway to the American 
middle class. It was the lifeblood of my, and many other, 
communities across the country. And sadly, we know what happens 
to communities when production moves overseas.
    Our policy preferences should seek to both spur 
decarbonization and promote domestic, advanced manufacturing.
    Rebuilding, retooling, and reinvigorating American 
manufacturing must be a fundamental component of our climate 
response.
    That is why I believe it is imperative to understand, and 
seek to mitigate, potential competitiveness concerns rather 
than dismiss them.
    At the end of the day, it is good for both us and global 
climate action if these manufacturers continue to operate here, 
where they employ Americans and produce more cleanly than their 
foreign competitors.
    In order to succeed, Congress must provide the assistance 
necessary to enable U.S. industry to achieve ambitious targets 
on a reasonable and certain timeline. This will likely need to 
be done with a mix of incentives and requirements.
    Without a doubt, decarbonization of the industrial sector 
will be challenging. I hope today we can better understand 
those challenges and the potential solutions.
    But above all, we must recognize that industrial 
decarbonization is necessary and possible with the right mix of 
well-designed policies, federal investments, and market 
development.
    Through smart climate and industrial policy, Congress can 
help American manufacturers transition to cleaner production 
while investing in the technologies, practices, and people that 
will make us globally competitive long into the future.

    Mr. Tonko. With that, I know recognize the ranker of the 
subcommittee, Representative Shimkus, for 5 minutes of opening 
statement.

  OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN SHIMKUS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 
              CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS

    Mr. Shimkus. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Whenever I hear an idea for what we can do to keep global 
warming in check, whether it is over a conference table or a 
cheeseburger, I always ask this question: What is your plan for 
steel? I know it sounds like an odd thing to say but it opens 
the door to an important subject that deserves a lot more 
attention than any conversation about climate change.
    Making steel and other materials, such as cement, plastic, 
glass, aluminum, and paper, is the third biggest contributor of 
greenhouses gases behind agriculture and making electricity. It 
is responsible for a fifth of all emissions and these emissions 
will be some of the hardest to get rid of. These materials are 
everywhere in our lives and we don't yet have proven 
breakthroughs that will give us affordable zero-carbon versions 
of them. If we are going to get to zero-carbon emissions 
overall, we have a lot of inventing to do.
    Steel, cement, and plastic are so pervasive in modern life 
that it can be easy to take them for granted. The first two are 
the main reasons our buildings and bridges are so sturdy and 
last so long. Steel, cheap, strong, and infinitely recyclable, 
also goes into shingles, household appliances, canned goods, 
and computers. Concrete, rust-resistant, rot-proof, and 
nonflammable, can be made dense enough to absorb radiation or 
light enough to float on water.
    As for plastics, they have a bad reputation these days and 
it is true that the amount piling up in our oceans is 
problematic, but they also do a lot of good. For example, you 
can thank plastics for making that fuel-efficient car you drive 
so light. They account for as much as half of the car's total 
volume but only ten percent of its weight.
    So how do we cut down on emissions from all steel, cement, 
and plastic we are making? One way is to use less of all these 
materials. There are definitely steps we should take to use 
less by recycling more and increasing efficiency but that won't 
be enough to offset the fact that the world's population is 
growing and getting richer.
    As the middle class expands, so will our use of some 
materials. In a sense, that is good news because it means more 
people will be living in sturdy houses and apartment buildings 
and driving on paved roads, but it is bad news for climate. 
Take Africa, for example. Its emissions from making concrete 
are projected to quadruple by 2005. Emissions from steel could 
go up even more because the continent uses so little now.
    If using less isn't really a viable option, could we make 
things without emitting carbon in the first place?
    That is, in fact, what we will need to do but there are 
several challenges. First, these industries require a lot of 
electricity which, today, is often generated using fossil 
fuels. Second, the processes also require a lot of heat, as in 
thousands of degrees Fahrenheit, and fossil fuels are often the 
cheapest way to create that heat.
    Finally, and this might be the toughest challenge of all, 
manufacturing some of these products involves chemical 
reactions that emit greenhouse gases. For example, to make 
cement you start with limestone, which contains calcium, 
carbon, and oxygen. You only want the calcium so; you burn the 
limestone in a furnace along with other materials.
    You end up with the calcium you want plus a byproduct you 
don't want, carbon dioxide. It is a chemical reaction and there 
is no way around it.
    As brilliant as this opening statement is, it is not from 
me. It is from a blog post on August 27th by Bill Gates.
    I have noted in previous hearings that we should keep 
appropriate perspective on the scale and source of the problem 
we are trying to address, and this is especially important when 
it comes to reducing emissions in the industrial sector. If we 
impose overly restrictive rules and regulations domestically, 
we raise the cost of energy and feedstock. We lose control over 
essential parts of the critical supply chains. We increase 
reliance on foreign industries and manufacturing and simply 
displace industrial emissions from the United Sates to other 
nations, along with our manufacturing jobs.
    For emission reductions in this sector to make an impact on 
global greenhouse gas budgets, the reduction should occur where 
the industrial output will be growing the most.
    That will mostly likely be China, India, and the developing 
world. The trick for the United States will be to develop the 
cleaner technologies and practices to explore to developing 
nations, while avoiding cost and regulatory burdens that will 
make essential goods more expensive and drive our industries 
overseas. We do not want to put the United States at a 
competitive disadvantage to other nations or deprive our nation 
important opportunities to innovate and develop the new 
industrial sectors that promise cleaner future energy systems.
    Today's testimony will note that reducing emissions across 
the sector is not easy or even possible, in some cases, based 
upon brute facts of physics, chemistry, and economics. But we 
will also note in this hearing that there are practical 
policies to pursue that can make a difference domestically and 
can help set the U.S. industry to advance cleaner technologies 
and processes in the future.
    Chairman Tonko, there are bipartisan legislative solutions 
we can sign into law this Congress that will remove some of the 
barriers to innovation in the industrial sector. If you want to 
start making progress on the industrial emissions, let's start 
with what we know we can do today to make a difference in the 
innovation landscape, while protecting our national interest 
and the interest of our workers and consumers.
    And with that, I thank you for the time and I yield back my 
time.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Shimkus follow:]

                Prepared Statement of Hon. John Shimkus

    Bill Gates noted in a blog post a few weeks ago that, when 
somebody talks about reducing greenhouse gas emissions, he 
always asks them: ``what's your plan for steel?''
    A good question. Gates point is that any serious attempt to 
reduce greenhouse emissions economy-wide must grapple with the 
energy and process emissions from the industrial sector. And 
that means the core ingredients and building blocks of our 
modern society.
    This includes iron and steel, basic chemicals and 
petrochemicals, cement, fertilizer, plastics, glass, aluminum, 
paper products, etc. This is what makes up our roads, bridges, 
buildings, our cars and transportation systems, our computing 
systems, our factories; it is behind the food we eat and the 
power we generate, the goods we make and use.
    The industrial sector is the largest global user of energy, 
according to J. P. Morgan's Annual Energy Outlook. Demand for 
industrial output is expected to grow dramatically in coming 
decades. The world's building stock alone is anticipated to 
double by 2060, which Gates has noted, is equivalent to a New 
York City built every month for the next forty years. That is a 
lot of steel. And that is a lot of energy and process 
emissions.
    I've noted in previous hearings that we should keep 
appropriate perspective on the scale and source of the problem 
we are trying to address. And this is especially important when 
it comes to reducing emissions in the industrial sector.
    If we impose overly restrictive rules and regulations 
domestically, we raise the costs of energy and feedstock, we 
lose control over essential parts of critical supply chains, we 
increase reliance on foreign industries and manufacturing, and 
simply displace industrial emissions from the United States to 
other nations, along with our manufacturing jobs.
    For emissions reductions in this sector to make an impact 
on global greenhouse gas budgets, the reductions should occur 
where industrial output will be growing the most. That will 
most likely be in China, India and the developing world.
    The trick for the United States industry will be to develop 
the cleaner technologies and practices to export to developing 
nations, while avoiding costs and regulatory burdens that will 
make essential goods more expensive and drive our industries 
overseas.
    We do not want to put the United States at a competitive 
disadvantage to other nations or deprive our nation important 
opportunities to innovate and develop the new industrial 
technologies that promise cleaner future energy systems.
    Today's testimony will note that reducing emissions across 
this sector is not easy, or even possible in some cases, based 
on brute facts of physics, chemistry and economics.
    Even in cases where it is feasible to substitute 
electricity for direct fossil energy use to provide the heat 
and pressure for industrial processes, the costs can be 
prohibitive. As the JP Morgan report noted, the cost of 
electricity is 3 to 5 times higher per unit of output than 
natural gas in states that are the largest industrial users of 
energy, so fuel switching and upgrades would require large 
electricity capacity investments that may not make economic 
sense.
    But there are practical policies to pursue that can make a 
difference domestically and can help to set up U.S. industry to 
advance cleaner technologies and processes in the future.
    Testimony from the National Association of Manufacturers 
and on behalf of the Portland Cement Association provide 
examples of some of the policies that we may pursue in the 
short term on a bi-partisan basis to foster American innovation 
and technological advancement.
    Some of these measures would reduce the regulatory burdens 
we have today. These include reforming federal and state 
permitting regulations to enable more energy efficient upgrades 
to facilities. They include taking steps to help speed up the 
permitting process for the infrastructure needed for reducing 
industrial emissions. And they include appropriate policies 
that make way for the demonstration and deployment of new 
technologies to prove they can work commercially, economically.
    Chairman Tonko, there are bi-partisan legislative solutions 
we can sign into law this Congress that will remove some of the 
barriers to innovation in the industrial sector. If you want to 
start making progress on industrial emissions, let's start with 
what we know we can do today to make a difference in the 
innovation landscape, while protecting our national interests, 
and the interest of our workers and consumers.

    Mr. Tonko. Thank you, Representative Shimkus. The gentleman 
yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes Mr. Pallone, the chairman of the 
full committee, for 5 minutes for his opening statement.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK PALLONE, Jr., A REPRESENTATIVE 
            IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY

    Mr. Pallone. Thank you Chairman Tonko.
    Combatting climate change is a top priority of this 
committee. That is why, in July, I joined Chairmen Tonko and 
Rush, and other committee Democrats in announcing a plan to 
address the climate crisis by achieving a 100 percent clean 
economy by 2050.
    Recent reports by U.S. scientists and the Intergovernmental 
Panel on Climate Change paint a grim picture of our future if 
we do not get carbon pollution under control. We are already 
experiencing record heat waves, flooding, sea level rise, 
intense wildfires, extended drought, and severe weather events 
that experts project would come with increased warming. These 
events are taking a terrible toll on our communities and the 
cost of inaction is growing.
    We must act and our 100 by 50 plan is supported by 
scientific consensus. Scientists say we must limit global 
warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century to 
prevent the worst effects of climate change.
    Now transforming our economy to one that is 100 percent 
clean will be tough and will take significant resources and 
ingenuity but it is absolutely necessary. Some sectors of the 
economy will be more difficult to address than others. So 
today's hearing will examine the industrial sector, an 
essential sector of our economy and one with some of the 
largest challenges, as we look to transition to a 100 percent 
clean economy.
    The industrial sector is a source of good-paying jobs and 
critical products. These products make up our infrastructure 
and are essential to a wide array of businesses and services in 
our modern society. A vibrant manufacturing sector helps our 
economy flourish. At the same time, this sector is also the 
third largest source of all greenhouse gas pollution.
    Compared to other sectors of the economy, emissions from 
the industrial sector come from a diverse mix of heat 
production, power generation, and chemical reactions and that 
mix also varies widely across individual subsectors and 
facilities, from manufacturing cement and steel to producing 
chemicals and paper products. This diversity makes the 
industrial sector especially challenging to decarbonize.
    There is no single policy that will curb carbon pollution 
from the entire sector. Switching to renewables and 
electrification will work in some areas but not others. 
Capturing and storing emissions, rather than eliminating them 
altogether, will likely be the most effective way to 
decarbonize certain parts of the industrial sector, since 
creating certain materials naturally produces carbon.
    Transitioning the industrial sector to a clean future is 
challenging but certainly possible. Pathways to industrial 
sector decarbonization do exist. We have many technologies 
available today that, with wider deployment, can improve 
material and energy efficiency in manufacturing and lower 
carbon and other harmful pollutants. We also need continued 
research, design development, and demonstration projects to 
lower costs and spur technological innovation.
    Comprehensive climate action provides an opportunity to 
transform our economy for the future. The technologies we 
develop and demonstrate here in the U.S. can be exported to 
other nations, creating new businesses and millions of good 
jobs in a climate-resilient economy. Climate action ensures our 
nation does not fall behind our global economic competitors 
but, instead, leads the world. The rest of the world is already 
taking the climate threat seriously, embarking on a major 
transition into a low-carbon economy. We can either lead that 
transition or watch as American workers and industries get left 
behind. Cleaning up the industrial sector is essential to 
meeting this challenge.
    So I just want to mention again that I am committed, and 
our Democrats are committed, to the 100 by 50 target and to 
building widely-supported solutions that make the necessary 
pollution reductions while also strengthening our economy for 
the future. America has always been a leader in innovation. We 
can and must use our talent and resources to grow new clean 
industries here and employ our workers to deliver low-or zero-
carbon high-quality products to the world.
    So I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today, as 
we continue to hear ideas about how best to reach our 100 by 50 
target.
    And thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to the 
testimony.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Pallone follows:]

             Prepared Statement of Hon. Frank Pallone, Jr.

    Combating climate change is a top priority of this 
Committee. That is why, in July, I joined Chairmen Tonko and 
Rush, and other Committee Democrats, in announcing a bold plan 
to address the climate crisis by achieving a 100 percent clean 
economy by 2050.
    Recent reports by U.S. scientists and the Intergovernmental 
Panel on Climate Change paint a grim picture of our future if 
we do not get carbon pollution under control. We are already 
experiencing record heat waves, flooding, sea level rise, 
intense wildfires, extended drought and severe weather events 
that experts projected would come with increased warming. These 
events are taking a terrible toll on our communities, and the 
cost of inaction is growing.
    We must act, and our 100 by 50 plan is supported by the 
scientific consensus. Scientists say we must limit global 
warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century to 
prevent the worst effects of climate change.
    Transforming our economy to one that is 100 percent clean 
will be tough and will take significant resources and ingenuity 
, but it is absolutely necessary. Some sectors of the economy 
will be more difficult to address than others.
    Today's hearing will examine the industrial sector--an 
essential sector of our economy and one with some of the 
largest challenges as we look to transition to a 100 percent 
clean economy.
    The industrial sector is a source of good-paying jobs and 
critical products. These products make up our infrastructure 
and are essential to a wide array of businesses and services in 
our modern society. A vibrant manufacturing sector helps our 
economy flourish. At the same time, this sector is also the 
third largest source of all greenhouse gas pollution.
    Compared to other sectors of the economy, emissions from 
the industrial sector come from a diverse mix of heat 
production, power generation and chemical reactions. That mix 
also varies widely across individual subsectors and 
facilities--from manufacturing cement and steel to producing 
chemicals and paper products. This diversity makes the 
industrial sector especially challenging to decarbonize.
    There is no single policy that will curb carbon pollution 
from the entire sector. Switching to renewables and 
electrification will work in some areas, but not others. 
Capturing and storing emissions--rather than eliminating them 
altogether--will likely be the most effective way to 
decarbonize certain parts of the industrial sector, since 
creating certain materials naturally produces carbon.
    Transitioning the industrial sector to a clean future is 
challenging, but certainly possible. Pathways to industrial 
sector decarbonization do exist. We have many technologies 
available today that, with wider deployment, can improve 
material and energy efficiency in manufacturing, and lower 
carbon and other harmful pollutants. We also need continued 
research, design development, and demonstration projects to 
lower costs and spur technological innovation.
    Comprehensive climate action provides an opportunity to 
transform our economy for the future . The technologies we 
develop and demonstrate here in the United States can be 
exported to other nations, creating new businesses and millions 
of good jobs in a climate-resilient economy. Climate action 
ensures our nation does not fall behind our global economic 
competitors, but, instead, leads the world.
    The rest of the world is already taking the climate threat 
seriously, embarking on a major transition into a low-carbon 
economy. We can either lead that transition or watch as 
American workers and industries get left behind. Cleaning up 
the industrial sector is essential to meeting this challenge.
    I am committed to the 100 by 50 target and to building 
widely-supported solutions that make the necessary pollution 
reductions while also strengthening our economy for the future.
    America has always been a leader in innovation. We can and 
must use our talent and resources to grow new, clean industries 
here and employ our workers to deliver low or zero-carbon, high 
quality products to the world.
    I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today as we 
continue to hear ideas about how best to reach our 100 by 50 
target.

    Mr. Tonko. Thank you, Mr. Pallone. The gentleman yields 
back.
    The Chair now recognizes Mr. Walden, ranking member of the 
full committee, for 5 minutes for his opening statement.

  OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. GREG WALDEN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 
               CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF OREGON

    Mr. Walden. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning. Good 
morning to our witnesses and those in the audience. We thank 
you all for being here.
    I think it is important to note that America has the most 
efficient energy usage, when it comes to manufacturing, 
probably in the world and we have led the world in actual 
reductions in carbon emissions over the last decade or two. We 
should not lose sight of that.
    It has been seven months since Mr. Shimkus, Mr. Upton, and 
I wrote an op-ed highlighting the need to find common sense and 
bipartisan solutions to address current and future climate 
risk. It has also been seven months since this committee held 
its first hearing on the climate change, where many members on 
both sides of the aisle expressed interest in working together 
to find common sense bipartisan solutions to address climate 
change.
    Following that hearing, Mr. Shimkus and I sent a letter to 
Chairman Pallone and Mr. Tonko, requesting the committee work 
together on this important issue but, unfortunately, that has 
not happened. Our Democratic colleagues have not engaged with 
Republicans in a meaningful way and the politics of climate 
change, unfortunately, seems to have overtaken rolling up our 
sleeves and getting to work on, really, bipartisan solutions.
    Regrettably, the loudest most radical voices in Congress 
and on the presidential trail are dominating the climate debate 
in the party, the Democratic Party. And that is too bad because 
I think there is common ground and we could find solutions. The 
gap between rhetoric and reality, though, among my friends has 
simply gotten out of hand.
    Leading Democrats are calling for the elimination of 
nuclear power--elimination-- fortunately, not our chairman here 
but nearly every single major candidate on the Democratic side 
wants to eliminate or phase out nuclear power. I don't believe 
that is smart.
    Nuclear is ideal for dealing with climate change because it 
is the only emissions-free energy source that is available 24 
hours a day. Nuclear represents over half our nation's carbon-
free energy and experts, from Bill Gates to former Energy 
Secretary Ernie Moniz, have said nuclear must be part of our 
energy mix going forward to reduce emissions. To reduce 
emissions, we need nuclear power. Democrats who are unable to 
say those simple words are not doing themselves or the climate 
crisis any good.
    Leading Democrats have called innovation such as carbon 
capture, quote, unquote, ``false solutions.'' So, if your goal 
is to reduce emissions, that logic simply doesn't follow. We 
need to be encouraging these technologies, just as we have with 
President Trump signing into law critical tax credits for 
carbon capture technology.
    Leading Democrats have also called for a ban on fracking 
and on natural gas development and yet, the production of 
natural gas helped the United States become a global leader in 
energy production and a major energy exporter. It substantially 
helped us reduce our overall emissions. In fact, in 2017, U.S. 
carbon emissions were the lowest they had been since 1992 and 
they are projected to remain steady in upcoming years. The 
United States achieved these reductions while emissions were 
climbing in most of Asia and most of Europe. So such a ban 
would wipe out a major source, not only of American prosperity 
but also of fuel that has lower emissions, and it would lead to 
Americans paying higher prices for the same energy, and 
increase reliance, by the way, on foreign energy sources with 
no impact on the world's appetite for energy. So, I don't think 
that is a serious approach.
    Now I know that many of my friends on the other side of the 
dais don't agree with all these positions but, unfortunately, 
the all-or-nothing talking points for many are preventing us 
from building on the progress we made last Congress to reduce 
emissions, boost clean energy, and protect America's economy 
and workers. Maybe that is why E&E News reported, and I quote: 
``House Democrats have little to show on climate.'' Closed 
quote.
    Turning to the topic of today's hearing, as Bill Gates 
warned in a recent op-ed, we have a lot of inventing to do in 
order to achieve zero-carbon emissions overall. And I believe 
Mr. Gates rightly pointed out that we don't yet have any proven 
breakthroughs that will give us affordable zero-carbon 
emissions of basic building materials like steel, cement, 
glass, aluminum, plastic, and paper, which account for a fifth 
of all emissions. Without more serious consideration of the 
scale of what would be realistically achievable here and abroad 
to reduce emissions, the 100 by 50 slogan is less of a solution 
and, frankly, more of a slogan.
    So, if Democrats want to tackle climate change, they should 
work with us Republicans because that is how we are going to 
get serious solutions that can become law and it is how we have 
done it in the past. There are bipartisan bills in Congress we 
could pass right now to ensure the United States remains a 
global leader in emissions reductions, economic productivity, 
and clean energy production. And there are more ideas we could 
explore together, and I hope we will.
    We are waiting at the table. We are ready to continue the 
work started last Congress with our Democratic colleagues on 
climate policy focused on innovation, conservation, and 
preparation. So, let's work together.
    With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Walden follows:]

                 Prepared Statement of Hon. Greg Walden

    Good morning, Mr. Chairman.
    It has been seven months since Mr. Shimkus, Mr. Upton, and 
I wrote an op-ed highlighting the need to find commonsense, 
bipartisan solutions to address current and future climate 
risks. It has also been seven months since this committee held 
its first hearing on climate change where many members on both 
sides of the aisle expressed interest in working together to 
find common sense, bipartisan solutions to address climate 
change. Following that hearing, Mr. Shimkus and I sent a letter 
to Chairman Pallone and Mr. Tonko requesting the committee work 
together on this important issue.
    Unfortunately, that has not happened. Our Democratic 
colleagues have not engaged with our side in any meaningful 
way, and the politics of climate change has taken precedent 
over rolling up our sleeves and getting to work on bipartisan 
solutions. Regrettably, my Democratic colleagues are allowing 
the loudest, most radical voices in Congress and on the 
presidential campaign trail dominate the climate debate in 
their party.
    The gap between rhetoric and reality among Democrats has 
gotten out of hand.
    Leading Democrats are calling for the elimination of 
nuclear power--fortunately not our Chairman here--but nearly 
every single major candidate wants to eliminate or phase out 
nuclear power. This is not smart. Nuclear is ideal for dealing 
with climate change, because it is the only emissions-free 
energy source that's available 24 hours a day. Nuclear 
represents over half of our nation's carbon-free energy. 
Experts from Bill Gates to Ernie Moniz have said that nuclear 
must be a part of our energy mix going forward to reduce 
emissions. To reduce emissions, we need nuclear power. 
Democrats who are unable to say those simple words are doing as 
much harm to solving the climate crisis as any other.
    Leading Democrats have called innovations such as carbon 
capture "false solutions." If your goal is to reduce emissions, 
that logic simply doesn't follow. We need to be encouraging 
these technologies, just as we have with President Trump 
signing into law critical tax credits for carbon capture 
technology.
    Leading Democrats have also called for a ban on fracking 
and natural gas development. The production of natural gas 
helped the United States become a global leader in energy 
production and a major energy exporter. It substantially helped 
us reduce our overall emissions--in 2017, U.S. carbon emissions 
were the lowest they have been since 1992, and they are 
projected to remain steady in upcoming years. The United States 
achieved these reductions while emissions were climbing in most 
of Asia and Europe. Such a ban would wipe out a major source of 
American prosperity, lead to Americans paying higher prices for 
the same energy, and increased reliance on foreign sources--
with no impact on the world's appetite for energy. This is not 
a serious approach and it should be called out.
    Now, I know that many of my friends on the other side of 
the dais don't agree with all of these positions. But 
unfortunately, the all-or-nothing talking points from many 
Democrats are preventing us from building on the progress we 
made last Congress to reduce emissions, boost clean energy, and 
protect America's economy and workers. Maybe that's why, as E&E 
News reported, ``House Democrats have little to show on 
climate.''
    Turning to the topic of today's hearing: As Bill Gates 
warned in a recent op-ed, ``we have a lot of inventing to do'' 
in order to achieve zero carbon emissions overall. Mr. Gates 
rightly pointed out that we don't yet have any proven 
breakthroughs that will give us affordable zero-carbon versions 
of basic building materials like steel, cement, glass, 
aluminum, plastic, and paper, which account for a fifth of all 
emissions. Without more serious consideration of the scale of 
what would be realistically achievable here and abroad to 
reduce emissions, ``100 by `50'' is less of a solution and more 
of a slogan.
    If Democrats want to tackle climate change, they should 
work with Republicans, because that's how we're going to get to 
serious solutions that can become law. There are bipartisan 
bills in Congress that we could pass right now to ensure the 
United States remains a global leader in emissions reduction, 
economic productivity, and clean energy production. And there 
are more ideas that we could explore together.
    We are waiting at the table and are ready to continue the 
work we started last Congress with our Democratic colleagues on 
climate policy focused on innovation, conservation, and 
preparation.
    Let's work together.

    Mr. Tonko. Thank you, Representative Walden. The gentleman 
yields back.
    The Chair would like to remind members that pursuant to 
committee rules, all Members' written opening statements shall 
be made part of the record.
    So now I introduce our witnesses for today's hearing. We 
being with Bob Perciasepe, President of the Center for Climate 
and Energy Solutions, or C2ES; Dr. Jeremy Gregory, Research 
Scientist of the Department of Civil and Environmental 
Engineering and Executive Director of Concrete Sustainability 
Hub Massachusetts Institute of Technology, on behalf of the 
Portland Cement Association.
    Next, we have Dr. Gaurav Sant, Professor and Henry Samueli 
Fellow: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Material Science 
and Engineering, and the California NanoSystems Institute, 
Director, Institute for Carbon Management at University of 
California, Los Angeles.
    Next, we have Ross Eisenberg, the Vice President of Energy 
and Resources Policy at the National Association of 
Manufacturers.
    Next, Dr. S. Julio Friedmann, Senior Research Scholar for 
the Center on Global Energy at Columbia University's School of 
International and Public Affairs.
    And finally, Jason Walsh, who serves as Executive Director 
of the BlueGreen Alliance.
    Before we begin, I would like to explain the lighting 
system. In front of you are a series of lights. The light will 
initially be green at the start of your opening statement. The 
light will turn yellow when you have 1-minute remaining. Please 
begin to wrap up your testimony, at that point, and the light 
will turn red when your time has expired.
    At this time, the Chair will now recognize Mr. Perciasepe 
for 5 minutes to provide his opening statement. And thank you, 
Mr. Perciasepe, for joining us today.

  PERCIASEPE, PRESIDENT OF THE CENTER FOR CLIMATE AND ENERGY 
SOLUTIONS; JEREMY GREGORY, PH.D, RESEARCH SCIENTIST, DEPARTMENT 
  OF CIVIL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 
    CONCRETE SUSTAINABILITY HUB MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF 
 TECHNOLOGY; GAURAV N. SANT, PH.D, PROFESSOR AND HENRY SAMUELI 
 FELLOW: CIVIL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING, MATERIAL SCIENCE 
  AND ENGINEERING, AND THE CALIFORNIA NANOSYSTEMS INSTITUTE, 
  DIRECTOR, INSTITUTE FOR CARBON MANAGEMENT AT UNIVERSITY OF 
  CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES; ROSS E. EISENBERG, VICE PRESIDENT, 
     ENERGY AND RESOURCES POLICY, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF 
MANUFACTURERS; DR. S. JULIO FRIEDMANN, SENIOR RESEARCH SCHOLAR, 
 CENTER ON GLOBAL ENERGY POLICY, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF 
 INTERNATIONAL AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS; AND JASON WALSH, EXECUTIVE 
                  DIRECTOR, BLUEGREEN ALLIANCE

                      STATEMENT OF BOB PERCIASEPE

    Mr. Perciasepe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and all the 
members, for being here and also for inviting me to speak to 
you today.
    My name is Bob Perciasepe. I am president of the Center for 
Climate and Energy Solutions. We are a nonprofit nonpartisan 
organization that works with businesses to achieve climate 
goals.
    I think there are three themes in my quick opening 
statement and in my written statement that you all have and I 
think it is already been mentioned by a number of the opening 
comments from the members.
    The challenge in the industrial sector is complex and 
difficult. Right now in the United States is close to--
including the indirect emissions from electricity used, it is 
close to 30 percent of the U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases.
    Engaging businesses and the diversity of businesses in 
developing the solution mix is a pretty important part of what 
we will need to do and what we have been doing at the Center 
for Climate and Energy Solutions. So engaging the businesses is 
another important point.
    And the third key point I think is that businesses are not 
going to be able to do this alone. They need policy that will 
help them achieve the goals that they are setting themselves.
    And so given the tremendous diversity, and I think we heard 
this already from particularly the chair of the full committee, 
that there are three big components in the industrial sector 
that are causing the emissions. One is the thermal energy they 
need--the heat. The second is the different chemical processes 
like making steel and concrete. And there is also electricity 
that is used. And so thinking about all of those together gives 
you a sense of the complexity but it can also set you on a path 
on how you can start dissecting what the solutions would be.
    And I have a lot more of this in my written statement but I 
want to go through very high-level examples here. So if you 
look at those processes and then you look across all the 
different sectors, there are some that are in every sector. 
They are sort of like across the board. So thermal energy is 
used in a lot of different, from steel making to chemicals, and 
mostly, as has been pointed out, fossil fuels are used. So this 
is where the technology of fuel switching, in some cases, but 
also carbon capture and how important carbon capture would be 
for some of those processes. That is across the board.
    Combined heat and power to be more efficient, the onsite 
power generation using different kinds of fuels and greater use 
of efficiency strategies are all things that cut across the 
different sectors. But then you have to get down to the 
different processes in the sectors and I want to say that on 
carbon capture we often think that this is still an evolving 
technology. And it is, of course, and we need a lot more work 
on infrastructure but today, while we are sitting here, there 
are two industrial applications of carbon capture currently in 
use, one at air products in Texas, where they are making 
hydrogen from reforming methane, and they are capturing that 
carbon. The other one is from Archer Daniels Midland in 
southern Illinois, who is making ethanol and that refinery 
produces carbon dioxide. And they are capturing that carbon 
dioxide and injecting into a saline geologic formation.
    Other examples that are out there in the more specific 
areas, manufacturing practices for steel, for instance, Lanza 
Tech, a company that is working with the steel industry looking 
at how to capture the carbon using biological methods.
    I am going to do this very quickly because it is getting 
low here.
    Apple has been working with Alcoa and Rio Tinto, a mining 
company, to look at different ways to produce aluminum from 
using ceramic anodes, instead of carbon anodes that create 
carbon dioxide.
    DowDuPont and BASF are looking at pathways to make 
propylene oxide, which is a basic building chemical for many 
products that we know of from deicers, to food additives, to 
personal care items and they are looking at new approaches 
there.
    And Lafarge Holcim and Solidia are looking at the very 
things that several of you have already brought up, the cement 
manufacturing process and how to use different approaches to 
both the cement itself and how it could absorb carbon but also 
how to use carbon in the curing--use different approaches in 
the curing processes which can reduce emissions by up to 70 
percent.
    The last thing I want to mention very quickly is I think 
several people brought up the issue of competitiveness. And I 
think whenever looking at the policies that could help support 
this, including a price on carbon, looking at the trade-exposed 
companies in the United States and their international markets, 
it is important to include provisions that will deal with that. 
We believe there are many approaches to dealing with that and 
would love to work with the committee when that time comes.
    I am going to stop there.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Perciasepe follows:]
    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Mr. Tonko. Thank you very much, Mr. Perciasepe.
    And now we will go to Dr. Gregory, please, for 5 minutes. 
You are recognized for your opening statement.

               STATEMENT OF JEREMY GREGORY, Ph.D.

    Dr. Gregory. Good morning, Chairman Tonko, Ranking Member 
Shimkus, and esteemed members of the subcommittee. I am pleased 
to be here on behalf of the Massachusetts Institute of 
Technology's Concrete Sustainability Hub and the Portland 
Cement Association to talk about concrete's role in a 
sustainable low-carbon economy and how Congress and the cement 
and concrete industries can work together to achieve this goal.
    I am the Executive Director of the MIT CSHub, a dedicated 
interdisciplinary team of researchers working on science, 
engineering, and economics for the built environment since 
2009. PCA is a premiere organization serving America's cement 
manufacturers. Since the CSHub is jointly funded by the cement 
and concrete industries, our research teams regularly interact 
with companies in this arena and also stakeholders who are 
involved in decisions related to concrete, such as architects, 
engineers, and contractors.
    In my testimony today, I would like to provide the 
committee with some key actions related to the cement and 
concrete industries that will accelerate us on the path to 
sustainability in the industrial manufacturing sector.
    For background, cement is the powdery substance that is 
mixed with water and aggregates to make concrete. If you didn't 
realize there was a difference between cement and concrete, you 
can join my beloved mother in that esteemed club. Although 
cement and concrete have different manufacturer processes and 
emission profiles, they are inherently linked as an end use 
building material whose impacts other emissions, such as 
building energy consumption or vehicle fuel consumption on 
pavements. Thus, it is important to consider the embodied 
emissions for these materials in the context of their full life 
cycle.
    Furthermore, concrete is the most-used building material in 
the world for a reason. It is a relatively low-cost and low-
environmental footprint material that provides critical 
functionality for buildings and infrastructure. It is necessary 
to meet societal goals for sustainable development.
    There are four primary levers for reducing cement 
production CO2 emissions. One, improving the energy efficiency 
of the cement plant; two, switching to alternative fuels that 
are less carbon-intensive than conventional fuels, such as 
biomass and waste materials; three, increasing the use of low-
carbon materials in the production of blended cements; and 
four, using emerging carbon capture on utilization and storage 
technologies, including in the production of new building 
materials.
    A technology roadmap for the global cement industry 
estimated that meeting targets from maximum two degrees C. 
global temperature increase would require a 24 percent 
reduction in cement industry CO2 emissions by 2050, with CCUS 
accounting for 48 percent of emission reductions followed by 
use of blended cements at 37 percent. There are fewer CO2 
reduction opportunities associated with thermal energy 
efficiency or switching to alternative fuels and, thus, they 
only accounted for 15 percent of cumulative CO2 reductions.
    Nevertheless, there are several opportunities to improve 
energy efficiency and increase use of alternative fuels and the 
cement industry in the U.S. has made significant strides 
towards these goals. However, regulatory programs are often 
barriers to making additional improvements. And there are some 
specific programs and suggested modifications that are detailed 
in my written testimony.
    Cement production is unique from most other industrial 
processes, in that it has emissions associated with energy 
generation and the production process. Thus, even if zero- or 
low-carbon fuels can be used, emissions will still be a 
fundamental part of the process. As a consequence, CCUS is 
necessary to meet deep decarbonization goals and pilot programs 
in the cement industry are underway across the world.
    Fortunately, there are several companies that are 
demonstrating how captured carbon may be used to produce 
binders and aggregates, thereby enabling circularity for these 
emissions. However, cost is a significant barrier to the 
implementation of carbon capture technologies at cement plants, 
in terms of capital costs, and the adoption of carbon-utilizing 
materials in terms of higher product costs in the building 
material marketplace. Thus, there are significant opportunities 
for Congress to provide targeted CCUS research development and 
deployment funding that is specific to the cement sector and 
incentives for adoption of innovative technologies and 
materials.
    Increasing the adoption of blended or alternative binders 
will require overcoming the risk aversion of engineer's 
specifying concrete. Engineers typically rely on prescriptive-
based specifications that detail the types and limits of 
materials that can be used in concrete mixture. In addition, 
there is a significant burden of proof to demonstrate that new 
low-carbon materials will meet long-term structural and 
durability requirements. Supporting a shift to performance-
based specification for concrete would spur innovation in the 
design of low-carbon concrete mixtures.
    Sponsoring research on the long-term structural and 
durability performance of concretes using blended or 
alternative cements will help to mitigate perceived risk by 
engineers.
    As you can see, there are steps Congress, industry, and 
academia can take together that would ensure the continued role 
of cement and concrete in sustainable development.
    Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, we are ready to 
work with you to pursue the paths toward the goal of a clean 
and sustainable economy together.
    Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Dr. Gregory follows:]
    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Mr. Tonko. Thank you very much, Dr. Gregory.
    We now move to Dr. Sant, please, for 5 minutes.

                STATEMENT OF GAURAV SANT, Ph.D.

    Dr. Sant. Thank you, Chairman Tonko, Ranking Member 
Shimkus, and members of the subcommittee for having us here 
today.
    I am going to try and build a case or try and talk about 
the idea of how you really achieve net zero emissions with six 
talking points.
    The first one is, I think, and as has been said quite a few 
times before, heavy industry operations are the foundation of 
the world that we live in. So you can look at the screen in 
your iPhone. You can look at the building that we are in. All 
of this came out of heavy industry operations. So an important 
part of what heavy industry does is actually provide us with 
the way of life that we actually have and the way of life that 
we live.
    Of course, this comes at a price. It comes at the price of 
carbon emissions, which are very substantial, a third, as we 
heard others say. But we should also keep in mind that this is 
really what provides us with the standard of living that we 
have today and it is about a century and a half of deployment 
of these technologies which really leads us to where we are.
    The second part, with regards to decarbonization, is we 
really need to keep in mind potentially the most critical need 
to mitigate the accumulation and release of carbon dioxide into 
the atmosphere is a regulatory certainty. And that being say, 
regulatory certainty is the minimum pathway that we need to 
undertake to determine what happens next.
    Of course engineering solutions are a big part of this but 
engineering solutions really need to focus on simplicity. We 
need pathways which are simple, which can bolt onto existing 
facilities because, as you can imagine, building a cement 
plant, or building a refinery, or building a steel plant, these 
are all really expensive undertakings. What that means is we 
cannot do this at substantial cost burden. So we need to think 
about simple ways how you do process integrations and 
optimizations to make sure that we integrate with existing 
processes simply enough without disrupting our way of life 
while we think about carbon management.
    When we think about mitigation solutions beyond carbon 
capture and storage, we need to create other pathways. And I 
think utilization, carbon dioxide utilization is an important 
part of this because it can result in the production of salable 
products. As an example, think about CO2 concrete that we are 
working on, which involves the absorption of carbon dioxide 
into concrete.
    However, I will caution by saying while these pathways are 
very attractive and especially so in the short-term, they are 
fractional solutions. So they are by no means a comprehensive 
pathway to carbon management but they are an important short- 
to medium-term pathway to being able to think about beneficial 
ways by which we can reutilize CO2.
    When we think about economic incentives, systematic and 
substantial Federal support is needed to innovate mature de-
risk and bring down the cost of technologies. This is something 
which has happened and which continues to happen, which we will 
need to expand substantially so in time to come, across 
technology readiness levels and across both basic and applied 
research.
    But beyond R&D support, we need to have support of policy, 
strategic actions and consistency messaging. This includes 
direct financial support, for example, grants to innovate those 
incorporations, targeted procurement actions, incentives, for 
example, tax credits, but also disincentives, penalties which 
actually incentivize a mechanism of change.
    We need to focus on the consumer. As consumers, we are 
actually all each individually responsible for what heavy 
industry does because we are the consumers of these products. 
That being this case, we need to build consumer awareness and 
conscientiousness to achieve carbon efficiency individually and 
societally. This is extremely important. And, as an example, 
you can think about our programs in energy efficiency that we 
have in place for decades now. They have been an extremely 
important part of how we have achieved energy efficiency by 
imposing standards, by having products which are energy 
efficient, by pointing out to the consumer that there is 
benefits in this. And so there is a pathway that you can follow 
that is based on what we will call a carbon efficiency 
standard.
    We want to keep in mind that the U.S. provides effectively 
the knowledge reservoir to the world. This has come about the 
last 70 years or so by consistent systematic and deep spending 
in R&D dollars that go to U.S. universities and national 
laboratories. A lot of the innovations that we take granted 
around us going from the iPhone to the internet actually came 
out of these places. And that being the case, we want to make 
sure that we continue to provide this nature of support because 
we want to also establish a basis of carbon leadership 
industrially.
    A couple of other things to keep in mind. When we think 
about heavy industry, these are what you classically call 
commodity sectors, which means that they are comparatively low 
profit and very high volume. And so you have got to think 
carefully about what are really the nature of pathways that 
need to be undertaken when sectors of the sort think about 
change. It is not easy to build a new cement plant. It is not 
easy to build a new steel plant.
    So when we think about strategic actions, we need to think 
about a way that you both integrate regulatory certainty and a 
market pull that both demand a change in how we function.
    Finally I think the closing comment to be made is really 
one of competitiveness. The rest of the world is looking very 
aggressively at standards around carbon efficiency and carbon 
management. You don't want to have U.S. corporations which are 
at a competitive disadvantage because they have got to have two 
standards to functions with one in the U.S., one elsewhere, and 
I think that particularly demands that we establish a basis of 
consistency, where U.S. corporations continue to lead the world 
in carbon efficiency.
    With that, I would like to conclude.
    [The prepared statement of Dr. Sant follows:]
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    Mr. Tonko. We thank you very much, Dr. Sant.
    And we now move to Mr. Eisenberg for an opening statement 
for 5 minutes, please.

                 STATEMENT OF ROSS E. EISENBERG

    Good morning, Chairman Tonko, Ranking Member Shimkus, 
Ranking Member Walden, for today, members of the subcommittee.
    My name is Ross Eisenberg. I am delighted to be here 
representing the National Association of Manufacturers and talk 
about our commitment to climate change.
    In the eyes of America's manufacturers, it is time to act 
on climate now. And the real question for policymakers should 
not be whether to act but, frankly, how to do so effectively. 
Manufacturers are doing our part. We have been and we will 
continue to do that.
    Over the past decade, manufacturers in the United States 
have reduced the carbon footprint of our products by 21 
percent, while we have increased our value of the economy by 18 
percent over that same time frame. Overall, the U.S. 
manufacturing sector has one the world's lowest carbon 
intensities per dollar of GPD because we are so efficient, a 
fraction of the carbon intensities other major manufacturing 
economies like China and India.
    For example, just to put a finer point on this, aluminum 
produced in the United States is less carbon-intensive than 
just about any other aluminum produced somewhere else and 
imported into the United States. It is three times cleaner in 
that respect than aluminum produced in the Middle East and 
imported into the United States. It is four times cleaner than 
aluminum produced in China and imported into the United States. 
So, our efficiency is a win here for us and we should really be 
encouraging manufacturing to come back and really operate here 
because that is where it is going to be done the cleanest.
    The type of deep decarbonization called for by this 
committee would require a dramatic set of technology and 
lifestyle changes across the economy. It is going to be 
extremely difficult. That is pretty much without question. It 
is going to require us all to work together here and around the 
world and it will, almost certainly, carry a cost. It is not, 
however, impossible. I want to make that clear. It is no, 
however, impossible and we are at the table for this discussion 
for that reason.
    Manufacturers do appreciate the careful, considerate, 
deliberate approach that this committee has taken to listen to 
us, frankly, and to have the conversation that you are all 
having. In the course of those deliberations, two prevailing 
views have really emerged. The first is should we really be 
focusing on enabling innovation and the other is should we be 
empowering the Government to take action.
    In the eyes of manufacturers, we believe we need to do both 
and here is why. We need innovation because the manufacturing 
sector is different from other sectors and the technologies 
that may work in other sectors just may not work so well in 
ours. The process used to make a brick is substantially 
different than the process used to make steel, or paper, 
rubber, plastic, fertilizer, aluminum, not to mention finished 
goods like trucks, and cars, and airplanes, and food and 
beverage, and electronics. Innovation is and always will be the 
key to reducing the carbon intensity of those sectors and it is 
encouraging to hear everybody on this panel really say the same 
thing.
    Innovation by itself, however, is just not going to be 
enough and so, for that reason, the Federal Government does 
have a clear role in setting climate policy. This begins by 
reengaging on the international stage to achieve binding fair 
global climate treaty. And with that backdrop, we hope that the 
Congress will enact a single unified climate policy that meets 
specific targets, ensures a level playing field and avoids 
carbon leakage, in other words, not simply outsourcing our 
carbon to another country that has lower standards than we do, 
and it will preserve consumer choice and manufacturing 
competitiveness.
    My written testimony provides more details on both of these 
proposals but, together, we believe they should be the 
foundation of the U.S. response to climate change.
    Now as we embark down this road, we need to have a serious 
discussion about cost. For manufacturers the math really does 
matter. The average manufacturer pays about $20,000 per 
employee per year to comply with regulations. The small 
manufacturers pay even more, about $35,000 per employee because 
they can't scale it up. Any new cost imposed by a climate 
policy will be added to that already hefty base of costs and 
regulatory expenditures. So the extent that manufacturers have 
to bear those extra costs, Congress should consider reducing 
regulatory tax or other economic burdens to basically make 
manufacturers whole, and keep us whole, and keep us 
competitive.
    The math also matters for the internal decision-making and 
I think that is something that I really want to stress today. A 
great deal of potential reductions are going to come from 
installation of new equipment, new processes--innovation, 
essentially. Manufacturers budget for discretionary investments 
like this. They are always looking to make these investments 
but, at the end of the day, the decision on whether to spend 
that money involves consideration of a wide range of factors, 
including payback time, the risk of stranded investments, 
operating risks, reliability, environmental permitting, and 
external factors like the future of the plant itself in a 
competitive environment. Focusing on this math should be a top 
priority of anyone seeking to reduce the carbon intensity of 
the manufacturing sector.
    The NAM believes we can be a part of this solution and we 
look forward to working with this committee to pass and 
implement some of our preferred policy solutions. There are 
many near-term actions that we believe Congress and the 
administration could take to accelerate our progress towards 
deep emission cuts. My written statement includes a number of 
these and I hope we can talk about them during the Q and A 
section. We think these would make a real difference and ensure 
that emissions continue to decline in the manufacturing sector, 
while Congress and the administration work out some of these 
bigger policy issues as well.
    I appreciate the time to testify today and thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Ross Eisenberg follows:]
    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Mr. Tonko. Thank you very much, Mr. Eisenberg.
    Next, we will go to Dr. Friedmann for an opening statement. 
You are recognized for 5 minutes, please.

                  STATEMENT OF JULIO FRIEDMANN

    Dr. Friedmann. There we go. Chairman Tonko, 
Representative--Chairman Pallone, Ranking Member Walden, all of 
the members here--I am so delighted to see so many people here 
for so long--thank you, thank you, thank you for calling this 
hearing and for inviting me to testify.
    My name is Dr. Julio Friedmann. I am the only one you will 
ever meet. This is the 5-minute version of the 5-hour 
testimony. I ask that if you have any questions or follow-ups, 
please invite me back. I am a resource and you know where I 
live.
    This is an intensely difficult and complicated topic. This 
is not something that is easy or digestible in soundbites. You 
already have my testimony. I am happy to explain it in great 
depth but I want to take this time to hit a couple of key 
points.
    First of all, I work at the Center for Global Energy Policy 
at Columbia University and we exist to provide information of 
this kind to people like you to help make good decisions. I 
lead an effort on carbon management. We have two reports coming 
out in the next month, all of them associated with heavy 
industry decarbonization specifically for heat. Fun fact: Heat 
for heavy industry is ten percent of global emissions--just 
heat. It is more than all the cars and planes in the world 
together. If you have to melt a rock to do something, you need 
heat. Most of our industrial processes start by melting a rock. 
That is properly hard. There aren't easy ways to replace that 
service and there aren't really reliable or straightforward 
substitutes for things like concrete, or steel, or plastics, or 
petrochemicals. We all have plenty to do. That is what the work 
looks like. So, to cut to the chase, a couple of facts, three 
findings, five ideas.
    A couple of facts: The good news is that most of industrial 
production in the United States is concentrated in a couple of 
geographies--New Jersey, Texas, California, Oklahoma, Chicago, 
along the Great Lakes. These things are all in one place. That 
actually means that there are ways to think about managing them 
in a straightforward way.
    Another thing that is helpful to understand in this is 
that, as many people have mentioned, these are internationally 
traded commodities, for the most part. As such, the margins are 
small and small increases in cost and price have dramatic 
increases in market share. And of course, these sit in 
communities which have a great deal of stake in them, both 
positive and negative. In some cases, these are real sources of 
pride. They are essential sources of wealth for these 
communities. At the same time, many of these facilities are 
also sources for pollution. This question is about 
environmental justice associated with that. So these are 
fraught complex issues and that is exactly why we need 
deliberation, discussion, and thought.
    So a couple of other quick facts, then three findings, five 
ideas.
    Quick facts, like I said to begin, we don't really have 
substitutes for this stuff. Second, the assets are long-lived. 
A steel plant or a petrochemical plant that exists today is 
going to run for a long time. That means that the idea that we 
will just replace it with some other thing is unlikely in the 
near-term. We are on the clock on climate change. So we have to 
make rapid emission reductions. So you have to work within the 
existing asset base.
    And the options we have, as many people have said, are not 
great. We have chronic underinvestment in this sector, perhaps 
because we don't have a Department of Industry. I am not 
recommending we create one but it means that this jurisdiction 
is spread across the entire government in a strange way.
    You may not know this but ammonia is tracked by the United 
States Geological Survey. That is because it is considered a 
mineral resource. So they are the ones who gather the data on 
this.
    So there is plenty of stuff to do. In that context, three 
findings: First, as many have said here already, CCUS is 
essential. It is not optional in this space. Ten percent of 
global emissions are from steel and cement. Half of those 
emissions are the byproduct chemistry emissions and we don't 
have processes today that are substitutes for that. So if you 
want to get five percent of global emissions, you have got to 
do that. That is it.
    And you can refer to my last round of testimony. I talk on 
that subject in great depth. That was back in May 2019.
    Second finding: Hydrogen is pretty promising. If you look 
at the things that can burn at that temperature or that can be 
good feedstocks, hydrogen is one of the good ones. Today, the 
way we make hydrogen that we call hydrogen, which is steam 
methane reforming and we vent the CO2 into the air.
    At the Air Products facility that was mentioned earlier, we 
have what we call blue hydrogen, where we make hydrogen but we 
capture the CO2 and keep it underground. There is also green 
hydrogen, where you use green, renewable, or nuclear electrons 
to make hydrogen through electrolysis and you use that.
    Today, green hydrogen costs five to twenty times more than 
blue hydrogen. So today, blue hydrogen is the best looking 
option. That costs about 20 to 50 percent more than gray 
hydrogen but it is pretty cheap, by comparison to a lot of the 
things we can do. It is also a gaseous fuel, which means you 
can swap it in with other stuff.
    Last, as others have said, innovation is essential. We 
simply can't get from where we are to where we need to be if we 
don't have a deep, large, committed program for innovation.
    I have to stop there but I thank you all for your testimony 
and look forward to answering your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Dr. Friedmann follows:]
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    Mr. Tonko. Thank you, Dr. Friedmann.
    And finally, Mr. Walsh, thank you for joining us, and you 
are recognized for an opening statement of 5 minutes, please.

                    STATEMENT OF JASON WALSH

    Mr. Walsh. Thank you, Chairman Tonko, Ranking Member 
Walden, and distinguished members of the subcommittee. Thank 
you for convening this really important hearing today.
    The BlueGreen Alliance unites America's largest and most 
influential labor unions and environmental organizations. Our 
partnership is firm in the belief that Americans don't have to 
choose between a good job and a safe environment. We can and 
must have both.
    Reducing emissions from the U.S. industrial sector is a 
clear example of this principle. If done right, a robust 
Federal commitment to rebuild American manufacturing and reduce 
greenhouse gas emissions from this sector will grow American 
competitiveness and secure and create a new generation of good 
middle-class jobs across America.
    The industrial sector is the largest source of emissions in 
the United States when electricity is distributed to its end 
use. And importantly, emissions are projected to increase 
significantly between now and mid-century by roughly 17 
percent. That compares to other sectors, at least under a 
business as usual scenario, are projected to see flat or 
declining emissions. So any gains that we see in other sectors 
would be more than outweighed by increases in industrial sector 
emissions, unless we act.
    Tackling industrial sector emissions must, therefore, be 
central to any climate strategy moving forward. This is a 
significant challenge, as has been pointed out by a number of 
my fellow witnesses. Reducing emissions to the level required 
by climate math, which is pretty brutal, will require smart 
policies, tremendous technological ingenuity, and significant 
investment but we have barely gotten started.
    Policymakers and philanthropy have focused, to date, on 
emission reductions in other sectors--buildings, power, 
transportation, all for very good reasons, but the industrial 
sector has received relatively little attention by comparison 
and it will be the single hardest sector to net out zero 
emissions.
    Tackling emissions is also an issue of global economic 
competitiveness. Prioritizing investments in U.S. manufacturing 
will not only reduce emissions but will create and retain good 
jobs in the United States for two primary reasons: One, a 
significant proportion of emission reductions can be realized 
by reducing energy waste, saving money manufacturers can invest 
in capital and in their workforces, supporting jobs through the 
installation of energy efficiency technologies as well; and 
two, U.S. manufacturers' ability to produce clean technologies 
and use cleaner processes will make them more competitive in an 
increasingly carbon-constrained global economy.
    Let me take the steel industry as an example, which also 
speaks to Ranking Member Shimkus' very good question which, in 
turn, echoed Mr. Gates' very good question. The steel industry 
currently generates about seven percent of the world's CO2 
emissions, contributing over three gigatons of CO2 annually. 
Global steel demand is forecast to increase from 1.7 billion 
tons in 2018 to 2.6 billion tons in 2050.
    There are several ways to reduce emissions from iron and 
steel production, including industrial energy efficiency, 
material efficiency and reuse, fuel and feedstock switching, 
and of course, carbon capture utilization and sequestration. 
Investments are happening today to drive these innovations and 
to develop cutting edge technologies and practices.
    But where are these investments happening? They are not 
happening here. They are happening in Germany, in Sweden, in 
the United Arab Emirates. These types of cutting edge projects 
are not being built in the United States because we don't have 
the policies and programs in place that incent and support the 
kind of investments needed to make them a reality. If we don't 
start playing catch up, the future of innovative, low, and zero 
emission steelmaking will be commercialized by our global 
competitors in their own countries. We can't let that happen.
    We need to move forward an aggressive American agenda to 
regain our leadership in clean technology innovation and 
deployment and we need to do it now. We need a holistic 
approach to retaining and growing clean energy manufacturing in 
the U.S., while also investing in these industries to make them 
the cleanest and most competitive in the world. These 
investments must result in good paying jobs and go hand in hand 
with common sense tax procurement and trade enforcement 
policies to stop the offshoring and leakage of jobs and 
pollution, as have been noted by a number of witnesses and 
members of this committee.
    My written testimony outlines a number of specific policy 
recommendations to achieve these goals.
    In closing, we look forward to working with this committee 
as you move forward your agenda for the 116th Congress. Thank 
you again for the opportunity to testify today.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Walsh follows:]
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    Mr. Tonko. Thank you, Mr. Walsh.
    So that concludes the opening statements provided by our 
witnesses. We now will move to member questions. Each Member 
will have 5 minutes to ask questions of our witnesses.
    I will start by recognizing myself 5 minutes.
    We know that there are challenges but we should not 
underestimate what can be accomplished over the course of a few 
decades. If we start right now putting in place the right 
incentives, the research investments, and standards, how much 
progress can we make by mid-century to decarbonize industry? 
And what is your recommendation for the very first thing we 
should do to get started?
    Let's start with you, Mr. Perciasepe. How much progress can 
we make and what is the first thing we should do?
    Mr. Perciasepe. Well I think what you heard from a lot of 
the witnesses is that there is a lot of progress already 
underway, including some of the very difficult pieces that have 
been mentioned by members in their opening statements, in steel 
and in cement. Those industries we have to look at how to 
improve the actual processes.
    But one other thing, there is also companion activities 
here because all of industry uses electricity. And so to the 
extent that we are decarbonizing electricity with other 
approaches, with renewable energy, nuclear, and carbon capture, 
the electricity that the industry will be getting is going to 
be cleaner and there is also transportation moving the products 
around.
    So I think that probably the first thing to do is, at a 
minimum, is to put more incentives in place to stimulate the 
innovation of the new technologies, ones that cut across 
industrial sectors like carbon capture, and we have some of 
that already as has been mentioned under the Tax Code, 45Q, but 
also the innovation needed in these new processes for making 
steel, making steel or iron, pure iron from a reduction with 
hydrogen as opposed to the current methods. It uses a lot 
less--creates a lot less carbon dioxide just to make the iron. 
That is, obviously, the main ingredient in steel.
    So these processes that companies are working on could 
really be accelerated with public incentives.
    Mr. Tonko. Thank you.
    Dr. Gregory, what progress can we make and what is the 
first thing we can do?
    Dr. Gregory. I think that actually one of the simplest 
things that can be done that are specific to the cement and 
concrete sector are related to this use of performance-based 
specifications that I mentioned because you know we heard a lot 
of discussion about CCUS, which should definitely be done but, 
if we develop new materials that have a lower carbon footprint 
but we can't create a market demand for them, then they won't 
be used. And we have already seen failures of companies that 
produced these things in this country, who couldn't do it in a 
cost-competitive way and also couldn't get adoption of this 
from engineers who use it. And so encouraging, essentially, 
engineers rather than to say this is the mixture that we have 
already used that is something safe and we know, get them to 
say what are the performance metrics that you are interested in 
and then tell me what the measurement is of the carbon 
footprint as well.
    And believe it or not, that seems like a simple and obvious 
thing but it is sort of like instead of using a specific recipe 
to make cookies, tell me what are the kind of cookies that you 
are interested in. What are the attributes of them? That is 
what we need for materials as well, to create demand for these 
low-carbon materials.
    Mr. Tonko. OK. We have about two minutes remaining for my 
time. If we could just get quick answers from the remaining 
four witnesses, please.
    Dr. Sant. Sure. Very quickly, I think the two things that 
we should really try and focus on is really, number one, carbon 
efficiency standards, which we can apply across the nation, 
across a series of products.
    The second part, technologically, we have done a lot of 
work to develop new technologies. The issue with most of them 
is we have not demonstrated them suitably at scale. So I think 
we really need support to be able to demonstrate things at 
relevant scales so that manufacturers can start to see whether 
these are cost-effective enough for them to actually integrate 
into their operations.
    Mr. Tonko. Thank you.
    Mr. Eisenberg.
    Mr. Eisenberg. We all agree that innovation is the key 
here. Please give us the tools to do it. We need the 
incentives. We need the access to the labs, the partnerships 
with the Federal Government and within the private sector, and 
we need to make sure that the math works at the plant level.
    Mr. Tonko. And how much progress can we make?
    Mr. Eisenberg. We can make a lot of progress, especially in 
the near-term, especially since you are going to have a lot of 
hard decisions to make on the federal policy side. But getting 
that in now, funding those things up and giving us access to 
them, will make an appreciable difference and a real difference 
for manufacturers.
    Mr. Tonko. Thank you.
    Dr. Friedmann.
    Dr. Friedmann. A comprehensive approach could get us 65 to 
75 percent. We could get a lot.
    The number one thing: Procurement. You said it yourself, 
Chairman. The number one thing is procurement.
    The Government buys 60--sorry--90 percent of cement and 
concrete, 50 percent of the steel that is made in this country. 
You guys have an outsized role. And by driving that procurement 
process, you can create new customer base and new options for 
the manufacturers themselves, so that they can sell a better 
product into a better market.
    Mr. Tonko. Thank you very much.
    And finally, Mr. Walsh.
    Mr. Walsh. We need to deploy the technologies that we 
already have commercialized more fully--industrial energy 
efficiency, co-generation. We can carve about 15 to 20 percent 
emissions out of the industrial sector as a whole.
    Industrial sector decarbonization is really hard but one of 
the ways in which it is easier is that we know where those 
facilities are. We also know from DOE's Barriers to Industrial 
Efficiency Report, which was issued in 2015, that one of the 
primary barriers for manufacturers is lack of information. They 
don't know the technologies are out there. They don't know the 
payback times. They don't know different pathways. We have got 
a whole set of resources that DOE, the Advanced Manufacturing 
Office, international labs, that could be put--could be brought 
to bear. It is nothing but benefit for U.S. manufacturers.
    Mr. Tonko. Thank you very much to each of our witnesses.
    I then will now recognize Representative Walden for, as the 
ranker for the full committee, for 5 minutes to ask questions.
    Mr. Walden. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank all of 
you. This has been a really good panel and we really appreciate 
your input and your counsel on these issues, and they are not 
easy. It is far beyond just a slogan. We have got a lot of 
important work to do.
    Dr. Gregory, we are glad to have you here. I understand you 
grew up in Bend, Oregon. So, there are two of us from the 
Second District here, at least. We appreciate that.
    Mr. Eisenberg, our view is the path to cleaner technology 
comes from the ground up from innovators, from investors. We 
know you have got to have the right incentives.
    Can you speak to the importance of the 45Q tax credit, 
which we extended as part of the tax bill? It has two different 
variants to it. Is that having a positive impact and incentive 
in the market that we want to see results from? Is it working?
    Mr. Eisenberg. So it is working to the--and I am hearing it 
from my members. We actually recently this year brought in a 
group called the Energy Advance Center into the NAM. It is a 
project of the NAM. It is manufacturers that came together 
around the 45Q tax credit and are looking to try to find ways 
to turn that into innovation on the ground, principally, in the 
oil and gas sector but definitely other manufacturing sectors 
as well. We are going to need it all.
    There is a lot more we can do beyond that but it was a heck 
of a start. And it is one of those things where you can use 
incentives and they work. I mean we saw it on a number of 
issues in the energy space, and this is no exception, where 
incentivizing the technology has brought manufacturers out of 
the woodwork ready to actually test some of this and put it 
into place.
    There is plenty more that we can do in this space, 
including starting with enacting the USE IT Act and passing the 
USE IT Act.
    Mr. Walden. Right.
    Mr. Eisenberg. But also, things like port space, ownership, 
and plenty of other issues to get this off the ground but it is 
good to hear that we all agree that this is important.
    Mr. Walden. Yes, I think so. And I guess I approach it 
from, how do we give the carrot as opposed to the stick. I mean 
that is where I tend to come down and not over-regulate, or 
overtax, or whatever on the Government side of this but, 
rather, how do we put in the incentives in place for our great 
innovators to respond and act?
    And Dr. Gregory, and Mr. Eisenberg, Oregon's only cement 
manufacturing plant, as it turns out, would be in the district 
I have the great privilege to represent in Durkee, Oregon. It 
employs about 100 people, directly effects around 600 jobs in 
the area, which is enormous in this very rural county, as you 
know. It is a very trade-exposed plant. And I have been out 
there. I have toured it. They have invested tens of millions of 
dollars to reduce all kinds of emissions, mercury, everything 
else. They really do care about the environment.
    It costs roughly the same amount to ship the cement they 
manufacture to Portland, Oregon, not Portland cement but 
Portland, Oregon, as it does for China to ship their cement 
from China to Portland, OK, which is pretty hard to believe but 
that is what they tell me.
    And our concern is if Oregon replicates some of the other 
climate proposals and policies, we could end up losing that 
plant and those jobs, and cleaner emission cement. And as a 
result, they estimate we would import the cement and it would 
be 400,000 tons more per year of emissions globally. So, as I 
sort through these policies, we don't want to do that.
    And in fact, a lot of the mercury pollution we get on the 
West Coast I am told originates from Chinese manufacturing.
    So, how do we work through these trade-exposed policies, 
especially on cement? Dr. Gregory, can you comment on that?
    Dr. Gregory. Yes, sure. I mean China makes more cement than 
the rest of the world combined. Right? And so the U.S. 
manufacturers two percent of the world's amount of cement.
    Mr. Walden. And--what are standards? Is there a graph of 
standards here for cement emissions?
    Dr. Gregory. There very much is a range. And as many of the 
other panelists here have mentioned, you know trade leakage is 
a really significant concern if we shift the standards that we 
are using to produce cement here today.
    I think, just like we also heard, the power of--the 
purchasing power that Government has, whether that is at the 
Federal, or the State level----
    Mr. Walden. Right.
    Dr. Gregory [continuing]. Or even municipal levels----
    Mr. Walden. Right.
    Dr. Gregory [continuing]. Oregon is one of the states that 
is really looking at the concrete that it produces. What is the 
quality of it? And I think whether it is efforts going on in 
the City of Portland or in the State of Oregon to look at that, 
that is a great place to start to ask producers, local 
producers, where did you get this. What was the quality of it?
    Mr. Walden. Right.
    Dr. Gregory. What was the environmental footprint of it? 
And ask for that. And have that start out. Producers will----
    Mr. Walden. But do we have data on the amount of emissions 
from Chinese manufacturing or some other country--I am not just 
picking on China here--versus U.S. manufacturing for the same 
products? Is there a place where consumers can go and see that?
    Dr. Gregory. Yes, we do have some high-level numbers on 
overall Chinese emissions. What is a little bit different is 
getting data from individual plants, where there can be 
significant variation. The types of cement that they make are a 
little bit different than what we make in the U.S.
    Mr. Walden. Right.
    Dr. Gregory. So it is not quite an apples to apples 
comparison.
    Mr. Walden. Right. Right.
    Dr. Gregory. And so that ends up being a little bit----
    Mr. Walden. Because any consumer power is really powerful.
    Dr. Gregory. Absolutely.
    Mr. Walden. And disclosure, and information, and we were 
just talking about your comment, Dr. Friedmann, maybe Mr. 
Walsh, this information is not even available for some.
    I know my time has expired, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
    And again, thank you all for your participation in this.
    Mr. Tonko. The gentleman yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes Mr. Pallone, full committee chair, 
for 5 minutes to ask questions, please.
    The Chairman. Thank you Chairman Tonko. And let me thank 
all the witnesses for your testimony and assistance in 
developing policy solutions to achieve 100 percent clean 
economy, while keeping and increasing good jobs here at home.
    But I want to--I don't have a question for Mr. Eisenberg 
but I did want to particularly thank him and the National 
Association of Manufacturers for your very constructive 
testimony. Thanks so much.
    Mr. Eisenberg. Thank you. It is my pleasure.
    The Chairman. It wanted to start on the topic of jobs. And 
Mr. Walsh, you testified, and I quote, that if done right, 
federal climate policy can help not just maintain but grow 
American competitiveness in the global economy.
    So let me ask you what would be the number one thing you 
think we should do now to position American manufacturing to 
lead and produce low-carbon products, if you will?
    Mr. Walsh. Well, I think we need to start by recognizing 
where we have already done that, right, where we have increased 
U.S. manufacturing competitiveness, while also reducing 
emissions. One of those sectors, of course, is the automotive 
sector, right, through a combination of very careful fuel 
economy standards, coupled with manufacturing policy. We have a 
whole generation of autoworkers that are making a high-
efficiency, in some cases, zero-emission vehicles not only for 
markets in the United States but for markets abroad.
    The challenge is more--I think the bigger challenge in 
front of us is the energy-intensive commodities manufacturers 
that I talked about in my testimony and that several other 
witnesses have spoken to. We are going to need to do a whole 
lot of things at the same time.
    I have already talked about industrial energy efficiency. I 
want to emphasize high-temperature heat and the importance of 
finding low- and zero- emission alternatives. I mentioned some 
of the exciting innovations going on in Europe and a few other 
parts of the world. We need the same thing here. In order to 
get it, we are going to need a whole set of policies that range 
from making sure that manufacturers have access to affordable 
capital, to technical assistance, to consistent and smart 
regulatory and tax policy.
    The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Walsh.
    I wanted to move to carbon capture. When we talk about the 
U in CCUS, people often think of enhanced oil recovery as the 
default way to utilize captured CO2 but, as we know, there are 
many other potential uses for captured CO2, including in the 
type of product that Dr. Sant is developing at UCLA.
    So I just wanted to pose this question to three of you, to 
Dr. Sant, Dr. Friedmann, and Mr. Perciasepe: What are some of 
the more novel uses for captured CO2 and how can those uses be 
developed, both economically and at scale?
    And let's begin with Dr. Sant and then we will go to the 
other two, if you would.
    Dr. Sant. Thank you. That is a very important question. So 
you know when we started to work on this, and I think I will 
speak to the context more generally, is we really wanted to 
look at markets where you can use a substantial quantity of 
CO2, which is why we started to look at concrete as an example 
because it is a large market globally. It is also a carbon-
intensive commodity. So being able to rationalize its carbon 
footprint is important.
    There are other things that you can produce, some of them 
which are competitively large, some of which are smaller. So 
you could produce liquid fuels as an example. You could also 
produce things like formic acid.
    I think the question around utilization is extremely 
significant because first, to point out, it is highly unlikely 
we will ever use anything more than 10 to 15 percent of global 
emissions to be able to produce product. So it is not a pathway 
for carbon management, relatively speaking. However, it is an 
important revenue generation pathway to undertake in the short- 
to medium-term to be able to create utilization solutions. 
However, I think we need to be very pragmatic and analytical 
about utilization solutions to make sure that the life cycle 
analysis does actually demonstrate that you are using more CO2 
in the utilization step than you make. And I think this is 
something that we often lose sight of but I think this is 
something we need to be critically focused on.
    So as an example, speaking for ourselves, it is something 
that we have taken into great account as we have looked at 
developing cementation solutions based around CO2. But I think 
this is a sentiment that really requires standards and bases of 
analysis to be able to actually effect utilization properly.
    The Chairman. I think I am going to run out of time but I 
said Dr. Friedmann next. So, we will go to him.
    Dr. Friedmann. I will be brief.
    Along the lines of what Dr. Sant just said, you can't 
balance the climate books on utilization. There is just not 
enough tons to put places but you can get a couple of gigatons. 
And the markets where you can get a couple of gigatons start 
with cement and aggregates. The next big market is fuels and 
chemicals. I have written three reports on this. I am happy to 
send them to you all.
    The Chairman. Doctor--I mean Mr. Perciasepe.
    Mr. Perciasepe. Some people do call me doctor every once in 
a while.
    The Chairman. That is all right. Maybe you are. I don't 
know.
    Mr. Perciasepe. I would concur with Julio that building 
materials and fuels are the most likely to be at scale but you 
asked for some of the interesting things.
    Well you know there is complex materials like carbon fibers 
and nanotubes. There are agricultural products, including 
fertilizers. There is a number of things that people are 
working on all across the board but those two are the most 
likely for at-scale that we need in the near-term.
    The Chairman. Thank you.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Tonko. The gentleman yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes the Representative from Washington 
State, Representative Rodgers, for 5 minutes, please.
    Mrs. Rodgers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I, too, want to 
thank all of the panel for being here today. I appreciate your 
leadership, your commitment to making our economy more 
efficient, more sustainable. It is essential.
    As others have highlighted, the U.S. already leads the 
world in reducing emissions, in developing new and innovative 
technologies to increase efficiencies and reduce waste. As plan 
for the best way forward for a clean energy future, we must 
ensure that we do not harm our competitiveness in an 
increasingly global economy. It is really free market 
innovations that have made the U.S. a leader in both emissions 
reduction and technological solutions, such as carbon capture.
    Unnecessary burdensome regulations will only succeed in 
hamstringing our manufacturing economy. And we are celebrating 
right now 500,000 new jobs, new manufacturing jobs in America. 
We do not want to be forcing these jobs overseas to countries 
like China and India, who account for a disproportionate share 
of global emissions. From my perspective, we should be 
encouraging new innovations and technologies that can increase 
efficiencies and decrease emissions.
    You know in my home State of Washington, emissions have 
increased six percent since 2012 and this is despite Governor 
Inslee's increased mandates and regulations on our energy and 
industrials. By developing and exporting new processes and new 
technologies to the developing world, we can continue to lead 
the world in emissions reductions and remain competitive in the 
global economy.
    Innovation is the key to combatting climate change, growing 
the economy, and raising the standard of living in our 
communities.
    Mr. Eisenberg, I would like to discuss the central role of 
global competitiveness when we develop these industrial 
emissions policies, from past experience as a parent, that 
there is a tremendous risk to our ability to make and do things 
in America, if policymakers impose unnecessary cost on 
industrial processes and the energy used in those processes.
    Would you just share with us from your perspective what we 
can be doing as policymakers to make it less expensive and more 
efficient for manufacturers and industry to innovate, rapidly 
deploy, and eventually export new products?
    Mr. Eisenberg. Thank you for the question. And I really 
appreciate, frankly, everybody's commitment to manufacturing 
here. I mean it is so encouraging to hear everybody talk about 
how important manufacturing is in your districts into the 
future. We obviously feel that very, very strongly. That is why 
I took this job.
    There is a number of things in the climate space and in the 
emissions space that I think would really work here, especially 
in the near-term. It starts with--and a lot of them are in my 
testimony. I will quickly run through a bunch of them.
    First things first. There is a bill called the Clean 
Industrial Technology Act that came out of the Science 
Committee and I believe has dual jurisdiction here. It would 
create, basically, a program at DOE that would have sort of 
long-term advanced focus on decarbonization of the industrial 
manufacturing sector. That is one way to really get us out 
there doing this kind of work with the Government and with the 
labs in making it happen. Ratify the Kigali Amendment or enact 
legislation that will get you there, that will reduce serious 
tonnage and keep us competitive on the greenhouse gas side.
    Scale up energy efficiency. Scale up energy efficiency. 
This is something that I think we are all saying. My 
counterpart Jason said it best. This is where we really need to 
focus on the math and give us the tools to install that stuff 
with the right payback period. Full and complete expensing in 
the Tax Reform Bill made a big difference to a couple of my 
manufacturing companies. It gave them the opportunity to change 
the math and allowed them to put in things like CHP and some of 
those newer technologies to let them be more efficient, the 
permitting process, the work you are doing on NSR, 
reauthorizing Title 41 of the Fast Act. There is plenty more I 
can get into but these are all kinds of things that we think 
would be bipartisan strong measures that we can do right now 
that would help keep manufacturing competitive while reducing 
our emissions.
    Mrs. Rodgers. Great. In the time I have left, Dr. Gregory, 
I wanted to ask if you would just elaborate more on the promise 
of carbon capture and just what is your understanding as far as 
what other countries are doing related to carbon capture.
    Dr. Gregory. Sure. Yes, carbon capture for cement plants is 
a little bit different than it is for other types of industrial 
sectors because we have these two sources of emissions; one set 
associated with generating energy for the kilns that operate at 
over 2500 degrees Fahrenheit and another set that comes from 
the process of making the cement itself.
    So there are pilot plants that exist, that I know of at 
least, in Canada, and in Germany, and I believe one in China, 
as well, where they are testing these out but they only occur 
when there is a significant decision to be able to invest in 
those things. And basically, a lot of them are very small scale 
in order to pilot them but in order--it is a fixed cost on top 
of the production of cement. So in order to really accelerate 
that there needs to be additional incentives or investment in 
order for that happen.
    Mrs. Rodgers. OK. Thank you for that. I have run out of 
time.
    But I think we also should be promoting those policies that 
are going to encourage carbon capture. I yield back.
    Mr. Tonko. Thank you. The gentle lady yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes the chair--vice chair of the full 
committee, Representative from New York, Representative Clarke, 
for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Clarke. I thank our Chairman, Mr. Tonko, and our 
Ranking Member Shimkus for convening this important hearing on 
how we can protect our environment from industrial emissions 
and increase American competitiveness in the global economy.
    We have heard already today greenhouse gas emissions from 
the industrial sector holds a major challenge to tackling the 
climate crisis. When you include the energy that industrial 
facilities purchase from the electricity grid, the industrial 
sector as a whole is actually the single largest source of 
greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, larger than each 
of the buildings and transportation sectors and these emissions 
are growing. While the emissions from the other sectors of our 
economy are projected to decrease or stay relatively flat, 
industrial sector emissions are actually projected to continue 
increasing over the next 30 years.
    But there is good news, too. Many solutions already exist 
to reduce emissions from certain industrial sources today. And 
where the solutions don't yet exist, there is still significant 
room for innovation. Therefore, as we strive towards a 100 
percent clean economy by the year 2050, it is important that we 
continue to think openly and critically about the challenges, 
so that we in Congress can create the right policies and 
programs to foster innovation, reduce pollution, and help the 
U.S. industrial sector lead the world towards a low-carbon 
future.
    My first question is to Mr. Walsh. There are some who would 
continue to put forward a false narrative that we must choose 
between the environment and our economy. However, those of us 
who have studied this know that the opposite is true. By 
cleaning our economy, we can also increase the competitiveness 
of our manufacturers on the global stage.
    Could you please talk a little bit more about the global 
marketplace for industrial goods and about the demand for 
products that are made under cleaner industrial--excuse me--
environmental standards. Just how far behind is the U.S. in 
this regard and what will happen if we do not catch up?
    Mr. Walsh. Thank you for that important questions, 
Congresswoman. Yes, let's talk a little bit about global 
competitiveness.
    I think what we need to recognize is that the rest of the 
world is already moving in terms of their industrial processes 
and the policies and investments that support it in a low- and 
zero-carbon direction.
    We are actually lagging behind. There are various ways in 
which we are doing that. Certainly, the fact that we have 
withdrawn from the Paris Agreement, or in the process of doing 
that, the only nation in the world that is, is a significant 
signal. But as you pointed out, this is not just an issue of 
equity. It is also an issue of competitiveness.
    So we want workers in the United States to be building the 
products that we know are going to be demanded around the rest 
of the world, whether that is low-carbon steel or high-
efficiency light weight vehicles, or even appliances that have 
gasses in them with low global warming potential. We have 
talked mostly about industrial sector emissions. We have talked 
less about the way in which the industrial sector, if we 
decarbonize it, can lower embedded emissions in the products 
that we sell to the rest of the world as well and that includes 
a range of things from automobiles to appliances, to you name 
it.
    So you know when we talk about global competitiveness, I 
think your question is really on point because we need to be 
talking about where this world is going, where markets are 
going, and where we are falling behind.
    Ms. Clarke. Dr. Friedmann, I saw you somewhat nodding and 
pointing. Did you want to add to that?
    Dr. Friedmann. Yes, absolutely. This is a key question that 
always comes up is well, how do we think about China and what 
makes sense because they are a huge source of industrial 
emissions.
    We have to have a better product to sell. We have to have a 
better technology to sell. We have to have better manufacturing 
to deliver those. So we actually have to invest in the 
innovation. We have to build plants and we have to do things 
like protect the workers in those sites for things like a 
procurement standard, or a border tariff, or some international 
partnership. And that is actually how we can drive down 
emissions in the rest of the world, as well as in the United 
States.
    Ms. Clarke. As we clean our economy and make our companies 
more competitive on this global stage, it is extremely 
important that we create good-paying jobs, especially in low-
income, black, and Latinx communities, who continue to suffer 
most greatly from environmental pollution and economic 
inequality.
    Mr. Walsh, can you ensure, as we work towards a clean 
economy, that investments are also made into good-paying 
domestic jobs and that new pathways are created to bring more 
young people of color into our future of industrial and 
manufacturing workforce?
    Mr. Walsh. Yes, let's start by acknowledging that 
generations of economic and racial injustice have 
disproportionately exposed communities of color and low-income 
communities to pollution, and as well to climate threat.
    So they need to be at the front of the line for new 
opportunities as we build new products and reconfigure our 
manufacturing sector. I think there are some very intentional 
ways in which we can do that. In the construction industry, we 
have seen models that involve community workforce agreements, 
community benefit agreements, which include local hiring 
pathways for folks in those communities into the jobs that are 
being created. We are beginning to see some of that in the 
industrial sector in automobiles, in particular. I think we 
need to see more of it.
    We also need to be constantly paying attention to the issue 
of environmental justice. Right? So let's also talk about the 
importance of regulation. Right? Let's talk about the 
importance of making sure industrial plants don't blow up 
which, of course, not only kills or injures workers, it also 
kills and injures people who live on fenceline communities.
    So we need to be weighing both of those.
    Ms. Clarke. Thank you very much.
    Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Mr. Tonko. The gentle lady yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes the Representative from West 
Virginia, Representative McKinley for 5 minutes, please.
    Mr. McKinley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Dr. Gregory, I am probably the only one on this panel who 
has ever written a specification for concrete. I have been 
writing concrete specs or been involved in it since 1965. And 
one of the things that pointed out was the fight we had, the 
contradiction where people wanted to use fly ash as a hazardous 
material, would not allow it to be used in concrete. Without a 
doubt, I think you would say we want to continue to use fly ash 
in concrete.
    Dr. Gregory. Yes. Yes, absolutely.
    Mr. McKinley. So we were able to prevail on that. There was 
quite a fight on that.
    But I want to learn from the rest of the panel here on 
this. I think this concept of being able to get down to zero 
emissions, it can be achieved. It is going to be very expensive 
to do that but we can achieve that. But the concern I have is 
we are addressing America. We are not addressing our 
competitors.
     And we know that Gina McCarthy would come before this 
panel in years past and she would say, yes, we can do these 
things. We can lower emissions in America but it won't really 
make any difference. She said she recognized that what it was 
going to do to the whole greenhouse gas problem of the globe 
but she said we are trying to get people to--we are going to 
lead and the other nations are going to follow.
    But it was John Maxwell that said a leader has no followers 
is merely a man taking a walk. And I am afraid what has 
happened here in America is we are just taking a walk. We are 
not getting other nations to follow.
    Look at greenhouse emissions over the last 16 years. In 
America, those emissions, and several of you testified, that 
America is already voluntarily reducing its emissions by 16 and 
I think, Eisenberg, you might have even said 21 percent.
    We are already making those reductions. But in the 
meantime, India has increased its emissions by 235 percent and 
China by 290 percent. They are not following what we are doing. 
We are putting ourselves at disadvantage.
    So what I would like to hear from you is why should we 
expect any other nation to follow our lead? Why are they going 
to put themselves at a competitive disadvantage by us making 
that reduction? Why are they going to adopt that?
    Can any of you--Eisenberg, do you want to share on that?
    Mr. Eisenberg. So we agree with that sentiment 
wholeheartedly and that is specifically why we have called for 
us to reengage on the international scale and get a real good 
agreement in place that is fair and equitable. And we will make 
sure that we are not putting ourselves at a disadvantage. It 
has got to be the backbone of our climate policy.
    Mr. McKinley. But how? Don't go 30,000 feet with me. How do 
we get it? Is it in a trade policy or what are we going to do 
to get other nations to adopt so we are on a level playing 
field? Because I am afraid what is going to happen is more and 
more of our companies, the industrial companies are going to 
locate or essentially go offshore and outsource their CO2 
emissions because it is going to be cheaper to operate 
someplace else.
    Mr. Eisenberg. I mean I think there is a very real concern 
here and that is why--I mean it is 30,000-foot because we 
haven't really gone there but we made a lot of progress last 
time when we engaged internationally. There is more to be made.
    We really need to get this right and there is a lot of 
different ways to go about it.
    Mr. McKinley. Give us a policy. How do we adopt--what is a 
policy that would allow us to be competitive--excuse me--that 
would force other nations to adopt a standard that we all are 
producing it under those little missions?
    I see your hand up. I just wanted Eisenberg to finish his 
thought because I wanted something more specific, not 30,000 
feet.
    Mr. Eisenberg. No, I appreciate that. I won't take too 
long.
    So all countries have to, including all of the major 
emitters have to agree to reductions. Right? And there can't be 
this inequity of some countries basically getting a free pass 
until 2030, 2040, 2050, while we impose stuff on ourselves. It 
has got to be enforceable. It has got to be transparent. It has 
to be pro-trade. It has to be innovative. It has to be 
enforceable by the WTO. I mean these are all things that we are 
going to need to make sure that that leakage doesn't happen and 
that we stay competitive.
    Aluminum is a good example, right? So----
    Mr. McKinley. Go ahead. You seem to have drifted up to 
30,000 feet again. I want to hear specifics.
    Dr. Friedmann. I have got three discrete policies that can 
do the job.
    Mr. McKinley. OK.
    Dr. Friedmann. So those are in my testimony. One of them is 
a border tariff. This is a topic which is extremely difficult, 
extremely dangerous, and extremely fraught. I don't say that 
lightly. But it is an option.
    If we had a border carbon adjustment, that would protect 
U.S. workers in U.S. industries, as long as we decarbonized, 
and it would advantage us compared to some of those other 
countries. If they wanted to sell to us, they would have to hit 
that standard.
    Second option, something basic like the Montreal Protocol, 
where you have a sectoral group working together. We have 
multiple countries coming together and they all set a standard 
for emissions for steel. You do that with the EU. You do that 
with Canada. You do that with Mexico, the United States, you 
get a bunch of countries together. At that point, they create a 
market that those other countries can't sell into. Japan, 
Korea, China, India, they can't enter those markets if they 
don't hit that standard. So you can either go alone or you can 
go together.
    The third thing is you can just be better. You can just 
have a better product and that is a combination of procurement 
and innovation.
    Mr. McKinley. OK, thank you. And Dr. Friedmann, I do hope 
you come back. You seem to be colorful in your presentation. I 
like your passion.
    Mr. Friedmann. I told Chairman Tonko that when I was in 
government, I hated testifying. Now that I am out of 
government, I love testifying.
    Mr. McKinley. It is a sickness.
    I yield back.
    Mr. Tonko. We are just so happy you are having fun.
    The gentleman yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from California, 
Representative Peters for 5 minutes, please.
    Mr. Peters. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It has been a 
fascinating hearing. Emissions from industrial sectors account 
for over a third of global carbon emissions and just steel, 
cement, and basic chemicals account for a little more than over 
half that total.
    To me, it sounds like we have got sort of three general 
challenges. One is an infrastructure challenge. What is the 
infrastructure that needs to be built out to accommodate these 
changes? Second, what would a standard look like, a carbon 
standard that we would measure against? And third, what are the 
incentives we could get for industry to adopt these things, 
given that we have very low margin businesses and we have 
international competition?
    Dr. Friedmann, I am going to go you first, at the risk--the 
one thing we have noticed is, as happy as you are, you are bad 
at the clock. So I want you to briefly explain to me kind of--
you talked a little bit about how there is an advantage that 
some of these things were located together. There is an 
implication about infrastructure in that. I would like you to 
follow-up on what pipeline and transport infrastructure might 
look like and why that is important to carbon capture and 
utilization.
    Dr. Friedmann. Thank you. I am guilty as charged.
    As my testimony says, a massive important option to 
exercise is building CCUS infrastructure.
    Mr. Peters. What does that mean?
    Dr. Friedmann. That is mostly pipelines. Just as one 
example, though, 28 percent of the U.S. emissions come from 
Texas and Louisiana in the Gulf Coast, all around those 
petrochemical facilities. You could get about a third of those 
emissions, maybe half of them, if you had a pipeline that 
connected them together and good dedicated storage sites.
    Mr. Peters. So carbon dioxide pipelines--CO2 pipelines.
    Dr. Friedmann. CO2 pipelines.
    There are other things you can do. Hydrogen pipelines are 
inevitable. We are going to build those someday. We should 
think about it. If we want to electrify these things, we are 
going to have to add high-voltage transmission lines into these 
facilities, which don't exist today, necessarily, or may not 
have the capacity. But the big lever is CCUS and that means the 
big lever is CO2 pipelines.
    Mr. Peters. OK, good.
    Let me ask about incentives, what a carbon standard would 
look like. Dr. Sant, you talked a little bit about that. What 
would be the metric you are talking about? How would we measure 
success in this area?
    Dr. Sant. So I think there are a couple of ways to do it 
but I think we really want to look at what is the amount of 
carbon that is emitted over the course of production of any 
given material or product that we want to consider. You could 
consider it for something like cement. You could do it for 
something like steel.
    Mr. Peters. Would it be per unit? Would it be carbon per 
unit of cement?
    Dr. Sant. Per unit mass, as an example, per pound, per ton, 
per kilograms, choose as you may.
    And the reason that a ranking system of this sort becomes 
useful is then you can start to take lots of different which 
are produced, for example, in different places, in different 
locations, not only in the U.S. but internationally. And then 
set criteria on what your minimum for, as an example, 
purchasing might be.
    So if you are a private buyer versus the Government that 
decides to implement a procurement standard, you can actually 
start to say we will only buy a product if it is at or below a 
particular carbon efficiency standard. And that turns into a 
really powerful way of forcing both the public and the private 
sector to act.
    Mr. Peters. OK, good. Thanks.
    And then finally I did--you know, I would like 15 minutes 
to talk about all these things but I just wanted to touch on 
what incentives would look like. We talked about incentives for 
business to adopt this.
    Why is Germany doing this, Mr. Eisenberg? Is there a profit 
in this at some level? What would it be that we would have to 
do to get businesses to want to invest in this?
    Mr. Eisenberg. So it is tough to compare the U.S. and 
Germany for a couple reasons. One is, obviously, the fuel 
sources available to us. I mean we have tremendous energy from 
all kinds of different sources. And so it needs to be a 
technology discussion first and foremost, rather than you know 
I mean they don't have all of the natural gas that we have and 
things of that nature.
    But certainly, they have a very top-down approach. They 
passed a ----
    Mr. Peters. Well, forget about them because we don't want 
them, but what is it about? What should we be doing, as 
Congress, to incentivize American businesses to make these 
investments?
    Mr. Eisenberg. So we absolutely believe incentives to work. 
You know they are not the only way to get there but----
    Mr. Peters. What do you mean by incentives?
    Mr. Eisenberg. So----
    Mr. Peters. Because they can be carrots or sticks.
    Mr. Eisenberg. So carrots, obviously, would be 
preferential. Right? There is--you look over time at the 
different carrots that have kind of worked in the energy space, 
in terms of electric vehicles, in terms of carbon capture, in 
terms of different types of energy sources. They do make a 
difference and they help bridge that gap towards 
commercialization. They are not the only way to do it. They are 
a big deal.
    Certainly in the energy efficiency space, I think that is 
really one that, especially in the industrial sector, that we 
need to focus on. Because at the end of the day, so much of 
that, as much as and everybody is saying like 50 percent could 
come from industrial energy efficiency deployment.
    Mr. Peters. I get that.
    Mr. Eisenberg. And so changing that math so that----
    Mr. Peters. I have got to write language that says this is 
an incentive to get your business to invest.
    Dr. Friedmann, do you have any ideas on what we might do, 
as Congress, to incentivize these investments?
    Dr. Friedmann. First, create a procurement standard. 
Second, exercise it. Period.
    If the Army Corps of Engineers could buy low-carbon 
concrete and were directed by Congress to do it, and the 
standard was written by NIST and other experts like Dr. Gregory 
and Dr. Sant, then it could just be done. Ninety percent of 
cement and concrete is bought by governments.
    In addition to that, just super quick, the cost for the 
finished product goes up one percent. Even if you doubled the 
cost of concrete in the United States, the cost of a bridge 
goes up one percent.
    Mr. Peters. OK.
    Dr. Friedmann. So the actual cost to the taxpayer is 
relatively light in terms of this but it gets U.S. companies 
doing stuff. It incents them to have a better product. That is, 
I think, where we want to go.
    Mr. Peters. OK, thank you.
    My time has expired. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Tonko. The gentleman yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes the ranking member of the 
subcommittee, Representative Shimkus, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Shimkus. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize for being 
absent. I was in another meeting that I had to attend.
    But let me go to Mr. Walsh first. As he knows, U.S. Steel 
Granite City Works was idled in December 2015 due, in part, to 
pressure from Chinese steel dumping. In January 2017, part of 
the facility reopened, bringing back about 730 United Steel 
Workers to the plant. My grandfather worked in this steel mill 
years ago.
    In March 2018, President Trump announced he would impose 
tariffs after the U.S. Department of Commerce Section 232 
investigation and U.S. Steel announced it would reopen the 
blast furnaces at Granite City and ramp up production soon 
after.
    Over Labor Day this year, workers at the facility were even 
talking about mandatory overtime. That is good. Regardless of 
whether one approves of the President's approach to trade or 
not, nobody can deny that cheap Chinese steel produced under 
lower environmental standards is a threat to our workers and 
the climate.
    If we impose additional cost on domestic steel production, 
what do you think would happen to the workers at Granite City?
    Mr. Walsh. If it is done well and smartly, which we have 
been talking about, so in a context where we might be looking 
at different policies doing something around border 
adjustments, it could be a win-win.
    If it is done badly, of course, we offshore jobs.
    Mr. Shimkus. Thank you.
    Mr. Walsh. There is I think on this full panel absolutely 
no support for the idea of offshoring U.S. manufacturing jobs.
    Mr. Shimkus. Right. No and I think that is a major point. 
We have got to be careful in this debate that we don't offshore 
these jobs or lower environmental conditions and for workers. 
So, I appreciate that.
    And we would--I mean based upon your answer, you also kind 
of alluded to this. If we offshore these steel worker jobs and 
the plants, what would be the net environmental impact?
    Mr. Walsh. Bad. Bad because it would be offshored to 
countries that have lower labor standards and environmental 
standards.
    Mr. Shimkus. Thank you. Exactly.
    Mr. Eisenberg, thanks for being here. For 20 years I have 
been talking about new source review. You had mentioned it in 
your testimony. That is low-hanging fruit, I would say. Why 
don't we go there?
    Mr. Eisenberg. I have been asking the same question. In 
fact, I testified on it a couple of years ago and asked the 
same question. This seems like an easy one, right?
    You know this has been a barrier, both real and perceived, 
to the installation of equipment that would be more efficient 
and would reduce pollution at the manufacturing shop floor. 
Fixing this program, to cure both the real and the perceived 
impacts of this would do a lot. And it is just one of the many 
things that will help us get those things into the line. We 
think it is so important.
    Mr. Shimkus. Yes, and for my colleagues, the basic premise 
is, correct me if I am wrong, you have clean air standards. You 
maintain those clean air standards, so the boilers and 
emissions are already under the Clean Air Act. You replace a 
generator with a more efficient generator. No effect. The 
emissions are still the same but because of the rules and regs, 
we have to totally re-permit that facility. So, there is an 
example of something I believe I wish we would have done years 
ago.
    Mr. Eisenberg. And it opens the door to a much broader look 
at the facilities, and the processes, and everything else. And 
so it is just--it is operated as a barrier. When you are kind 
of working it out and you have to meet deadlines and things 
like that, more often than not, you are just not going to do 
it. And that is unfortunate. We need to make sure that they 
will do those things.
    Mr. Shimkus. And would you agree, I think the 45Q, what we 
passed last Congress, that its helpful? I mean the last 
Congress did. So that is a tax incentive. So that is a positive 
thing that we have done.
    Mr. Eisenberg. Yes.
    Mr. Shimkus. And then we have not totally finalized it yet, 
but we are working through the process, it is in the NDA 
Conference Report--Dr. Friedmann, you are shaking your head--
the USE IT Act. Would that be good, and helpful, and low-
hanging fruit?
    Dr. Friedmann. 45Q immensely important. Passing the USE IT 
Act would definitely be helpful. Will it actually capture the 
CO2 from the steel plant? No. The incentives are not large 
enough. You actually need more on top of that if you really 
want to go after the emissions. Those are necessary and useful 
but not sufficient.
    Mr. Shimkus. Right. Anyone else?
    Mr. Perciasepe. I just want to add on the 45Q that any 
encouragement the committee could provide to the Internal 
Revenue Service to get the rules done so that we can actually 
implement it, that would be great.
    Mr. Shimkus. Good. Great.
    Dr. Sant. So maybe the one comment to add, you know one of 
the things that we want to think about is incentives and 
approaches that really help with ground-up innovation with 
entrepreneurship. So there is lots that we are doing. We were 
talking about large manufacturing facilities that are owned by 
large corporations but, fundamentally, U.S. success started 
with entrepreneurship that went ground-up.
    And I think what is not really incentivized sufficiently at 
this point is this ground-up innovation and I think there would 
be tremendous, tremendous value to trying to do that. And it is 
something that we don't hear spoken about a lot. And in many 
ways, we count on the venture capital community to do it but, 
as you can imagine, these are not sectors in which the venture 
capital community, as an example, substantially invest because 
long time horizons, lower return on investment, hard problems, 
regulations. You know you want to think about the problem a 
little bit more holistically than sort of thinking about really 
what can only large corporations do but what can small 
innovators do.
    Mr. Shimkus. Thank you. My time has expired. I need to 
plagiarize Bill Gates a little bit more every now and then. I 
sound smarter that way.
    I yield back.
    Mr. Tonko. The gentleman yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes the gentle lady from Delaware, 
Representative Lisa Blunt Rochester, for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Blunt Rochester. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and thank you 
to Ranking Member Tomkus [sic]--Shimkus for holding today's 
hearing.
    This is actually a phenomenal--sorry I called you Tomkus. I 
see. I see. It is a combination. You are one and I think it is 
representative of today's hearing.
    I have heard some real consistency, which is phenomenal. I 
also have heard some very consequential things that we can do 
for our country. So this is a very important hearing and I want 
to thank our witnesses.
    As you all acknowledged, decarbonizing the industrial 
sector is a challenge but that is exactly why we are here 
today, to confront those challenges to climate action head-on 
and to find innovative solutions to overcome them. And in my 
home State of Delaware, companies are looking for ways to do 
just that, as was mentioned earlier.
     Several of the country's largest chemical companies are 
based in my State and these companies recognize the need to do 
the hard work of reducing our carbon footprint. I want to make 
sure that these companies have the tools they need to reverse 
that trend and to lead the world in reducing emissions from 
chemical production.
    I am going to start my first question with Dr. Sant. I know 
that you also recognized how climate action can create economic 
opportunities, especially the early stage innovators. And I was 
really glad that you focused on that ground-up innovation. In 
your testimony, you described the importance of supporting 
entrepreneurs and researchers who are developing creative 
solutions for industrial decarbonization.
    As Congress considers legislative options to reduce 
emissions from industry, how can we ensure that policy helps 
early stage innovators like you and are there certain tools 
that we at the federal level can provide that would help 
overcome some of the primary barriers to research development 
and deployment?
    Dr. Sant. So a couple of comments. I think the first high-
level comment is really regulative certainty. I think having 
guidance regarding where the Government is going to go is super 
helpful.
    The second part, procurement standards. Again, super 
helpful because they give you targets of what you really want 
to fulfill.
    The third thing to point out is, in some ways, this is a 
space in which there is a little bit of a gap between very 
early stage research and sort of commercial full maturity 
application. And so I think we need quite a bit more funding to 
sort of flesh out the gaps.
    As I say, in one role as a university professor, you know 
there are programs that you can go to. Of course, they need to 
be quickly expanded, potentially by an order of magnitudes and 
by substantial amounts of money. But that kind of support 
exists and we have a mechanism for putting it into place.
    I think where we don't have as much support is being able 
to translate technologies from that very early stage. There is 
something that industry can actually start to look at, take on, 
and do something useful with. And I think that is something 
that we really need to work on fleshing out.
    Ms. Blunt Rochester. One of the solutions that I am looking 
at that would include a revolving loan fund that would provide 
capital for energy efficiency upgrades. Would that be helpful 
to early stage innovators?
    Dr. Sant. My first guess is probably not because early 
stage innovators don't have a need for funds of that sort. It 
is also the same reason why you can't really explore a tax 
credit.
    Ms. Blunt Rochester. Right.
    Dr. Sant. I think what you need for this very early stage 
innovation is actually direct grants, direct support that 
actually helps to get things off the ground.
    Ms. Blunt Rochester. Great. Thank you.
    And Mr. Perciasepe, in your testimony you discuss some of 
the ways that chemical manufacturers are developing more 
environmentally friendly chemical production--chemicals 
production. Can you please elaborate on the opportunities for 
low-carbon chemicals production in the United States?
    Mr. Perciasepe. There are a lot of chemicals that are made 
and, in many cases, there are no greenhouse gas emissions from 
those chemical reactions but sometimes there are.
    And so almost every chemical company, DowDuPont, for 
instance, are looking at those. What kind of catalysts they use 
in the reaction where you have this chemical and this chemical 
and you put it through some catalytic reaction or some heated 
reaction to create the third chemical. I am being very 
simplistic here. My organic chemistry is failing me.
    And I mentioned one in particular, polypropylene, that was 
being looked at for reducing the emissions that are coming from 
it by using different kinds of reactors. And this is all kind 
of green chemistry and innovation. And it is the area of, I 
think, the greatest challenge but also the greatest opportunity 
in the industrial sector.
    I mean we look at the carbon capture. We know we get these 
emissions. Let's capture it. We need to do that. We need to 
innovate on that. And we know that the electricity and the 
heat, we have to find ways to do that in a different way or 
capture that. But the chemical processes, whether it is 
making--taking----
    Ms. Blunt Rochester. I only have 5 seconds left.
    Mr. Perciasepe. I am sorry.
    Ms. Blunt Rochester. Friedmann, you have got three seconds.
    Dr. Friedmann. University of Delaware has a world-leading 
program on turning CO2 into chemicals and plastics. For them to 
get funding the way that Dr. Sant needs it, there is two bills 
in front of Congress now, the CITA Act and the EFFECT Act. Both 
of those would create authorities within the Department of 
Energy, hundreds of millions of dollars to fund that kind of 
work.
    Ms. Blunt Rochester. Fantastic. Thank you so much.
    And I yield back.
    Mr. Tonko. The gentle lady yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes the very patient Representative 
Long for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Long. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And my friend, Ranking Member Shimkus, has been quoting 
Bill Gates all morning and I am sitting here thinking about Jed 
Clampett and his cement pond. That is the difference between 
Missouri and Illinois.
    Dr. Gregory, in your testimony, you referenced the use of 
alternative fuels as an easy way to reduce emissions in the 
cement production process. In the United States, only 15 
percent of fuel comes from these alternative sources, compared 
to the more than double that in the European Union.
    Can you explain why these alternative fuel sources would 
reduce emissions?
    Dr. Gregory. Yes. Basically, the use of alternative fuels 
goes back to that heating the kiln that I mentioned, over 2500 
degrees Fahrenheit. Usually, we use fossil fuels, coal, and in 
some cases, natural gas because we need it to get that hot. The 
alternative fuels are often biomass or waste materials, like 
scrapped tires, and essentially those are the types of 
alternative fuels. The limitations usually are about concerns 
about clean air but, as you mentioned, in other countries they 
use significantly more because the type of incineration that is 
done in those can still generate that energy from the waste 
materials, while maintaining clean air.
    Mr. Long. Thank you, kindly.
    Then to my next question: How does federal policy 
discourage the use of these fuels and how could environmental 
laws be reformed to promote their use?
    Dr. Gregory. It is exactly that, trying to amend acts like 
the Clean Air Act and also RCRA to basically better allow for 
increased use of these alternative fuels in cement plants.
    Mr. Long. And in your opinion, is this the easiest way to 
reduce carbon emissions in the cement industry? And how much of 
a reduction of carbon emissions would we see if the amount of 
alternative fuels we use rises to the level of the EU?
    Dr. Gregory. This is one of the low-hanging fruits. We can 
definitely get increased emissions reductions associated with 
these alternative fuels. Like I said, at a global level, there 
has been some estimates that we can increase reductions by 
about ten percent, and so which is definitely significant and 
something that we should go after.
    Mr. Long. There would be a ten percent reduction in carbon 
emissions?
    Dr. Gregory. Yes. Yes. Yes, carbon emissions.
    Mr. Long. Mr. Eisenberg, your testimony references the need 
to modernize the electric grid and make use of smart grid 
technologies. More broadly speaking, how do the new digital 
technologies drive innovation and lower greenhouse gas 
emissions and can this be achieved without new government 
regulation?
    Mr. Eisenberg. So there is a lot of new technologies out 
there. The grid, which was traditionally a one-way thing, a 
one-way highway, right, from the power plant to the end user, 
it is now becoming much more of a two-way street, where we have 
things like demand response and a lot of these new technologies 
that allow the user and--the user to become a producer, and you 
can have things like microgrids, and things like that that 
really change it.
    You know there is a lot of ideas, some that involve 
government involvement, some that involve the private sector. I 
don't know whether there is one perfect approach here but it 
has unquestionable greenhouse gas emissions reductions 
benefits.
    DOE found that you could eliminate 277 million at 359 
million tons of CO2 per year by upgrading this grid and 
allowing those new technologies the access that they need.
    Mr. Long. OK. Unless anyone else needs my time, I will 
yield back.
    Mr. Tonko. The gentleman yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Florida, 
Representative Soto for 5 minutes, please.
    Mr. Soto. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    You know I want to talk about sorting out fact from fiction 
here. You know we have heard a lot of comments today. First, 
the facts that climate change is, in part at least, human-
caused and it is an existential threat to humanity. Another 
fact is that our chairman has set out a goal of getting to net 
zero-carbon dioxide emissions by 2050.
    In addition, another fact is that we are going to have 
hearings from the fall through early winter to develop a plan 
by the end of 2019. I thank all of you here, as our panelists, 
to help us with that.
    And another fact, we are open to all of the above strategy 
on this ambitious net zero-carbon dioxide goal by 2050.
    Some fictions: That this committee is not prepared to work 
to develop bipartisan solutions. Another fiction is that we 
have already ruled out nuclear or carbon capture. These are 
things that we are prepared to work together on.
    Many of you have said that innovation is key. So I would 
like to know, by a show of hands: How many of you believe the 
Trump administration's elimination of California's fuel 
emission standards hurts innovation by a show of hands?
    So there is many ways we could do that. I know that is not 
exactly manufacturing, although obviously auto manufacturing is 
a big part of our manufacturing base.
    I would like to start with Mr. Eisenberg. You know we have 
had some staff information point out that in 2015 the 
Department of Energy estimated that adopting high-efficiency 
technologies could reduce energy consumption in the industrial 
sector by as much as 32 percent by 2025. They gave some ideas: 
One, installing advanced motor systems, high-efficiency 
boilers, and smart manufacturing; and two, using combined heat 
and power systems.
    Could these technologies, and others, assist in getting us 
to a 32 percent reduction?
    Mr. Eisenberg. They absolutely could. They can be 
effective. We have just got to get the math right, and make 
sure that manufacturers have the incentives and really the 
opportunities to put them in place, and have the payback be 
good.
    Mr. Soto. Thank you.
    And for Dr. Sant and Dr. Gregory, it would be great to 
hear. Our staff has mentioned that by switching to low-carbon 
fuel stocks and feedstocks, such as the electrifying industrial 
process could reduce both direct and indirect emissions by 
switching to hydrogen or biomasses of fuel or feedstock, for 
the industries that you all are studying--oh, and as well--yes, 
excuse me. For the industries you all are studying, is that 
feasible going forward as part of a plan for 2050?
    Dr. Sant. So a couple of comments to point out. In general, 
switching to alternative fuels is beneficial but it is not 
trivial because, in many ways, it requires changes around how 
we actually handle solid waste and how we actually categorize 
solid waste prior to combustion. That is comment number one.
    The second comment that goes with it is a lot of the 
process that we look at, which withstand, as Julio put it some 
time ago, trying to burn and melt rock, it is not terribly 
trivial to switch processes from a fossil fuel source to a 
renewable source. It is not out of the question but we are not 
close to doing it.
    That being the case, running a cement kiln electrically is 
not trivial because you are trying to produce 10,000 tons of 
cement a day.
    Mr. Soto. Dr. Friedmann----
    Dr. Sant. Oh.
    Mr. Soto. Last sentence, then, I have got to switch.
    Dr. Sant. I think when we think about these things, we want 
to take an economy-wide perspective to how we actually manage 
carbon. It is not sufficient to just look at heat, or power, or 
a single process.
    I will close with that, sir.
    Mr. Soto. Thank you.
    Dr. Gregory.
    Dr. Gregory. Yes. Yes, I wholeheartedly concur. To get to 
that 2500 degrees Fahrenheit, you really right now have to do 
it with fossil fuels. There is our people looking at how you 
can do that through electrification but it is not employed 
anywhere in the world because it is so difficult.
    So alternative fuels are sort of a short-term step that can 
be used until that type of technology or the hydrogen 
technology can be employed.
    Mr. Soto. And Dr. Friedmann, I know there was a discussion 
here among our staff about that carbon capture utilization 
storage may be a more cost-effective way in some subsectors 
for, they reference, ammonium production to get the biggest 
reduction as quickly as possible for CO2 emissions. Would you 
agree with that?
    Dr. Friedmann. A hundred percent.
    Mr. Soto. And lastly, for Mr. Walsh, you know we saw a 
decline in jobs in steel in the '70s and '80s because we didn't 
embrace new technologies. Is this a juncture where embracing 
new technologies will actually make us more competitive over 
the next 10 to 20 years?
    Mr. Walsh. Yes, in addition to avoiding bad trade policy.
    Mr. Soto. Thanks so much.
    I yield my time back.
    Ms. Barragan. [presiding]. The gentleman yields back.
    The Chair recognizes Mr. Mullin for 5 minutes to ask 
questions.
     Mr. Mullin. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to our 
witnesses for being here.
    I want to circle real quick to the follow-up with trying to 
generate 2500 degrees with electricity. Have we even ran the 
numbers of how much that would take, what kind of power we are 
talking about here, Mr. Gregory--or Dr. Gregory, if you want to 
answer that?
    Dr. Gregory. Yes. There are people who have done sort of 
theoretical studies on how this could be done.
    Mr. Mullin. So they have measured like how many kilowatts 
this is going to take?
    Dr. Gregory. Yes and I don't know it off the top of my head 
and I can definitely get you those numbers on those studies but 
it is----
    Mr. Mullin. Well, I kind of figured we would have to start 
with that because we would have to figure out is it feasible 
when we start talking about how many furnaces we are going to 
be heating.
    Dr. Gregory. It is a question of economics.
    Mr. Mullin. Is it even--I mean when you start talking about 
wind power and solar power, how are you going to generate that? 
How much is that going to take off the electrical grid to be 
able to do that? I don't--I am just a country boy from Oklahoma 
but I have sure worked with a lot of boilers. I have my boilers 
license and I have installed a ton of them. I just don't think 
it is feasible. I just don't know how you get there.
    Dr. Gregory. In the short-term, it isn't and that is why it 
is not being adopted.
    Mr. Mullin. Well, already to take all the fossil fuels off 
our grid, according to the studies that we have already seen, 
it would take a wind farm the size Texas to replace it. Is that 
correct?
    Dr. Gregory. I haven't seen that specific one but it is--it 
is a lot of electricity.
    Mr. Mullin. It is a lot. And now you are going to be adding 
everything else on to it. I just--and we are not even factoring 
in heating our boilers up to 2500 degrees with electricity.
    I mean we all want clean air and clean water but we have 
got to do it in an economic-responsible way, too.
    With that being said, we are talking about a lot, Dr. 
Gregory, talking about cement plants. And we know that we have 
moved to roughly 15 percent of our plants now are using natural 
gas instead of coal because coal has been the main source for a 
long time. I am not against coal. I am truly all of the above 
energy, as long as we do it in a clean way.
    What is prohibiting the rest of them to move to natural 
gas? Is it the accessibility? Is it the price? I mean natural 
gas is pretty cheap right now. What is it that is prohibiting 
the other plants from moving?
    Dr. Gregory. Both of those; having access to natural gas 
and then also just the investments associated with it.
    Mr. Mullin. Access, meaning just to the pipelines?
    Dr. Gregory. Like getting natural gas to the plant.
    Mr. Mullin. And so it is the pipelines.
    Dr. Gregory. Yes, absolutely.
    Mr. Mullin. The permitting process.
    Dr. Gregory. Yes.
    Mr. Mullin. Because there is a lot of areas around the 
country right now they would love to be able to sell their gas.
    Dr. Gregory. Yes.
    Mr. Mullin. But without the infrastructure to do so, this 
would be very difficult.
    And I think you mentioned a while ago that we, just by 
switching from coal to natural gas, you are going to affect 
roughly ten percent of our--I mean a reduction of ten percent 
of the CO2 emissions. Is that what I remember you saying or am 
I----
    Dr. Gregory. I was talking about different alternative 
fuels that can be used----
    Mr. Mullin. OK.
    Dr. Gregory [continuing]. Like the scrapped tires and 
things like that. I would expect that it would be a similar 
order of magnitude in terms of----
    Mr. Mullin. So how does that work? I heard you mention 
scrapped tires. So how does that work? I mean I have seen a few 
tires burn, and maybe on brush piles, or something like that 
once or twice in my life, and they are pretty black when they 
are burning. So how do you make that clean if you can't make 
coal clean?
    Dr. Gregory. It helps that you burn at 2500 degrees. 
Basically, that takes care of a lot of bad stuff when you are 
burning it that high.
    Mr. Mullin. But you have got to get it to 2500 degrees 
first, right?
    Dr. Gregory. You do and that is why you don't see any 
cement plant that is doing 100 percent scrapped tires. Right?
    Mr. Mullin. It is kind of tough.
    Dr. Gregory. And in the U.S. there is a maximum of about 15 
percent. In Europe, it is about 35 percent maximum.
    Mr. Mullin. So you have got to get it to 2500 degrees 
before you throw the first tire on it, right?
    Dr. Gregory. Absolutely, yes.
    Mr. Mullin. So that would take a fossil fuel of some sort.
    Dr. Gregory. Yes. Yes.
    Mr. Mullin. And once again, I am not opposed to clean 
energy at all. I am just saying it is feasible. It is fun that 
we put out these goals of 2050 and we want to knock the 
President for saying guys, we are not listening to California; 
they don't set the standard for the rest of the world. And we 
can say yes, it is going to cut innovation. That is an easy 
question because it does, when you have California go out there 
and make these emissions, it does force people to start getting 
there. But if it is not feasible, if the technology is not 
there, the regulation can't outrun the technology. It is not 
there yet.
    And I know we want to incentivize them to do it but we do. 
We incentivize by creating an environment for them to do that. 
We don't do that by regulating businesses out of business along 
the way.
    Dr. Gregory. Absolutely.
    Mr. Mullin. With that, I will yield back.
    Thank you guys so much.
    Ms. Barragan. The gentleman yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes Ms. Schakowsky for 5 minutes to 
ask questions.
    Ms. Schakowsky. So I have to tell you my heart is pounding 
over this very high-level conversation because I am not hearing 
the sense of urgency about this.
    You know the United States of America has known about 
climate change since the Johnson administration. And I am 
hearing about incentives and I am hearing about making progress 
but we are really and truly running out of time.
    There is a 16-year-old that is over at the Supreme Court 
right now, Greta Thunberg, who some know from Sweden, who made 
an important address to the United Nations and is now leading 
young people. She is 16 years old. A lawsuit, the Juliana suit, 
that says that young--this is 21 young people who are suing the 
Government of the United States of America for knowing about 
climate change and doing nothing about it.
    Now I just heard from my colleague saying well, if we don't 
provide these incentives--look, carbon emissions went up 
worldwide. They went up in the United States of America. We are 
not making progress. We are actually going backwards. And it is 
shameful that we are not sensing what young people are feeling, 
which is the sense of urgency.
    So I do have some questions. So we have been hearing for 
decades this issue, Mr. Walsh, this false claim that somehow 
tackling climate change will be a job-killer. We are hearing it 
today.
    As someone who has worked closely with unions all your 
life, how would you respond to that argument?
    Mr. Walsh. Well, I think it is a strawman. I think we can 
both create quality jobs and preserve a livable planet at the 
same time.
    And what we have been talking about today--and by the way, 
we share your sense of urgency, which is why it is so important 
to be focused on the industrial sector now because the lifespan 
of a lot of this capital equipment is so long.
    But we can do both. This is not a false choice but we need 
smart policy. We need to support strong innovation. And we need 
to deploy. We have talked a lot about innovation but, at the 
end of the day, we are going to have commercialize these 
technologies.
    Ms. Schakowsky. OK but you know what? My sense of 
innovation is when there is regulation, industry responds and 
finds a way to do it.
    And I would like to ask you, Mr. Friedmann--Dr. Friedmann, 
is it? Have you not talked about a carbon tax?
    Dr. Friedmann. I have not talked about a carbon tax. Part 
of the reason why is because there aren't actually carbon tax. 
Our analysis shows that it is helpful. It is in my testimony it 
is helpful but, actually, this sector is insensitive to a lot 
of carbon tax regulation.
    If you actually had a $50 a ton carbon tax, it wouldn't be 
enough to actually decrease the emissions from these 
facilities.
    Ms. Schakowsky. So it would be helpful?
    Dr. Friedmann. Probably with some stuff, like the 
efficiency bits, you probably get. But even a substantial, a 
high carbon tax is only one part of the solution set that you 
need.
    Ms. Schakowsky. So what are some of the other parts?
    Dr. Friedmann. Well, if you want urgency, I have spent the 
last 20 years of my career trying to keep CO2 emissions out of 
the air and oceans. We have this technology said today that 
works. It is called carbon capture storage. The best place in 
the country to do it is Texas. The second best place in the 
country to do it is Illinois. In fact, you can capture the CO2 
for those facilities and put them underground.
    We already have a beginning with the tax incentives but we 
actually need things like pipelines to take the CO2 from the 
Great Lakes District and move them down to Central Illinois, 
where you can store the CO2.
    We actually know everything we need to know about this, 
except for how to get financed.
    Ms. Schakowsky. So----
    Dr. Friedmann. And that is actually where we think policy 
will be most important.
    Ms. Schakowsky. I mean it just seems to me that this idea 
of we somehow have to woo industry, at long last, to do what 
they need to do to come up with innovation is a too late 
strategy. The time has come for us to take incredibly strong 
action.
    Does anyone else want to comment on that?
    Mr. Perciasepe. Well first of all, you are correct. But one 
thing I do want to point out to the committee is many of us on 
this panel have been to many hearings about what do with 
electricity, what to do with automobiles and transportation. 
This is the first time I have ever come before the United 
States Congress to talk about this very complicated issue of 
this remaining amount of emissions in the industrial sector 
that are very complicated.
    Now we get those other two going with different kinds of 
electric vehicles. We know how to decarbonize electricity with 
nuclear, and carbon capture, and renewable energy but this 
sector is something that hasn't been talked about enough and I 
appreciate the fact that we are doing it.
    It is not urgent enough to just talk about it but it, to 
me, it is a move in the right direction for the United States 
Congress to even have a hearing on this particular issue.
    Ms. Schakowsky. Well it is a pathetically small effort and 
I am for it. And I appreciate all of you being here today but 
the talk is not going to solve the problem. And any of the 
ideas that you have that we have heard today could be very 
useful.
    Thank you and I yield back.
    Ms. Barragan. The gentlewoman yields back.
    AThe Chair recognizes Mr. Flores for 5 minutes of 
questions.
    Mr. Flores. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I want to thank the 
leaders of this subcommittee for hosting this hearing today.
    As I mentioned during our last hearing in July, we haven't 
always celebrated how the U.S. is leading in terms of emission 
reductions. And to correct the record from the last person who 
was asking questions, the EI has recently put out their 
forecast that carbon emissions in the U.S. are going to decline 
again in 2019. So we are making progress in this regard but it 
has been through innovation and market forces that have gotten 
this done, not government mandates or taxes. Innovation is the 
greatest contributor to our emissions reductions, which have 
been significant.
    As we continue to dramatically reduce our emissions, the 
U.S. has been able to retain the world's largest, and fastest 
growing economy, and a significant creator of jobs and economic 
opportunity. So instead of new taxes or mandates to decarbonize 
in some sort of a chaotic fashion, our climate policy should 
adapt on things that work, like innovation, conservation, 
adaptation, and resiliency. Unleashing these innovations at 
home will continue to ensure that not only do we maintain 
economic growth balanced with a healthy environment, but more 
importantly, we can export these technologies, and as we are 
leading the can-do spirit to contribute to growing energy 
demand in developing countries abroad.
    And today, I am glad we are talking about the industrial 
sector. This is a sector which is responsible for numerous 
modern conveniences, from the roads we drive on, to the 
buildings we live and work in, down to fertilizers that farmers 
use to feed families around the world. This sector, however, 
faces unique challenges, as almost all of you laid out in your 
testimony and I want to thank you for sharing those with us 
today.
    Now for our questions. Dr. Gregory, are there any 
technologies currently under development, which would greatly 
reduce or eliminate emissions from Portland Cement--the 
Portland cement manufacturing process?
    Dr. Gregory. Yes, there is basically four different ways 
that you can lower emissions from cement production. One is 
through CCUS that we have discussed. Another is through the use 
of blended cements, which are kind of a lower carbon 
alternative of cement. A third is the use of alternative fuels. 
And the last is increasing the energy efficiency within the 
cement plants.
    Mr. Flores. What would the--this is a little bit of an 
abstract question but what would the Green New Deal do to U.S. 
cement manufacturing and jobs?
    Dr. Gregory. You know, at least for me, that is a little 
bit of a hard question to ask because I think there is a lot of 
large or high-level ideas but it is hard to know exactly how 
that is implemented. There is kind of different ways in which 
it could go.
    It is certainly, like Mr. Walsh mentioned, that it 
certainly is possible, I think, to create more jobs associated 
with green materials but it has to be done in a way such that 
we ensure that the standards associated with those materials 
really can be done in this country, right, and it doesn't lead 
to leakage that happens in other countries where they don't 
have those same standards.
    Mr. Flores. Well, I think it is safe to assume that a 
dramatic increase in energy prices or a curtailment of energy 
availability would dramatically cause the export of our cement 
manufacturing to overseas locations.
    Dr. Gregory. It is certainly one potential option but it, 
as we have heard, you know a lot of concrete is actually 
purchased by governments. And so that is certainly one way to 
start out is to make sure those governments make decisions that 
are consistent with our values.
    Mr. Flores. And continuing with you, Dr. Gregory, you 
mentioned the fact that concrete and other industrial processes 
have the need for high-temperature heats sustained over long 
periods of time. There have been--we have talked conceptually 
here about electrifying that process, which I think is a good 
direction to go. The challenge is where does the electricity 
come from. What produces the electrons?
    And so Mr. McNerney from California and I introduced a bill 
that passed the House last week to create new fuels for next-
generation reactors because, at the end of the day, nuclear 
energy is the only zero-carbon, zero emissions source of 
baseload power that we have. You can't get it from wind. You 
can't get it from solar.
    So would this be promising technology to pursue to 
accelerate the decarbonization of the industrial sector?
    Dr. Gregory. Yes, I actually happen to work very closely 
with colleagues at MIT in the Nuclear Science and Engineering 
Department, who just published a Future of Nuclear Report that 
speaks exactly to this potential.
    One of the things we have talked about is basically how 
today's nuclear energy is not your parents'----
    Mr. Flores. Exactly.
    Dr. Gregory. --or grandparents' nuclear energy. There are a 
lot of opportunities to do it in a much more innovative fashion 
using small modular reactors where, basically, the price is a 
primary focus, making sure that price of nuclear is competitive 
with other energy sources.
    Mr. Flores. Right.
    Dr. Gregory. So it is a significant opportunity.
    Mr. Flores. I would like to supplementarily ask you or to 
ask you to supplementarily respond with a question about what 
are the challenges to get wind and solar to do the same thing 
that we could do with next-generation nuclear.
    And so that gives me a second to ask one final question. 
Are there other ways to sequester carbon, to sink carbon, other 
than CCUS. And that is open for the panel.
    So Mister--I can't pronounce your name.
    Mr. Perciasepe. That is all right. If they could just put 
Bob up there, you would be OK.
    Mr. Flores. Bob. OK.
    Mr. Perciasepe. Well I think there are a lot of different 
ways to capture the carbon. Sometimes you can change the 
process--the carbon dioxide. Sometimes you can change the 
actual process of like running a turbine so that the exhaust 
that comes out is actually relatively pure carbon dioxide, so 
you don't need to have some chemical process to capture it. And 
then what you do with it can be sequestration in the geology. 
We have been using it for enhanced oil recovery to reuse old 
oil wells.
    Mr. Flores. Right.
    Mr. Perciasepe. And there are many--you know we talked 
earlier about building materials and actually using it to make 
fuels.
    Mr. Flores. Dr. Gregory, and try to keep your answer short, 
if you can.
    Dr. Gregory. Sure.
    Mr. Flores. I am at the forbearance of the chair here.
    Dr. Gregory. Absolutely. We have heard several options for 
taking carbon and putting it back into building materials. 
Binders are actually only like ten percent of concrete. 
Aggregates are much heavier and present, actually, a larger 
source of opportunity to store carbon that can be used in 
asphalt, and concrete, and all kinds of things.
    Mr. Flores. OK.
    Ms. Barragan. The gentleman's time has expired. The 
gentleman yields back.
    Mr. Flores. Thank you.
    Ms. Barragan.
    The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. 
McNerney for 5 minutes of questions.
    Mr. McNerney. I thank the Chair. I am going to thank the 
panel. Your testimony has been very informative and I 
appreciate that. There is an effort that goes into this.
    And we hear a lot about innovation but, Dr. Friedmann, 
would you say that innovation and regulation go hand-in-hand?
    Dr. Friedmann. Before I answer that question, as a proud 
citizen of Livermore, California, I have been a long-time fan 
of yours, Congressman.
    Mr. McNerney. Well, thank you.
    [Laughter.]
    Mr. McNerney. I want my time back. Go ahead.
    Dr. Friedmann. That is between me and my spin doctor.
    It is often helpful to have a combination of carrots and 
sticks. Part of the reason that I am enthusiastic about 
procurement is that it provides a market signal that drives the 
innovation. Part of the reason that I am enthusiastic about 
things like the EFFECT Act, and CITA, and increased 
appropriations for national labs, and for universities is 
because that stimulates that kind of innovation.
    I think if you try to make it just regulatory, it is harder 
to get that innovation out but, sometimes when well-crafted and 
well-exercised regulation can provide the appropriate focus to 
drive new innovators to new ideas.
    Mr. McNerney. Thank you. Well, in a highly competitive 
global marketplace, it is essential that we view any policies 
from a global perspective. The last thing we want to do is see 
American jobs ship overseas and increase in carbon emissions. 
Some of the countries seem to be able to manage that balance.
    Mr. Walsh and Dr. Sant, can you have recommendations on 
stuff to craft American policy to make that balance between 
emissions and jobs?
    Dr. Sant. Sure. So I think two comments. The first one, I 
think, really going after the carbon efficiency standards is an 
important thing to go after. In effect, it lets you do more 
with less. It is exactly what we do with energy efficiency, as 
an example, and I think that is something that we have to 
follow.
    I think that the second comment is something which Julio 
touched on not very long ago is really border data adjustments. 
I think the moment you signal globally that it doesn't matter 
where you produce but if you bring a product into the U.S. and 
sell it in the U.S. market, there is a natural adjustment that 
happens that is based upon a U.S. standard. This is the easiest 
way to get rid of any sort of complexity that comes from where 
a product is purchased.
    Because I think it is clear that in the world of today, 
material flaws are interlinked and that means that where you 
sell should determine the rules you play with.
    Mr. McNerney. Thank you.
    Mr. Walsh. I want to echo what Dr. Sant said about border 
adjustments. We talked about procurement and the purchasing 
power of the Federal Government. I just want to be specific 
that we have an example from your State of California, Julio's 
State of California, it is called Buy Clean. It is using the 
purchasing power of the State government on infrastructure 
projects to identify the global warming potential of structural 
steel and some other basic building blocks of infrastructure 
projects in the State. That is a model that we can build on and 
use in other States but, most importantly for the purposes of 
this conversation, at the federal level as well.
    Mr. McNerney. Thank you. Doctor, you said something that 
intrigued me, that we need more performance-based 
specifications than prescriptive specifications. Could you talk 
about that a little bit?
    Dr. Gregory. Sure, yes. Usually, when concrete is specified 
by engineers, including perhaps Mr. McKinley who is no longer 
here, but basically they are very specific about like the 
amount of cement that needs to be used. We are actually usually 
putting limits on what we call supplementary cementitious 
materials, like fly ash from coal-fired power plants or slag 
from seal. And they limit those because of concerns that exist, 
maybe at one point, about durability or the performance of the 
concrete.
     It turns out a lot of those prescriptive specifications 
that are very specific, a lot of people don't remember why they 
were put in place, so they don't have justification for them. 
So instead of saying here is exactly how you make the concrete, 
say this is what we are looking for in terms of strength, 
durability, stiffness, et cetera, and then require a test to 
basically demonstrate that you can meet those.
    And that is exactly the type of thing that I think if you 
implement like a Buy Clean Act, you need those types of things 
to go hand-in-hand with it because not all concrete is the 
same. Different mixtures are different.
    Mr. McNerney. Very good. Thank you.
    Mr. Perciasepe, I appreciate your comments about trade 
exposure. I think that has sort of been fleshed out a little 
bit here, the trade adjustments but we need to have standards 
in the United States before we can start imposing trade 
adjustments, border adjustments. Wouldn't that be the case?
    Mr. Perciasepe. Yes. Obviously, you would be trying to 
protect you know some exposed part of the industrial sector and 
this is where most of it comes. When you do climate policy, it 
is going to be in the industrial sector. It has to actually 
have a requirement that may, and I want to point out that it is 
always possible some of these process we are talking about 
could reduce the cost of making some of these things.
    But if it is a trade exposed, then it does have unique 
increased costs and there is an importation of products that 
are not meeting those standards. That is where you put the 
border adjustment on so that you--I am being very simplistic 
here. It can get very complicated very quickly.
    Mr. McNerney. In a 5-minute thing, you don't have time to 
be more than simplistic. Thank you.
    I yield back.
    Ms. Barragan. The gentleman yields back.
    I see nobody on this side.
    The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from California, Ms. 
Matsui for 5 minutes to ask questions.
    Ms. Matsui. Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and I thank 
the witnesses for being here with us today so we can discuss 
options in what is considered to be one of the most difficult 
sectors of our country to decarbonize.
    While decarbonizing the industrial sector may seem 
daunting, I look at policies and initiatives championed in my 
State of California and take hope in that the State has paved 
the way and we all know that proposing and testing out 
solutions that are already making a difference in emissions and 
how industries are designing their operations.
    As you may know, the State of California has, for the past 
nine years, under the Low Carbon Fuel Standard, which sets an 
average carbon content for fuels to decline annually. One of 
the leading contributors of emissions in the industrial sector, 
petroleum refineries, is a regulated party under the LCFS. The 
LCFS has been successful in incentivizing refiners to switch 
operations to produce biofuels and other alternative fuels and 
has introduced and expanded the use of cleaner alternatives for 
fuel consumption.
    Mr. Perciasepe or Dr. Sant, can you describe the benefits 
in terms of emissions reduction we see in expanded use of low-
carbon or zero-carbon fuels in the industrial sector?
    Mr. Perciasepe. Well, in the industrial sector, unlike some 
of the transportation fuels----
    Ms. Matsui. Right.
    Mr. Perciasepe [continuing]. In California, there is a lot 
of opportunity. I mean we were talking about the extremes 
earlier of 2500 degrees----
    Ms. Matsui. Right.
    Mr. Perciasepe [continuing]. Which is very hot, warm even. 
But there are lots of thermal needs in industry that are a lot 
less temperatures that can be converted to electricity, as an 
alternative to using a fossil fuel.
    Ms. Matsui. Sure.
    Mr. Perciasepe. And if the electricity is coming from a 
decarbonized electric system, then you have got the impact.
    So it is like many things we deal with in these complicated 
issues. It is never binary. It is neither this or that.
    Ms. Matsui. Right.
    Mr. Perciasepe. But the extremely high temperatures, we 
have to find alternative ways to do it----
    Ms. Matsui. Sure.
    Mr. Perciasepe [continuing]. That we are not quite sure 
yet. But the lower temperature--the lower heat temperature----
    Ms. Matsui. We have already got options.
    Mr. Perciasepe [continuing]. We got ideas.
    Ms. Matsui. OK, great.
    How important do you think nationwide price on carbon, such 
as cap and trade, is to reduce the emissions from the 
industrial sector, Dr. Sant or----
    Dr. Sant. I think it is fundamentally important. I think it 
is something that we have to be able to do, to have a 
nationally-agreed upon price.
    The reason I say this is you know a couple of comments. Of 
course, California has been tremendously progressive. We have 
done some remarkable things and we continue to do so.
    I think looking nationwide, you want to have consistency. 
And so you don't want to again have, like I say, two sets of 
standards----
    Ms. Matsui. Right.
    Dr. Sant [continuing]. One for California and ones for 
elsewhere. And so having consistency in pricing helps industry 
plan for what they are going to do across the nation.
    Ms. Matsui. So you think it is economically feasible for 
the industrial sector across the country to do this more 
broadly, is what you would like to see.
    Dr. Sant. In principle, it is, absolutely. No question. It 
is also where the world is headed. So I think it behooves us to 
do it.
    That being the case, I think we need to be thoughtful about 
how we approach it.
    Ms. Matsui. OK. Cleaning up our industrial sector means 
adopting, as we said, all of the above approach, including 
considerations to how our Federal Government sources materials 
for buildings, infrastructure, and government equipment. This 
is all the more timely, as conversations around a robust 
infrastructure package continue.
    California has passed and begun implementing the Buy Clean 
California Act, which requires the State to take into account 
the supplier's emissions performance when contracting 
byproducts, such as steel, flat glass, and mineral wool for 
infrastructure products.
    Dr. Friedmann, you mentioned in your testimony the 
importance of procurement standards in decarbonizing our 
industrial sector. What percent of cement, concrete, and steel 
is bought by our Federal Government?
    Dr. Friedmann. If you look at all governments, federal, 
state, and local governments, they buy 90 percent of cement and 
concrete.
    Ms. Matsui. Wow. OK.
    You allude to a well-designed zero-emissions by clean 
standard. Can you expand on what well-designed means? What 
considerations should be taken when developing such a standard?
    Dr. Friedmann. First, as others have testified, we actually 
need to create a performance-based standard for the stuff. If, 
in California, Caltrans can't buy clean concrete and cement 
because they are required by law to buy Portland Cement.
    Ms. Matsui. Right.
    Dr. Friedmann. So until they exercise their performance-
based standard, they can't do it. Caltrans has been working it 
for a while but that is like step one. It can't enter the 
market until that is done.
    Step 2, life cycle analysis. This is something both Dr. 
Gregory and Dr. Sant have also mentioned. You have to really 
make sure that you are doing the job and that you are tall 
enough to go on that ride.
    Ms. Matsui. OK.
    Dr. Friedmann. And then third, you actually have to buy it. 
And I have advocated for a while sort of a ratchet which grows. 
So you start with a fairly small volume--one percent, two 
percent.
    Ms. Matsui. Yes.
    Dr. Friedmann. You have groups like the National Academy or 
NIST work to try to figure out what that is but then you 
increase ambition over time. By 2025, it may be two percent but 
by 2030, it may be twenty percent. And you do that based on how 
the manufacturers can deliver the stuff. You don't ask for more 
than they can make but you set a market signal and you drive it 
up.
    Ms. Matsui. OK, fine. Thank you very much.
    And I have already run out of time. So thank you very much. 
I yield back.
    Ms. Barragan. The gentlewoman yields back.
    The Chair recognizes Mr. Ruiz from California for 5 minutes 
to ask questions.
    Mr. Ruiz. Thank you for holding this hearing on this 
important topic and thank you to our panel for being here 
today.
    Our world is sick, showing symptoms of climate change that 
can lead to disastrous consequences for human food, security, 
water consumption, and safety from extreme natural disasters. I 
care deeply about climate change because I have seen the human 
toll, the suffering that will only get worse as people who lose 
their homes and their loved ones from wildfires. And the people 
who are most vulnerable are those who are not rich enough to 
move or build another more secure home elsewhere.
    This week, climate activists around the world will be 
making their mark to raise the alarm and demand climate justice 
for everyone. And I agree with that sentiment and their 
efforts.
    Sixteen-year-old Greta Thunberg has picked the 
consciousness of an entire planet and pushed a call to action. 
And this committee must answer that call to action with real 
policies that lead to real changes to reduce our dependency on 
fossil fuels through a clean economy for a clean environment. 
We must do it for my twin daughters, for our children, our 
grandchildren, and their children, for our public's health, and 
our nation's security.
    And we are already witnessing and living the negative 
effects of climate change in increasingly more dramatic ways. 
For example, in my district, in California's 36th District, 
drought has crippled our water supply for years. Increased heat 
and dryer environments have led to more intense and frequent 
wild fires in our mountain forests. Extreme rains have led to 
expensive infrastructure damage requiring federal disaster aid, 
even Joshua Trees. At our beloved Joshua Tree National Park, 
the iconic symbol of desert life may go extinct due to rising 
temperatures.
    America, California especially has been a leader in 
replacing harmful fossil fuels by pioneering new technologies 
that harness natural resources, including wind, solar, and 
hydrogen for everything from homes to transportation. For 
example, some SunLine Transit in my district uses buses that 
run on clean hydrogen. Homes and schools are powered by wind 
farms and solar panels that use nature's awesome power without 
threatening our ozone.
    Clean energy is the future, the antidote to climate change 
that we must work towards as a country. A clean energy future 
is attainable and essential and the time for talking is over. 
The time for action is now.
    One sector that plays a key role in reducing carbon 
emissions is heavy industry. Steel, concrete, and other 
materials are literally the foundation of buildings and roads, 
and they essential to our economic success. So how can we 
reduce the carbon output of the manufacturing sector, while 
protecting good-paying jobs? Well, we must develop and deploy 
new technologies that help the manufacturing sector further 
reduce their carbon footprint.
    This is where the value of international agreements comes 
in. We must hold other countries accountable through 
international climate agreements. This is why withdrawing from 
the Paris Agreement hurts our efforts to reduce climate change. 
This is why the U.N. Summit on Climate is such an important 
opportunity. Without a global agreement, other countries will 
continue to burn fossil fuels without any obligation to invest 
in new technologies. In fact, we have heard from several of you 
today on how other countries, like those in the Southeast Asia, 
are increasing their coal and fossil fuel emissions. We have 
also discussed how we can ensure that American companies don't 
lose out while making an effort to reduce emissions.
    With that in mind, I would like to dig further into how we 
establish that advantage for U.S. companies.
    Dr. Friedmann, given that our goal is to help the 
industrial sector achieve a competitive advantage, what is the 
best way for Government, academic research institutions, and 
industry to work together?
    Dr. Friedmann. As I said in my testimony, procurements, 
innovation, infrastructure investments. We need to actually 
have a government analytical function so that we can make sense 
out all this stuff. But if you want to even just find facts on 
these topics, it is hard to do.
    And then last, we actually do need to have international 
agreements and partnerships on this exact topic because this is 
all bound into international trade.
    Mr. Ruiz. Dr. Gregory, as an expert, you have watched these 
technologies evolved. What is the best way to make sure that 
newly developed technologies are deployed in a timely and 
efficient manner?
    Dr. Gregory. It has to--there has to be market demand for 
them. And one of the best ways to do that is through 
procurement policies because there is so much government 
purchasing of concrete.
    Having said that, we need to make sure that the engineers 
are also interested in specifying these low-carbon materials. 
So we need to ask for their performance and also for their 
carbon footprint as well.
    Mr. Ruiz. Thank you.
    Ms. Barragan. The gentleman yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes myself for 5 minutes to ask 
questions.
    First of all, I thank the witnesses for being here today. I 
want to thank you, Mr. Walsh, for your testimony about bringing 
up the issue of frontline communities, and communities of color 
who are disproportionately impacted by the pollution that is 
happening and by what we are seeing happening on climate.
    I happen to represent one of those districts. It is a 
district that includes the Port of Los Angeles in South L.A. It 
is about almost 90 percent Latino-African American. It is a 
district where it is low income. It is minority. There is 
industry there. There is manufacturing and, of course, the 
port. And on top of all that, we are surrounded by three 
freeways.
    And so when you talk about air pollution and you talk about 
negative health impacts, my communities are often seen with 
inhalers around their necks, and doctors' offices pack these 
inhalers for the children. It is heartbreaking to see.
    And so we are seeing across the country a call, a demand 
for action climate. In my own community, I see it day in and 
day out because of the health impacts and because of what is 
happening with the planet.
    And so one of the things that we have talked about today 
has been very helpful talking about procurement and the 
different ideas here. You touched a little bit about a just 
transition. And I would like for you maybe to expand a little 
bit on that.
    When drafting policy and legislation, what can we put in 
that to make sure that we are not leaving communities behind, 
like my district? And I think the second part of that is, and I 
think you mentioned this as well, is that they should be first 
in line, and they should get priorities, and if they don't, 
they won't be able to participate in a clean economy.
    Mr. Walsh?
    Mr. Walsh. Thank you for that very important question and 
for putting a really fine point on the fact that we are not 
just talking about climate here. We are talking about health 
and health as it affects particular communities.
    I think with respect to just transition, we also need to 
acknowledge that neither the impacts, in terms of environmental 
pollution and climate change, are felt disproportionately by 
particular communities and particular people.
    There are also, as we transition away from certain fossil 
fuels, like coal impacts, in that transition away in coal 
communities, for example, that are not spread evenly across the 
country. They are hitting eastern Kentucky or southern West 
Virginia.
    So I think a first order of business is just being very 
clear about where impacts are being felt and who is being 
impacted, and targeting Federal investment, particularly in 
this respect, economic and workforce investment, both to make 
sure that we are taking care of workers and providing 
opportunities to workers to get into new jobs created.
    It is also about community revitalization and economic 
diversification. You have to be very targeted about that as 
well. We don't always have the ability to target with broad 
scale federal programs. There are regionally-focused programs 
we used quite a bit, like the Appalachian Regional Commission, 
to target investments. I think we need to do a better job to 
get those investments to districts like yours.
    Ms. Barragan.  So one of the things I hear back, I get 
pushback on, is well, that is great, we are going to train 
people for cleaner jobs but then the jobs won't be there.
    Is that accurate? Is that the choice?
    Mr. Walsh. I think we have to be careful about not over-
promising anything. I certainly have been guilty in the past of 
probably doing a little bit too much green jobs evangelism, 
even though I think these are an important opportunity.
    But we are more interested now in making sure we develop 
very concrete pathways into those jobs. There are specific ways 
we know work. We know registered apprenticeship programs work. 
We know pre-apprenticeship programs that get folks from low-
income communities, and communities and workers who have been 
underrepresented, in the construction trades, as an example, 
into those registered apprenticeship programs, so that we are 
not just creating jobs; we are creating career pathways and 
careers for those folks.
    Ms. Barragan. Thank you.
    You know one of my colleagues earlier said that he was 
unclear why we set goals and that you know when California sets 
goals and standards that are different than the rest of the 
country, it is not feasible for business.
    I happen to disagree with that. I happen to think that when 
you set goals, when you set bold and aggressive action and 
milestones, it does force people to come up with innovation 
quicker. It forces Congress to come up with incentives quicker.
    In California, in particular, and especially today with 
what is going on with the administration and the rollback on 
the fuel standards in California, I think that we actually have 
the industry, the car industry saying don't do this. And so to 
hear that it is not feasible for industry, you actually have 
industry saying no, wait a second; don't roll these back.
    And so I just wanted to take a moment to disagree on the 
record and say that there are benefits. When you set goals, 
when you set milestones, sometimes it gets Congress to act 
quicker. Sometimes it gets companies and industry to act 
quicker.
    In this instance, I think that seeing the positive benefit 
of what is happening to the clean air and the cleanup of 
pollution in California is happening.
    Mr. Walsh, I can give you three seconds.
    Mr. Walsh. I just wanted--you make an important point. I 
also want to add a jobs point.
    By the Federal agencies' own analysis, not only when the 
current administration proposes to roll back fuel economy 
standards, not only are we having a pollution impact, we are 
actually losing jobs. They estimate that 60,000 fewer jobs will 
result from their rollback of fuel efficiency standards because 
we are investing in a whole set of new technologies that create 
those jobs.
    Ms. Barragan. Thank you, Mr. Walsh.
    And with that, I yield back.
    The Chair recognizes the gentle lady from Michigan, Mrs. 
Dingell, for 5 minutes of questions.
    Mrs. Dingell. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    A hundred percent clean economy by 2050 may be ambitious 
but we have to get there. And since you both closed on the 
subject of California, I think I will start there.
    I am probably as angry as anybody at the announcement that 
was made today by the President when every single car company 
asked him not to do it. And he has rolled back. He has created 
uncertainty. He is putting this in the courts for years to 
come. It is taking capital away from investment needs to be 
done to get the newer technologies.
    I want to ask Mr. Perciasepe and Mr. Walsh: What is the 
ultimate impact of the President's decision today to revoke 
California's fuel emissions waiver as it relates to our efforts 
to reduce emissions? I will start with Mr. Perciasepe and let 
Mr. Walsh go next. Yes.
    Mr. Perciasepe. So I think what you pointed out, 
Congresswoman, that the automobile industry, by and large, 
wants to continue making the fuel-efficient cars that it has 
been making, my expectation, at least in the near-term, is that 
they will continue to do that, regardless of what the Federal 
Government does in the current situation. And then while they 
continue to do that, on top of that, there will be a lot of 
litigation.
    But I think in the near-term, the long-term may be 
different but, in the near-term, the automobile industry, as 
you well know, is four years ahead of what we are doing. Right? 
What it is doing now, it was working on four years ago. And 
what it is going to be doing four years from now, it is working 
on now and it is not going to stop.
    Mrs. Dingell. The industry is not going to stop but it 
could----
    Mr. Perciasepe. The industry is not.
    Mrs. Dingell. I don't want to answer my own question. I 
want the experts to give us the answer.
    Mr. Perciasepe. That is what I would guess.
    Mrs. Dingell. Mr. Walsh?
    Mr. Walsh. BGA issues a report which found that clean car 
standards and the consistency of those standards helped drive 
investment of over $63 billion in facilities across the country 
in 100 factories.
    So to my earlier point, this is a jobs issue. When you see 
that level in investment, you are also creating and sustaining 
automotive jobs. When we take away that standard, when we 
create regulatory uncertainty, we freeze investment and we lose 
jobs.
    Mrs. Dingell. So let me ask you this again, both of you: 
How will instituting strong fuel economy standards, or what 
President Obama was trying to do, help with year-to-year 
increases, help us achieve that net zero that we are trying to 
get to by 2050? And is permanent damage being done to that goal 
in the transportation sector?
    Mr. Perciasepe. Well, the concept behind the performance 
standards over a period of time, and these standards only went 
to 2025----
    Mrs. Dingell. That is correct.
    Mr. Perciasepe [continuing]. So we need to be--we are into 
2050. But to 2025, they kept reducing the average of emissions. 
It is actually a performance standard, grams per mile of 
greenhouse gases, even though we say CAFE. And so that declines 
over time to a point where the translation was to somewhere 
near 50 miles per gallon on average.
    Now that has a significant reduction in those vehicles that 
are sold in 2025 in the amount of greenhouse gases they produce 
on an annual basis. But of course, this is all related to how 
many miles somebody drives, and all this other stuff, but you 
are looking at the average.
    I think, as I just mentioned, and I believe, in the near-
term, in the next couple of years, the automobile industry will 
continue to sell the kinds of cars that they were programmed to 
make.
    Mrs. Dingell. At least some of them are.
    Mr. Perciasepe. Yes.
    Mrs. Dingell. Let me ask you--I am not going to have you 
answer that question because I am down to a minute. What does 
this do to the electric vehicle? Which I frequently get asked 
by some young people why are you so focused on the electric 
vehicle.
    Mr. Walsh, anybody who wants to answer this: Are we correct 
the electric vehicle is key to getting to a carbonless, or a 
non-gasoline, or engines, other forms, there are other forms 
that are being done? And are we doing enough in the 
transportation sector to get to where we need to go, instead 
of--or do you think we are going backwards instead of forward?
    Mr. Walsh. Well, today we are going backwards.
     Mrs. Dingell. Yes, I agree.
    Mr. Walsh. But electric vehicles are absolutely essential 
to decarbonizing the transportation sector, as long as we also 
continue progress in decarbonizing the power sector as well.
    Mrs. Dingell. And are we doing--well, we all have to work 
together to do that, which you have all talked about.
    Now, I am down to four seconds, so I can't----
    I guess I yield back my zero seconds.
    Ms. Barragan. The gentlewoman yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes Ms. DeGette from Colorado for 5 
minutes for questions.
    Ms. DeGette. Thank you so much, Madam Chair.
    As we have heard, some industrial processes release carbon 
dioxide, not only as a result of the energy they use but also 
because it is a byproduct of the chemical processes involved 
and, as we heard today, cement manufacturers are a good example 
of this.
    So even if we completely decarbonize our energy production 
and use, we would still need to have carbon capture utilization 
and storage to keep the emissions from these industries from 
getting into the atmosphere. And we also know that we are going 
to have remove existing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere if 
we are going to keep global warming at the goal of below 1.5 
degrees Celsius.
    So I think that the U.S. is in the best position to develop 
these technologies. And I want to ask you guys some questions 
about these issues. I guess we can just go down the line.
    The first question is: Do you agree that the United States 
needs to make a major investment in the development and 
deployment of technologies that capture, utilize, and store 
carbon dioxide from a wide variety of energy and industrial 
sources, as well as from the atmosphere?
    We will start down here.
    Mr. Perciasepe. Yes, it is an essential tool that needs to 
be in the climate change battle toolkit.
    Ms. DeGette. You bet.
    Dr. Gregory. Yes. And, as you mentioned, cement and 
concrete has this unique opportunity where the carbon can be 
captured and then used again to make new cement and concrete.
    Ms. DeGette. Right. Right.
    Dr. Sant?
    Dr. Sant. Unquestionably, yes, but I think we need to 
really focus on cost reductions in these technologies----
    Ms. DeGette. Right, as part of the development because it 
has to be marketable worldwide.
    What about you?
    Mr. Eisenberg. Yes and we may not be able to do without 
them, as well.
    Ms. DeGette. OK.
    Dr. Friedmann. My Twitter handle is CarbonWrangler.
    Ms. DeGette. So your answer is yes?
    Dr. Friedmann. The answer is hell, yes.
    Ms. DeGette. OK, thanks.
    Mr. Walsh?
    Mr. Walsh. Yes.
    Ms. DeGette. So are we on track, do you think--and we 
already have a sense of the answer to this but are we on track 
to deploy and develop these technologies at scale right now? I 
think we probably can get agreement on this, too.
    Mr. Perciasepe. We are not on track. We need more to go.
    We talked about 45Q, which, obviously, many members have 
been involved with. We need to get the IRS to get the 
regulations and the rules done so we can actually implement it. 
And we need some thoughtfulness from the Congress on 
infrastructure to help move carbon after it has been wrangled.
    Ms. DeGette. Thank you.
    Dr. Gregory. 45Q actually, it doesn't specifically apply to 
cement plants. So actually having programs specifically for 
cement plants would be more beneficial.
    Ms. DeGette. Great.
    Dr. Sant. Yes, what we are doing would be but we need to do 
a lot more. And I will go so far as to say we need to step up 
our investments in these areas by an order of magnitude, at 
least.
    Ms. DeGette. OK.
    Mr. Eisenberg. Agreed, we need to do more.
    Ms. DeGette. Yes, Dr. Eisenberg--Mr. Eisenberg.
    Mr. Eisenberg. Agreed. We need to do more.
    Dr. Friedmann. We need more investment. We need more 
incentives. We need more innovation on all of it, especially on 
CO2 removal.
    Ms. DeGette. And Mr. Walsh?
    Mr. Walsh. We need to do more, particularly in industries 
where the CO2 is more low-purity. We have a lot of opportunity 
for high-purity. CO2 ammonia has been mentioned but in steel 
and cement, these are low-purity sources. We have got to reduce 
the cost of carbon capture.
    Ms. DeGette. Right.
    Mr. Walsh. We do that through R&D, and innovation, et 
cetera.
    Ms. DeGette. Aside from some of the things that this panel 
has said we need to do, the infrastructure, the R&D, and so on, 
are there other things that Congress and the Federal Government 
could be doing to develop and deploy these technologies at 
scale? Anyone.
    Mr. Perciasepe. I will start very quickly.
    Ms. DeGette. OK.
    Mr. Perciasepe. Think of a layer cake and you have layer 
after layer of incentives for different technologies and then 
you have got to put an icing on the cake. The icing on the cake 
would be a price on carbon.
    Ms. DeGette. OK.
    Dr. Gregory. Just practice what you preach, in terms of the 
Government's construction that it does. You know make the 
choices to low-carbon materials for those practices.
    Ms. DeGette. That is a good point.
    Dr. Sant. I think public-private partnerships, which start 
form the innovation stage and work towards commercialization 
would be really attractive.
    Mr. Eisenberg. We need a single unified response here. I 
mean we have a really good opportunity here today to actually 
kick that off and move towards some federal unified response 
that captures all of these things. It really is important.
    Dr. Friedmann. I will gladly send you my last four 
congressional testimonies on exactly these subjects with the 
policy recommendations.
    The most important number one thing to get going today, the 
infrastructure.
    Ms. DeGette. Yes.
    Dr. Friedmann. If we had the pipelines in place, we would 
have more projects today because 45Q would help. It already 
helps but it is not enough without the pipelines.
    Ms. DeGette. Right.
    Mr. Walsh. As we make investments on infrastructure on 
other deployment pathways, it is absolutely essential that we 
have prevailing wage standards, other kinds of labor standards, 
and buy American provisions, and make sure that the jobs we are 
creating are U.S. jobs and high quality jobs.
    Ms. DeGette. And that they are good jobs. Great.
    Well, wonderful job, everybody.
    I am now happy to yield back and I appreciate your unity on 
these answers.
    Ms. Barragan. And the gentlewoman yields back.
    As the Chair, I request unanimous consent to enter the 
following documents into the record: letter from Rebecca Dell, 
Industry, Strategist at the ClimateWorks Foundation; Climate 
Action Report from ArcelorMittal, the largest steel producer in 
the world; report entitled Mission Possible: Reaching Net-Zero 
Carbon Emissions from Harder-to-Abate Sectors by Mid-Century; 
two reports from C2ES entitled Decarbonizing U.S. Industry and 
Carbon Utilization: A Vital and Effective Pathway for 
Decarbonization; statement from the American Iron and Steel 
Institute; fact sheet from the Fertilizer Institute.
    Without objection, so ordered.
    [The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
    Ms. Barragan. And I would like to thank all of our 
witnesses for joining us at today's hearing. Very informative. 
I am a firm believer this should be a bipartisan issue, where 
we come together. And this committee has been able to do that 
on issues. I am hoping we can do that here.
    I remind Members that pursuant to committee rules, they 
have ten business days to submit additional questions for the 
record to be answered by our witnesses. I ask each witness to 
respond promptly to any such questions that you may receive.
    At this time, the subcommittee is adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 12:48 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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