[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE STATE DEPARTMENT'S CLIMATE AGENDA:
A BUDGET OVERVIEW BY THE SPECIAL
PRESIDENTIAL ENVOY FOR CLIMATE
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND
ACCOUNTABILITY
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
July 13, 2023
__________
Serial No. 118-45
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/, http://docs.house.gov,
or http://www.govinfo.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
53-405 PDF WASHINGTON : 2024
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey GREGORY MEEKS, New Yok, Ranking
JOE WILSON, South Carolina Member
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania BRAD SHERMAN, California
DARRELL ISSA, California GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
ANN WAGNER, Missouri WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
BRIAN MAST, Florida DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
KEN BUCK, Colorado AMI BERA, California
TIM BURCHETT, Tennessee JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
MARK E. GREEN, Tennessee DINA TITUS, Nevada
ANDY BARR, Kentucky TED LIEU, California
RONNY JACKSON, Texas SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania
YOUNG KIM, California DEAN PHILLIPS, Minnesota
MARIA ELVIRA SALAZAR, Florida COLIN ALLRED, Texas
BILL HUIZENGA, Michigan ANDY KIM, New Jersey
AUMUA AMATA COLEMAN-RADEWAGEN, SARA JACOBS, California
American Samoa KATHY MANNING, North Carolina
FRENCH HILL, Arkansas SHEILA CHERFILUS-MCCORMICK,
WARREN DAVIDSON, Ohio Florida
JIM BAIRD, Indiana GREG STANTON, Arizona
MICHAEL WALTZ, Florida MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania
THOMAS KEAN, JR., New Jersey JARED MOSKOWITZ, Florida
MICHAEL LAWLER, New York JONATHAN JACOBS, Illinois
CORY MILLS, Florida SYDNEY KAMLAGER-DOVE, California
RICH MCCORMICK, Georgia JIM COSTA, California
NATHANIEL MORAN, Texas JASON CROW, Colorado
JOHN JAMES, Michigan BRAD SCHNEIDER. Illinois
KEITH SELF, Texas
Brendan Shields, Staff Director
Sophia Lafargue, Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Oversight and Accountability
BRIAN MAST, Florida, Chair
SSCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania JASON CROW, Colorado, Ranking
DARRELL ISSA, California Member
TIM BURCHETT, Tennessee DINA TITUS, Nevada
FRENCH HILL, Arkansas COLIN ALLRED, Texas
MICHAEL WALTZ, Florida ANDY KIM, New Jersey
CORY MILLS, Florida SHEILA CHERFILUS-McCORMICK,
NATHANIEL MORAN, Texas Florida
MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania
Ari Wisch, Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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Page
WITNESSES
Kerry, John, Special Presidential Envoy for Climate.............. 9
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
Washington Examiner article, "John Kerry's family sold private
jet after criticism over environmental impact"................. 42
Fox News article, "John Kerry slammed for `shameful' shadow
diplomacy after admitting to meetings with Iran"............... 46
APPENDIX
Hearing Notice................................................... 64
Hearing Minutes.................................................. 65
Hearing Attendance............................................... 66
RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
Responses to questions submitted for the record.................. 67
THE STATE DEPARTMENT'S CLIMATE AGENDA:
A BUDGET OVERVIEW BY THE SPECIAL
PRESIDENTIAL ENVOY FOR CLIMATE
Thursday, July 13, 2023
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Oversight and
Accountability,
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:02 a.m., in
room 210, House Visitor Center, Hon. Brian Mast (chairman of
the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Mast. The Subcommittee on Oversight and Accountability
will come to order. The purpose of this hearing is to examine
the State Department's climate policy and the budget of the
Special Presidential Envoy for Climate's Office. I now
recognize myself for an opening statement.
As we examine the State Department's climate agenda and
budget, we are joined today by former Secretary of State John
Kerry. Thank you for being here today. First ever Special
Presidential Envoy for Climate.
Mr. Kerry, you're sitting in a newly created position, but
from all of the research that I've done, in 2 years you've
largely managed to avoid any real oversight or accountability
in that position. Now, my community cares about this as an
issue. We sit on Florida's east coast. We've felt the
consequences of environmental disaster. I'm a member of the
Bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus, a co-chair of the
Roosevelt Conservation Caucus, and I believe that it's critical
that we do work to defend our environment, clean air, clean
water, public health. Protecting our environment is important.
I do not know a person literally in Congress that doesn't
believe that protecting our environment is important. But as
you and I have discussed, and I've said this to you before, you
cannot worry about the efficiency of your home if you cannot
make rent, if you cannot make your mortgage payment. You cannot
worry about the emissions of your automobile if you cannot make
the payment on your car.
You have to worry about the way America is electrified as
we look to the future to make sure that our electric grid can
support the policies that are being pushed. And it seems in
many cases like you are hell-bent on enacting policies not by
votes through the House of Representatives and the Senate, but
by fiat.
Secretary Blinken has said that your leadership will be
indispensable in weaving climate into the fabric of everything
we do at State Department. Personally, I do not believe that
climate should be the focus of every part of diplomacy, which
is the job of the State Department, and I believe that we
probably disagree about that. But, regardless, it is clear to
me that you, even having served as a long-time Senator, you are
willing to push the envelope of what it means to live in a
constitutional republic in order to get the agenda that the
Administration sees enacted. And no matter how somebody
watching this hearing feels about climate change, I believe
that that should be of large concern to them.
This is my chief concern about your office. You're serving
on the National Security Council, but you're not confirmed by
the Senate. In your previous role as Secretary of State you
unilaterally entered our Nation into some of the largest
agreements, like the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the
Iran Nuclear Deal; unilaterally bound Americans to set
standards that would dramatically increase their cost of living
or affect their way of life in the Paris Climate Accords.
And I believe that speaks volumes about your overarching
philosophy as it applies to governing, and what you're doing
now as what some people have called the climate czar. Mr.
Kerry, nobody voted for you in this body. It seems like, once
again, the rules do not apply to the President's inner circle.
He has called you his best buddy.
That brings me to my second concern that I want to speak
about today, and it's just basic levels of transparency, the
mechanisms of transparency in government that your office has
not participated in to be accountable to the people. Every time
you travel to a climate summit, or King Charles' coronation, or
the wedding of the Crown Prince of Jordan, you're supposed to
document the carbon emissions generated by your trip. Your
office has failed to do so.
You are supposed to produce an organizational chart of your
office. Your office only did so when there was a lawsuit filed,
and filled in none of the names of the people that work in your
office. You ignore most congressional requests for documents.
You have ignored those from the House Foreign Affairs Committee
and the House Oversight Committee for months. You're supposed
to respond to FOIA requests, but claim that it would take years
to produce basic budgetary information, in some cases not
willing to release it until 2024. You're supposed to be clear
about the work that you do on behalf of the American people,
but you do not have a landing page on the State Department's
website.
I do not believe this is how you fulfill the White House's
promise to bring transparency and truth back to government. And
it is my assessment that you are afraid of the American people
knowing exactly what it is that you are up to at places like
the climate change conferences that you attend.
You are headed off to COP 28 soon. You've been to COP 27
and other summits, and purporting to represent the United
States of America. But you're not representing the United
States of America's people, in my opinion. I believe that you
are representing a far-left, radical agenda. Those are my
beliefs. But the truth is, because of the lack of transparency,
no one really knows exactly what it is that you are
representing.
So, with that, I am going to turn it over to my colleague,
Ranking Member Crow--or I do not know if you want to turn it
over to Mr. Meeks first or not, but I will turn it over to you
for an opening statement, my friend.
Mr. Crow. Thank you, Chairman Mast. And thank you to our
witness, Secretary Kerry, for appearing here today. It is safe
to say that I have a very different view of your work in this
subject than my friend Chairman Mast. I represent a district in
Colorado, a State that has been shaped dramatically every year
by changes to our climate. Climate crisis is real; there is no
doubt about that; my constituents know that.
As we sit here right now, millions of Americans are dealing
with extreme weather events that are causing terrible, terrible
disasters across vast swathes of our country. I agree that
issues of helping our constituents pay their mortgage is
important, but it's hard to pay your mortgage if your house is
underwater. It's hard to pay your electric bill if it's 110
degrees for weeks and weeks on end. And that is the reality
that so many of our constituents, and so many Americans are
facing.
The climate crisis is going to have profound impacts on our
water supply, on drought conditions that increase the risk of
destructive wildfires, and limit agricultural yields, and on
infrastructure that's being damaged by heavy rains and extreme
disasters every day. The growing reality for so many in
Colorado is one increasingly familiar to those across the
Nation.
Whether it be poor air quality from wildfire smoke, extreme
heat, or massive flooding, the ramifications of climate change
are widely felt. A changing climate has and will drive mass
migration. It will exacerbate food insecurity, it will worsen
health indicators, and it will challenge every government on
Earth to adapt to extreme stress and the goods and services
they need to deliver for their citizens.
This global problem then requires global solutions. Just as
we have sat in this room and discussed the need to work with
partners to counter Russian aggression, to compete with the
PRC, and to provide aid across the world to those who need it,
addressing climate relies on multilateral efforts perhaps more
so than any other. Securing more ambitious commitments from
countries around the world is only one part of the puzzle.
Our climate policies must also include the onshoring of
supply chains for critical technologies, and reducing our
reliance on fossil fuels. As an added benefit, these policies
will drive economic growth, strengthen industry, and create new
jobs in the process. These solutions are necessary because
climate change stresses not one system, but all of them.
As a former Army Ranger, and in my work in Congress through
the Foreign Affairs and Armed Services Committee and the Intel
Committee, I've directly wrestled with the national security
impact of our changing climate. That national security impact
may be the resiliency of our Nation's bases, on our existing
infrastructure to withstand rising sea levels and extreme
weather events. The question is: are we resilient in ensuring
that we can sustainably defend our Nation without delay or
obstruction?
The instability that climate change drives can also create
new national security challenges beyond our borders. How will
we respond to the millions of people across the world who lack
sufficient food, clean water, shelter, medical care,
functioning infrastructure, safety from conflict, and reliable
good governance?
The diplomacy that we need to meet these challenges head on
requires that we lead by example. The absence of our leadership
would leave an open door for other nations, including China, to
fill in our stead. I am very encouraged by this
Administration's efforts to recommit the United States to
environmental protection and to bold, multilateral engagement.
The placement of the SPEC role at the cabinet level is a
clear indicator to all that we are serious about making
demonstrable gains on climate policy. The Administration's re-
entry into the Paris Climate Accord, various executive orders
on climate change, and review of environmental rollbacks sought
in recent years show that we are pursuing evidence based
policymaking across the Federal Government at home and abroad.
So I look forward to our witness speaking to these critical
concerns and answering our questions to the best of his
knowledge and ability.
And with that, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Mast. Thank you, Ranking Member Crow. We're pleased to
have the Chairman and Ranking Member of the full committee with
us, and so I will now recognize Chairman McCaul for an opening
statement.
Mr. McCaul. Thank you, Chairman Mast, for today's hearing.
And let me say first, before I get into my statement, that I am
working on a project, International Conservation Act. We have
about ten billionaires that want to provide, in a very generous
manner, money to help us with conservation, both wildlife
conservation, fisheries from China, and the rainforest, which
are the lungs of the planet. And this would be a two-to-one
match with the USG. Those are productive things.
I think these self-imposed mandates that China doesn't have
to follow really makes no sense to me at all. But I want to
thank you, Secretary, for being here today. I know it's not
always pleasant appearing before Congress, but you were a
member of this--well, on the Senate side, you were a member
this distinguished body for quite some time.
Let me just start talking about China. And I know you're
preparing for a trip to China, as I understand it, is that
correct, sir?
Mr. Kerry. Yes, sir.
Mr. McCaul. And as you know, we are in a global balance of
power, competition, great power and competition. They've
increased their aggression in the Indo-Pacific, especially
toward Taiwan. I just came back from Taiwan 2 months ago, and I
was greeted by an armada of battleships surrounding the island,
an aircraft carrier, and seventy fighter jets conducting live
fire exercises.
And then I was sanctioned the last day I was there as we
departed Taiwan, and I say that not that I want any sympathy
for that, other than to say it's getting very aggressive. China
is getting very hostile in the Pacific, and we need to take
this issue extremely seriously. I hope you will talk to them
about their aggression in the region as you talk to them about
climate change.
I believe that they're the greatest threat to our national
security. I think countering China in their malign agenda
should be the top priority of the State Department, and I'm
concerned the Administration is prioritizing their own sort of
political agenda over this national security issue. When you
look at China also, it's disturbing, they're not an honest
broker when it comes to addressing emission reduction as you
know.
They are held to a different standard than we are under the
Paris Agreement, yet they're the world's largest emitter of
greenhouse gases, and have shown no sign of relenting. They
fire a coal plant up pretty much every day, if not week. And in
the last few years their greenhouse emissions have exceeded
those of the United States and all developing nations combined.
They are the No. 1 offender of polluting the planet. In
fact, in 2021, after pledging to show, quote, the highest
possible ambition to address climate change, they added the
equivalent, going back to the coal plants, of 100 coal powered
plants to their grid. The same year, China had a record of
increases in emissions. And under the Paris Climate Accords as
you know, sir, it allows the CCP to actually increase their
emissions until 2030, while the United States and other
economic powers are forced to cut them. This should be an
agreement that applies equally to all, and not favoring China.
They should not have most-favored nation status.
And shockingly, because China classifies themself--this is
one that really gets me, Secretary--they classify themselves as
a developing nation, right? They're the second greatest
economic empire in the world, yet by United Nations standards
they're a developing nation. So, what does that mean? That
means they're given deferential treatment in other
international climate treaties. China's the second largest
economy in the world; they're not a developing nation.
And that also entitles them to World Bank loans at low
interest or zero interest that they use then to fund their Belt
and Road Initiative where they get countries in a debt trap,
rape their rare earth minerals, bring in their own workers, and
then when they go into bankruptcy, guess who bails them out?
The IMF, at the American taxpayer's expense.
I do not know how you can negotiate with the CCP when
they're knowingly abusing these global systems to avoid
purposefully their emissions. And why does the Administration
continue to funnel so much taxpayer money to our greatest
adversary with things like the U.N. Green Climate Fund when
it's clear they have no interest in reducing their emissions?
Moreover, China controls 80 to 85 percent of the rare earth
minerals needed to produce batteries, solar panels, and
semiconductors. As you testified before this committee
previously, Uyghur Muslims and ethnic minorities are forced to
produce components for solar panels in the Xinjiang region of
China. The Biden Administration, rightfully so, has classified
their actions against the Uyghurs as genocide. Genocide. Yet,
sir, when I asked you a question the last time you appeared
before this committee--and I'll wait until you're done with
your little sidebar conversation, because it's important for
you to hear this.
The last time you were here I asked you about the impact
this genocide would have on your climate change agenda. And you
implied well, quote, life is full of choices. End of quote.
Well, when it comes to ending genocide, there are no tough
choices. And the fact that you think that it's just a tough
choice, and we're just going to have to let them do what they
do is incredibly concerning. The United States always chooses
human rights, human dignity, and human life.
I'm deeply concerned the Administration continues to engage
with the CCP with no real results, or anything to show for it.
I agree you have to talk to them. I have talked to Secretary
Blinken. I encouraged him to engage in diplomacy with China, we
have to talk to them, but we do not have to make concessions
before we even get to the table.
Do you know that we stopped enforcing our sanctions against
human rights violations just to get a meeting with Chairman Xi?
Do you know that we stopped enforcing our export controls going
to Huawei from this country just to get a meeting with Chairman
Xi? That is not a way to negotiate.
And I want to raise one last thing. There is a man named
Mark Swidan, he is a Texan, he has been held captive by the CCP
for over a decade. He is innocent; he did not do anything
wrong. He has been charged with fabricated charges of drug
possession, and now he is scheduled to be executed by the
Chinese Communist Party for doing nothing wrong. He will be
executed if we do nothing to stop this.
I would implore you, sir, as you talk about climate, that
you also bring up human rights violations, and the fact that an
American citizen sitting in a Chinese prison marked for death
by the CCP who will be executed soon if you, sir, and your
Administration does nothing to help him. It is a dire
situation. His family, his mother Catherine, I have talked to
them, they simply want their son back home, and I pray that you
can help return this man to the United States.
And with that, I yield back.
Mr. Mast. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I now recognize the
Ranking Member of the full committee, Mr. Meeks.
Mr. Meeks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Ranking
Member Crow. I believe the title of this subcommittee hearing
is ``A Budget Overview by the Special Presidential Envoy for
Climate,'' which is tremendously important because there's only
one planet that we have. And if we are not focused on saving
this planet, all of us, no matter where we are on the planet,
are in peril.
And that is why I thank you, Secretary Kerry, for joining
us, and for you and your team's consistent engagement with
Congress, ensuring that we are informed and consulted on your
work as special envoy. You have consistently come back to talk
to Congress and demonstrated the importance of your work, and
the necessity of the United States leading in this area and
talking about the needs and concerns.
Because at times when you talk about our values, you talk
about our budget. And this hearing is focused on the budget and
the needs of what we need to do to help save the planet. Now,
last Congress when I became chair of this committee, one of my
priorities was to make sure that we consider the issue of
climate change as part of our broader foreign policy thinking.
Climate change and its effects are a national security
issue, and it touches upon all aspects of our economy and
society. I was immensely pleased to see the Biden
Administration appoint especially you as Special Envoy based
upon your long work in this area, whether it was your work in
the U.S. Senate or your work as Secretary of State of this
great country.
You and your Administration's work is critical domestically
and internationally. And I along with most of the world was
relieved to see the United States back at the table not only in
climate negotiations, but also in many other areas of diplomacy
like we just saw yesterday in NATO. Not calling NATO irrelevant
anymore, as others have, but showing the importance and
significance of us working together in a diplomatic form,
staying together.
That is how Ukraine has been able to survive this long.
Unity, leading, and bringing us back. Because the lack of
American leadership, and the consequences of an America-first,
America-alone agenda hurts our international standing. Not only
is the United States back as a responsible global actor, but
we're also leading again, including in the international
climate space.
From rallying allies to address urgent adaptability issues,
leveraging the private sector response, or working with like-
minded partners to make sure our common values are protected.
The United States is again leading the world. Even when it
comes to curbing the emissions of the world's largest emitter,
China, there are areas where we can and must cooperate as we
have seen, and as your mission will continue to do.
We know that climate change, CO2 emissions, wildfires,
etcetera, they have no borders, it is global. And addressing
these issues is a herculean task, but this global problem
requires global solutions.
Finally, let me be clear that I see your role as Special
Envoy as critical to protecting and promoting American national
security interests in a fast changing world. Domestic policy is
directly linked to international policy in the climate space.
The Congress played an important role here too by passing the
bipartisan infrastructure bill, and the Inflation Reduction
Act, which makes the single largest investment in climate and
energy in American history.
How we prepare for the transition to a green economy will
have ramifications for all Americans whether you're rich,
whether you are poor, whether you fall within the middle class,
whether you live in the east, whether you live in the west,
whether you live in the north, whether you live in the south,
or whether you live in middle America. We see the effects of
climate change affecting everyone, and it will affect future
generations.
So the United States can lead the way. And I conclude by
saying thank you, Mr. Secretary, for your service, and I look
forward to continuing to work with you and your team on
addressing this critical challenge to save this place that we
call Earth. It is the only place for all of human beings,
whether you like someone or do not, we share this planet. If we
do not save it, if we do not do the things now, then God help
us all.
Thank you for your work, and I yield back.
Mr. Mast. I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from
Texas, August Pfluger, be allowed to sit on the dais and
participate in today's hearing. Without objection, so ordered.
Other members of the committee are reminded that opening
statements may be submitted for the record. We are pleased to
have, as we have mentioned already, a distinguished witness
before us today on this topic.
The Honorable John Kerry is the Special Presidential Envoy
for Climate. Prior to his current position, Secretary Kerry was
the 68th United States Secretary of State, from 2013 to 2017,
and a Senator from Massachusetts from 1985 until 2013. Thank
you for being here today, your full statement will be made a
part of the record.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Kerry follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Mast. I'll ask that you keep your spoken remarks to 5
minutes to allow for time for members' questions. And just to
give a warning as we do move into questions after that, members
will be recognized for 5 minutes. If you get a question in
before those 5 minutes are up, I'll give you about an extra
minute to answer that question if they squeeze one in at the
end there.
I now recognize Secretary Kerry. I recognize you for your
opening statement.
STATEMENT OF JOHN KERRY, SPECIAL PRESIDENTIAL ENVOY FOR CLIMATE
Mr. Kerry. Well, Mr. Chairman, thank you very, very much.
Thank you for inviting me, and I am very grateful to be here
with all of you. I want to thank the committee for inviting me
here today to discuss the Biden-Harris Administration budget,
but obviously beyond the budget, issues of concern to all of
you.
I would just, as a point of personal privilege, say that I
want to thank the Chairman and Ranking Member Crow and anybody
else who served our country in uniform for that service. And I
think it is fair for me to say that I recognize how much the
perspective that you bring to the challenges of public life can
draw on that experience, and I thank you for being here in that
way.
Chairman McCaul and Ranking Member Meeks, thank you both
for being here and for your comments. And Mr. Chairman McCaul,
let me just say to you very directly that Secretary Blinken
forcefully argued when he was on his visit to China about
detainees, plural, and I can absolutely promise you that I will
raise Mark Swidan's case particularly with the highest level
leaders that I meet with, and report back to you on what we can
achieve or not achieve as the case may be.
Let me just share very quickly, because you all know what
is going on internationally at this point, but the fact is, I
mean, I've been following this issue since 1988 when Jim Hansen
first testified to us in the Senate, I think it was a June day,
and said that climate change is happening, it's here, 1988.
And in 1992 I went to Rio with a lot of other Senators, and
with President George Herbert Walker Bush, Republican, who
signed an agreement that was reached there to deal with the
climate crisis. But it was voluntary, not much happened. So,
we're now at COP 28, 28, and we face an even larger crisis.
It's clear from the science and the mounting evidence
around the world that one of the most existential threats that
we face, that impacts every single Member of Congress, every
single family in our country, in the world, comes from the
growing climate crisis. We' ae beyond just climate change,
frankly. I do not refer to it as that anymore. It is only a
massive crisis, and we can talk about that if you want to in
the course of this morning.
But we are living it every day, our fellow Americans are
living this every single day. Lives upended by heat domes in
Florida and Texas. I just read that they've had q00 degree days
for the last weeks in several locations. Ninety-five degrees
water in Florida, the Florida Keys, 95, 96 reported, and
extreme flooding in California, Vermont in places, in the
capital of Vermont, cars washed away, people getting on the
roofs to survive.
So, I do not want to just belabor that point, you hear
about it, you know it. But our military leaders have Stated
that the climate crisis is, without doubt, a threat to our
national security, and they have repeatedly termed it as a
threat multiplier. And I was just in Vienna for the OSC, the
Security for Europe, 57 different countries were there, all of
whom defining this challenge as a security threat.
Climate disruptions obviously exacerbate the competition
over resources. They require our military to increasingly
support humanitarian efforts in various parts of the world, and
here at home taxpayers are feeling this in a growing way in
terms of the extreme weather event, because every single
extreme weather event comes with a big bill that we pay. Not to
invest in technology, not to advance new jobs in the sector,
but just to clean up the mess. Just to reconnect people to
their electricity, rebuild destroyed homes and buildings.
So, with the devastation of this crisis, honestly I will
tell you as a veteran of 28 years here in the Congress, I
really do not understand. I just frankly do not understand why
the opportunity of this crisis is not being seized more readily
by everybody. Because just as the climate crisis is manmade, it
comes from emissions that we do not capture, that we do not do
anything with.
It is from emissions, everybody knows this, it is
scientific accepted fact around the world, and one hundred
ninety countries are responding to that fact. But there is a
massive opportunity, once in a generation opportunity
economically, which the IRA that passed is already carving an
enormous path to prove to everybody already the Inflation
Reduction Act has created over 100,00 jobs in clean energy
across the country.
And along with the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, these
critical investments being paired with diplomacy now because
the simple reason is no country can solve the climate crisis
alone. This requires multilateralism automatically. If you
didn't have an institution or some entity to make it happen,
we'd have to invent it. Because if China doesn't, as you said,
reduce its emissions, we are all in trouble.
Russia, India, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, countless
countries all need to step up and be part of this solution. So,
we have worked with the EU to launch the Global Methane Pledge,
which has spurred 150-plus countries around the world to slash
methane emissions. Methane being 20 to 80 times more
destructive than CO2. We built on the Abraham Accords to
support energy integration and resilience in the Middle East.
And finally we've supported U.S. leadership and American
companies on a new generation of nuclear energy, with
Westinghouse winning the bid, which we helped work on, in
Poland for four new plants, in addition to Bulgaria where
there's an additional plant being built. So, every step forward
that this Administration has taken has been really to protect
our national security, to strengthen our economy, and leave
behind a safer planet for our kids and grandkids.
And also to recognize that all of us have to be part of
this solution. Also every step we've taken is based on the best
science that we can understand and determine. It's a matter of
mathematics and physics, not politics, not ideology. It is a
response to the science. So, that's one of the reasons why I am
headed to the People's Republic of China this weekend, to
engage in candid conversations between the world's two largest
economies, and because every step forward depends not on one
country acting alone, but acting all together helping to push
the rest of the world to do what we need to do to win this
battle. It also depends on all of you, not as a matter of
politics, but the mission, the special mission of meeting the
moment in the best traditions of our country and our Congress.
Mr. Mast. Mr. Secretary, I'll give you about thirty more
seconds.
Mr. Kerry. So, I thank you, and I look forward to your
questions.
Mr. Mast. Thank you. You didn't even need thirty more
seconds. I'm going to defer and recognize the Chairman of the
full committee for questions first.
So, Mr. McCaul, you are recognized for 5 minutes Chairman.
Mr. McCaul. Thank you, Chairman Mast. Let me say first I
always like to start on a positive note. I think, you know,
look, we all recognize we have a problem. We all want to save
the planet; I think we just probably disagree on the way to get
there, right?
And I do not like the idea of holding China to a different
standard than the United States. And that, sir, will be a great
challenge when you go to Beijing, is trying to hold them to the
same standards of the United States. And I think that's what
the American people want, and what the American people deserve.
If I could go back to what I said in my opening statement, and
this just continues to baffle me, that the second largest
economy in the world is somehow treated as a developing nation
for purposes of the United Nations charter.
And it's a self-designation; they self-designate that
they're a developing nation. So, what does that mean? That
means they're in the WTO, that means they're given preferential
status when it comes to World Bank loans, sometimes low
interest, sometimes zero interest loans that then they turn
around and use for usurious rates to get truly developing
nations into debt trap.
I think that's not only wrong, I think that's immoral. But
then they extrapolate this argument, this logic to climate
change. They say in their own words, they say China has said
it's carbon emissions should peak by 2030, and I assume that's
why you're holding them to this 2030 standard in the Paris
Agreements. But then they say they decline with the goal of
reaching neutrality by 2060. Not 2030, 2060.
And why do they say that? This is where it gets really
amazing to me. I'm an attorney by trade, and words matter. The
country, the world's largest carbon emitter has argued that it
is still a developing economy and should not be held to the
same standards as developed countries in reducing carbon
emissions. My question, sir, is very simple and very straight
forward, and I hope you will give me a good answer to this one.
How in the world can the second largest economy maintain to
you and the rest of the world with a straight face that they
are a developing nation? Giving them preferential treatment not
only to fund their Belt and Road, but to get this special
designation to not comply with an agreement we have to comply
with sooner, but in their interpretation, not until 2060.
And, sir, I'm not saying this to make anybody feel bad or
be argumentative. But as you make your case to the American
people, they do not understand this. If I talk to my
constituents back home and say Secretary Kerry's going over
there trying to save the world, it's great, but, hey, guess
what? China doesn't have to comply until 2060 because they lie
and say they're a developing nation, self-designated.
And guess what? The United States, we've got to comply
almost immediately. The American people understand fairness,
and honestly, sir, they do not see this as fair.
Mr. Kerry. I cannot disagree with that. They do not see it
as fair because a lot of people are concerned about this
differential in the designation. I'd just call your attention--
let me just, first of all, I wanted to thank you for the Shark
Fin Sales Elimination Act, which has really had an impact. I've
been passionate about the oceans, for years we've had the ocean
conferences, and that was one of the big issues that we had
there, and that's a major step, so thank you. And also I
greatly appreciate the U.S. Foundation for International
Conservation Act, Senator Coons, Senator Graham, et cetera. I
think these are important steps, and they show what we can do
on a bipartisan basis.
With respect to this developing, it should confound anybody
at this point in time, and it's one of the topics. I've raised
this with my counterpart in China, and others. Now we are at a
point in the process of the meetings, that are annual under the
U.N. process, where there is going to be a revisiting to that
within that process, I think it is next year. And we've already
been talking with people, because we are going to need to find
a way to put more money on the table, concessionary funding, in
order to attract some of the private capital that is necessary.
Because, in the end, no government is going to solve this
problem. This is going to be solved by the private sector, and
the private sector is already massively engaged. We have a
record amount of money moving into venture capital, we have a
record amount of money that is targeted for investment but will
not deploy without our ability to be able to reduce some of the
risk, which is something my office, our office, has been
working on very, very diligently.
Mr. McCaul. And I know my time, before the Chairman gavels
me down; I do not like to be gaveled down, I'm a chairman. But
let me say if you could walk away from this summit with just
that one result, to take away their developing nation status,
sir, I cannot tell you how significant that would be to the
rest of the world for a lot of reasons. And you know it's not a
fair designation, it's a self-designation, and----
Mr. Kerry. Correct, but let me--can I say to you, Mr.
Chairman----
Mr. McCaul. If I could have your assurance you're going to
bring it up.
Mr. Kerry. Yes, look, I understand that. Let me just be
frank with you. That's not going to happen in this visit; it is
just not a mechanism or a rationale--that's just not going to
happen in this visit. But the Chinese government understands
that this is a growing issue of concern. And I just
respectfully would say to you this comes out of, I mentioned 28
COPs, and I've been to too many of them. And way back in 1997,
when we had the COP in Kyoto, the Kyoto Agreement was reached,
and it just couldn't work because it was mandatory, and a whole
bunch of people said, with understandability, we're not going
to do that if the Chinese aren't going to do that.
So, what has happened is we have been deadlocked until
Paris. Paris, the breakthrough in Paris was, OK, let's not
continue to do nothing because of this designation issue, let's
at least get every country to agree to sign on to something.
And what is happening is around the world this has had impact.
And it is actually working better than you might think, but not
yet addressing the question you have raised.
Mr. Mast. Thank you, Chairman.
I now recognize Ranking Member Crow, who I believe will
recognize Ranking Member Meeks.
Mr. Crow. Yes, we are following the protocol. I recognize
Ranking Member Meeks.
Mr. Mast. It sounds like ``Spies Like Us'' right? Doctor,
doctor.
Mr. Meeks. Again I thank the Chairman and the Ranking
Member for allowing both Chairman McCaul and myself to ask our
questions, and being able to make opening statements. And I
think that where I wanted to go was right what you were talking
about when you dealt with the Paris Agreement, I was at several
COPs myself, and the last one in particular.
Because as I look at this, it is the United States, but it
is also the rest of the world. So, I am interested in making
sure, and I'm an admitted multilateralist, I feel that we have
got to look at it and make sure that we are engaged with our
allies and friends and even at times our adversaries to get
things done and to accomplish things. So, I was curious to see
what your answer would be now that the Biden Administration has
re-entered into the Paris Agreement.
What kind of response have you gotten from our
international partners that we are back into it? Because I
think collectively we got a deal with China, collectively we
got a deal with other emitters like ourselves. How have you
been received, and what do you think that to the benefit of us
re-entering?
Mr. Kerry. Well, Mr. Ranking Member, without patting
ourselves on the back too much, I do want to say that President
Biden's immediate re-entry on the day of his inauguration, and
creation of this particular office, and the commitments he's
made, the fight he has been fighting to get the Inflation
Reduction Act passed, it is an historic piece of legislation.
Just today, before I came in here, ExxonMobil just
announced the purchase, but also a focus on, you know,
accelerating the capture of emissions. And he point blank said,
this is happening partly because of the Inflation Reduction
Act. So, the incentive that has been created now for massive
transformation, we have seen more than 80 battery companies
created that are now beginning to sort of address the supply
chain issue.
So, I am not going to go through the whole list, but
together with our European allies, with the E.U., and with
friends around the world, Australia, Japan, Korea, Canada,
others, they have all come to the table. And there is now a
really re-energized international effort to do what is
necessary to try to meet the needs of this challenge. And I'm
very proud, I think President Biden has really ignited a whole
new round of activity that we hope is going to be different
from what has come before.
Mr. Meeks. So, over the last couple of days, particularly
in regards to what just took place at the NATO summit, there
was a question about the durability of the United States'
commitments to Ukraine. I am wondering what, if any, the
question that you have had with allies with reference to the
durability of the United States' commitments to the issue of
climate change. And I'm going to stop saying climate change.
Mr. Kerry. Mr. Ranking Member, that is a great question,
and very, very relevant, because I hear it all over the world.
And, in fact, the Chinese say to me, and have said to me, well,
how do we know that you're not going to have a change in
Administration, they are going to just leave it again, and we
are out there working away but you are not? And we have yet to
produce the $100 billion that was promised for less developed
countries to be able to make the transition; we believe,
hopefully, that can happen this year.
And my answer to those people is not a political one. It's
an answer that I think is based in the reality of the American
marketplace, and the world's marketplace. CEOs of major
companies that we're proud of in this country, Google, Apple,
Microsoft, Salesforce, Boeing, FedEx, I can run a long list of
Fortune 500 companies, all of whom are now in this transition.
Changing their fleets to electric bus, to electric trucks,
moving forward.
Ford Motor Company, General Motors have joined our First
Movers Coalition, they are buying green steel where they can
find it for the making of their cars in order to send the
market a demand signal. And you also have, as I said, Ford and
General Motors are transitioning so that by 2035 they hope 100
percent of the cars they are making in America will be
electric.
That is happening not because the government mandated it,
because they see that is the future. And oil and gas companies
and others are changing into energy companies, and beginning to
move now. That takes us down a path, maybe we'll talk about it
later. But I just want to emphasize that people think this is
now, you cannot reverse it, it is irreversible. I believe that
personally.
I am convinced we are going to get globally to a low
carbon, no carbon economy globally. What I am not convinced of,
that we will do what the science says, which is get there in
time to avoid the worst consequences of the crisis. And that is
what they challenged us in 2018. They said you have 12 years
within which to make decisions that will avoid the worst
consequences.
That is what we are doing in our international diplomacy.
Trying to accelerate those decisions, and accelerate the
marketplace. We are not doing command and control. The
Inflation Reduction Act is not a command and control act, it
creates incentives. But businesses are making their own
decision that that is worthwhile, and the market is going to be
there, and they want to be there.
Mr. Mast. Thank you, Ranking Member Meeks.
I now recognize myself for 5 minutes. I just, again, I want
to go back to my opening remarks. I want to talk about some of
the lack of transparency, and just say secretary, No. 1, can
you direct me to your website, your landing page, your about
your office section, mission statement section of your website,
State.gov, back slash whatever?
Mr. Kerry. I can direct you to the CN, the congressional
notice, which had a very detailed chart that I have here, which
lays out our office.
Mr. Mast. But every consular, every bureau, they have a
website that tells about their mission statement, everything.
Do you have that at State? Because, honestly, myself and my
staff, we couldn't find that.
Mr. Kerry. Well, we certainly have the location.
Mr. Mast. If you all find it, get it to us, we would love
to have it.
Mr. Kerry. We use the State Department website.
Mr. Mast. So you use the State's, but you do not have your
own landing page on State that says, about you, your mission
statement, you name it?
Mr. Kerry. We----
Mr. Mast. Check. I want to move onto some other levels of
just what is going on with the hierarchy in your office. As I
said, 2021 FOIA requests, your office replied that you would
not get back to it until about 2024. It is 2023, we would like
a few answers. Now, I am not going to ask for every one of
these, but I would love to know the names of the individuals
that actually answer to you. Who are the ones that directly
answer to you, so that we can know a little bit about your
office.
And then we will give this chart to somebody in your
office, and maybe they can fill out the rest of the names while
you are here answering questions for us, it would be very
helpful. Who is your deputy envoy for climate?
Mr. Kerry. I have two deputies, and they are well known,
they are very experienced people: Rick Duke and Sue Biniaz. But
I'm not going to go through all the names here.
Mr. Mast. Rick Duke, and who?
Mr. Kerry. Mr. Chairman, Sue Biniaz is one of the most
experienced negotiators in the world. Mr. Chairman, let me just
say----
Mr. Mast. Is Sue your principal deputy?
Mr. Kerry. Mr. Chairman, I'm not going to fill them in here
in this way, because that would be a violation of our process
within the State Department.
Mr. Mast. You are not going to tell us who is working in
your office?
Mr. Kerry. I am not going to go through them by name
because that is not the required process of the State
Department.
Mr. Mast. Who is the principal deputy for climate in your
office?
Mr. Kerry. As I just said to you, Mr. Chairman----
Mr. Mast. Who is the chief of staff?
Mr. Kerry. I am going to go through the normal process.
Now, an algorithm kicked out that date, the one you are
referring to.
Mr. Mast. I am not going to argue about it, Mr. Kerry,
Secretary Kerry, I am not going to argue about it. You said you
are not going to answer, you are not going to answer; it is par
for the course.
Mr. Kerry. No, I am going to answer it through the process.
Mr. Mast. Like I said, there was a FOIA request 2021, said
it wasn't going to be answered until 2024. I am not going to
spend my time arguing about it. You said you are not going to
answer now. I will accept it.
Mr. Kerry. Mr. Chairman, do not just cut me off. What I am
trying to do is tell you I am going to follow the process of
the State Department which is normally followed. Where there
are circumstances requiring that someone know who the person
is, the State Department has complied and done that. There is
not a requirement that they----
Mr. Mast. And every office, every consular, they have a
hierarchy. You go into the military base, it says Joe Biden, it
says the secretaries, there is a hierarchy. This is standard
practice for government. I am not going to argue that it is not
standard practice, you have done it long enough.
Mr. Kerry. We have presented with a congressional
notification the creation of this office. We presented that
answer.
Mr. Mast. I want to point another arrow on my chart here,
Mr. Secretary. Can you just help us out? Do you answer to the
Executive Office of the President or do you answer to Secretary
Blinken? Because I have emails from----
Mr. Kerry. I respond directly to the President of the
United States, but with----
Mr. Mast. Directly to the President?
Mr. Kerry. That is correct. But with Secretary Blinken
completely informed and aware of everything that we are doing.
Mr. Mast. But you do not answer to Blinken. Thank you. It
is good, we just need to know for basic levels of transparency
and understanding how this works.
So, I want to go to a couple of questions on policy. It was
said by my colleague, global problems require global
commitments, and I want to go to some of the global commitments
that you might be looking at in COP 28 that were looked at in
COP 27. And I want to understand if you are committing the
United States of America to these policies or not. I am going
to just let you know, these are simple yes or no questions. I
know you have researched them well, I have researched them
well, we do not need an explanation of them here.
So, just No. 1, cross-border carbon trading. Are you
planning at COP 28 to commit, this is the No. 1 issue there,
along with climate reparations? Do you plan to commit America
to cross-border carbon trading, as my colleague put it, in
global commitments?
Mr. Kerry. There is no current proposal or plan that has
been agreed to which would require us to do that.
Mr. Mast. Do you plan on working for cross-border carbon
trading?
Mr. Kerry. We are exploring with a lot of countries what
the various approaches might be. And President Biden has
charged us to examine cross-border adjustment mechanisms in
order to understand how we can deal with the question of very
carbon-intensive produced goods coming into our country where
our folks are trying to reduce it.
Mr. Mast. I will put yes, but say it is a maybe, because
you didn't answer completely affirmatively. I am going to ask
one more question, though, in my time.
Mr. Kerry. Well, then you make this a game, if you are
turning that into yes when I didn't say yes. You are playing
games, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Mast. You said it is a maybe; you didn't say no.
Mr. Kerry. Well, why do not you create a maybe and put it
up there?
Mr. Mast. Well, next time I will create a maybe. We will
put it in yellow. We will put the yes in green, and the no in
red, and we will put a maybe in yellow. Next time we will do
that. I do want to get to one last question, and I will give
you a little extra time, Ranking Member. And that is on this
one, because I know it is another major priority for COP. And
that is are you planning to commit America to climate
reparations?
That is to say we have to pay some other country because
they had a flood, or they had a hurricane, or a typhoon, or
other----
Mr. Kerry. No, under no circumstances.
Mr. Mast. Very good, I am glad to hear you say that. I do
have a no, I will put it up there.
Mr. Kerry. Why do not you create an exclamation point
beside it, too, so you can get----
Mr. Mast. I will write in an exclamation point for you, and
I am glad that we have agreement on that. I do not know if my
black pen will work, we will see. There we go, there is your
exclamation point.
Ranking Member Crow, I yield you 5 minutes.
Mr. Crow. Thank you, Chairman. Secretary Kerry, I am not
planning to game show this. I do not have a board, because that
is good theater, but it is not good legislating, and it is not
necessary oversight in my view. Nor am I going to ask any
member of this committee who their scheduler is, who their
comms director is, who their staff assistant is, because that
is not how this works, and we all know that. actually.
And before you were cutoff, I believe you were about to
say, and I will give you an opportunity to actually complete
what you were going to say, that you are going to follow the
regular process and respond to the Chairman's questions, is
that accurate?
Mr. Kerry. Yes. Not only are we going to follow it, I
believe that about 600 pages were delivered yesterday, or the
day before yesterday in answer. Look, there are a lot of
requests that come in, there is a massive amount of requests,
and a very small office. And we have, there are two tracks that
we address. One is the oversight, we have Oversight Committee,
oversight personnel, they are the ones who are responsible for
that.
I do not literally touch that, it goes directly to that
office. The second track is through the FOIA track, where there
is a formal process with an office in the State Department for
FOIAs, and they are responded to as fast as they can be. So, I
think our staff budgets were cut last year, not to mention, if
we could get additional funding we can have people speed it up.
Mr. Crow. Yes, I appreciate that. And I for one have found
you and your office to be nothing but transparent, and
forthcoming, and cooperative. And there is no doubt in my mind
that you will continue to do that. But this is serious stuff,
putting aside the graphics, and the back and forth here, and
there's very serious strategic competition at play.
Because the People's Republic of China is moving extremely
aggressively in areas of the global south, South America in
particular, engaging with countries, and trying to move them
into their sphere of influence on the issues of climate, on the
issues of resiliency. I have had a lot of discussions with
leaders in South America who said we would love to partner with
you on this, but you are not coming to us as aggressively as
China is in some instances.
So, could you just speak to the importance of the United
States in leading on this, and continuing to double down on
this issue from a strategic competition perspective?
Mr. Kerry. Well, this opportunity to transition to clean
energy is without doubt the largest economic opportunity the
world has seen since the industrial revolution. Bigger by far,
even, not necessarily in impact--well, I am not even sure I can
say that. With respect to the technology revolution, because
technology is going to be a critical component of what is
happening.
You have got huge investments taking place in green
hydrogen. Huge investments taking place in direct air carbon
capture. A major company, Occidental energy company is pursuing
that all in on direct air carbon capture. Others are trying to
do other forms of capture, and utilization, and storage.
Batteries have made remarkable process, that is going to
continue.
The cost of solar and wind is now almost literally
negative. I mean it has come down so far that it is almost the
go to initial effort.
Mr. Crow. So, it is safe to say there is incredible
economic opportunity that is there for the taking if we are
able to engage strategically and take advantage of it, and we
are competing against China and others for that?
Mr. Kerry. We are competing, but everybody has their own
approach, which is one of the exciting things here. We are not
going to know what the winner is going to be necessarily, but
there are going to be big winners here, and I think that we are
seeing that transformation already taking place.
Mr. Crow. And in the limited time, I want to push back on
this fallacy as I believe it, that it is a sign of toughness,
some people will think that it is a sign of toughness and
strength to walk away, to quit talking, to quit engaging even
if we have areas of mutual interest with some countries. Of
which we have very real concerns and skin in the game so to
speak.
So, can you just very briefly tell me why it is important
to still engage with China and others, even if we have
conflict, and real disagreements in other areas?
Mr. Kerry. Well, the Administration is determined to try to
stabilize what has been, particularly recently, a very unstable
situation. And the President is obviously concerned, as I think
most people are, about the potential for mistake. The potential
for something to inadvertently drag us into an open hot
conflict where up until now it has been sort of in a more
reserved fashion.
I think that those who are involved in that side of the
fence, and I am not, I am dealing only with the climate, and
President Biden, and President Xi specifically determined at
the beginning of the Administration that they were going to try
to separate climate. Because it is not a bilateral issue, it is
a global, universal issue, which threatens everybody on the
planet.
And we do not want it to become the hostage of some of
these other tensions, all of which are real. There isn't one
iota of diminishing of the reality of those other challenges
through our office or anyone else. So, we have been trying very
hard to operate in a way that can maximize our output
notwithstanding those other tensions.
Mr. Crow. Thank you for that, my time is expired. Thank you
for the additional time, Mr. Chairman.
I yield back.
Mr. Mast. You are welcome, and I thank you for your
questions. I will set the record straight that it is common
practice for every one of our offices that it be open source
who works in our offices, and that every consular in State
Department have a website, which is basic transparency. And
that on that website, they do put up the hierarchy of who
works. But you do not have a website, and so you do not have
that level of transparency.
I will now recognize Mr. Mills for 5 minutes.
Mr. Mills. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And yes, we actually
even have websites like LegiStorm and others that tell exactly
who is in our offices, so it is kind of funny that the
appointee does not. Secretary Kerry, thank you so much for
coming here, I hope it wasn't too problematic for your
operational team and your private jet to get here.
But I will start with the fact that in an interview in
September 2021 when asked about the importing of solar panels
that were built with Uyghur slave labor, slave labor, that the
tradeoff between climate and human rights, you said life is
full of tough choices. Do you believe the question of whether
to import solar panels built on the backs of Uyghur slaves is
such a tough choice?
Mr. Kerry. No, of course not. Not only do I not believe it,
but I've raised it in my meetings over the years, raised it
consistently as Secretary of State, as senator.
Mr. Mills. So, you didn't----
Mr. Kerry. I do not even know, I do not know what the
context is of the conversation you're referring to----
Mr. Mills. Interesting.
Mr. Kerry. But I'm making it crystal clear that----
Mr. Mills. Got it. Secretary Kerry, you have prioritized
rapid deployment of PRC solar panels above the human rights of
enslaved Uyghurs, the interest of American manufacturers, and
the integrity of the Department of Commerce's investigations.
What is the benefit of that?
Mr. Kerry. I'm not sure, can you repeat that?
Mr. Mills. Sure. I said in my statement that you have
prioritized rapid deployment of PRC, which is China's solar
panels above the human rights of enslaved Uyghurs, the interest
of American manufacturing, and the integrity of the Department
of Commerce's investigations. Can you explain the benefits?
Mr. Kerry. No, I have never, ever prioritized bringing in
any solar panel that violates the Uyghur Enforcement Act.
Mr. Mills. Can you tell me exactly where solar panels and
the raw material sourcing comes from?
Mr. Kerry. Which panels?
Mr. Mills. Name them.
Mr. Kerry. Well, there are three major companies that were
bringing in companies at one point in time, but most of those
panels, the ones that----
Mr. Mills. Can you say where those companies are from?
Mr. Kerry. One, I think a couple were from China, one might
have been Vietnam. But it's my understanding Congressman----
Mr. Mills. So, but none were American is what you just
basically pointed out, right? So, it was China, and it was
Vietnam. Meaning that we are prioritizing the idea of ceasing
American energy, and going after American energy to prioritize
what we already know is an adversarial nation. And I'm tired of
hearing this idea----
Mr. Kerry. No, no, no, actually it's the opposite----
Mr. Mills. Sir, I'm talking please. Sensory strategic
competition, I'm sorry, if we are talking about strategic
competition, we are talking about the fact that American
economy, American industrial base, American raw material and
supply chain capability and capacity, our own ability to put
Americans to work, our own ability to try and drive down
inflation. We are actually in a direct economic, and resource,
and cyber warfare with China, and have been for 20 plus years,
it has been ignored.
While China has advanced their Belt and Road Initiative,
while they have expanded the Eurasian border, tried to dominate
Africa, taken over Oceania, blocking off internationally
recommended transit corridors for Horn of Africa,
Mediterranean, Red Sea, Black Sea, Persian Gulf so they can
choke off western hemisphere supply chain.
And meanwhile we know that the threat is going on with
Taiwan, we know that China has continued to violate
international treaties like the one country two system
framework of Hong Kong that they have exhibited. We know that
Chairman Xi wants to basically go ahead and save face for his
father's name that was corrupted during the Mao dynasty.
So, my whole point is, is that if we know all these things,
and that they are an adversarial nation, why on earth would we
try to go ahead and build them economically, and not try to go
ahead and try and decouple as we should be in an effort to go
ahead and build American manufacturers, and American jobs, and
American workers, and American economy?
Mr. Kerry. Well, we are not trying to build them
economically, I can assure you of that.
Mr. Mills. Who is their largest trade partner?
Mr. Kerry. Let me just finish.
Mr. Mills. America.
Mr. Kerry. Yes, but most economists, most investors, most
people who have studied this issue very carefully do not
believe it is possible to totally decouple from China.
Mr. Mills. It absolutely is, sir. And I can tell you that
if we would utilize things like sea bed harvesting for our raw
materials, or if we would look at the understanding of what we
can do from LNG, from fracking, from our oil and gas
manufacturing----
Mr. Kerry. We are doing all those things.
Mr. Mills. I can tell you the biggest thing is that we are
not going to get away, and start having tanks that are EV that
we can go ahead and plant on the battlefield our chargers for
Tesla prior to us deploying into war. But I will just finish
with this. This solar emergency that we keep talking about, and
the preemptively directed commerce to suspend tariffs on solar
imports from four southeast Asian countries, Malaysia,
Cambodia, Vietnam, and Thailand for the last 2 years.
This is in spite of the fact that the Biden
Administration's own investigation found PRC companies to be
transshipping through these very countries in a sophisticated
effort to evade tariffs. We have done nothing to actually try
and combat that, and instead we have actually gone ahead and
increased our trade. This is a China first, America last agenda
that you are pushing.
I do not agree with the fact that we are not allowing more
manufacturing in America to continue, and that we are not
encouraging that more than trying to continue to trade with
what is known not as a competitor, sir, but as an adversary.
And with that, I yield back.
Mr. Kerry. So, can I respond, Mr. Chair, a little bit?
There was nothing in President Biden's policy that is geared to
try to assist China in its development, what it has been doing
in a number of different ways, some of them in violation of the
WTO, some of them not. But the fact is that we had a solar
industry, Germany had a solar industry, and China dumped, for a
number of years, and we lost those industries.
Now President Biden is trying to get them back. That is the
entire purpose of the Inflation Reduction Act, and it is
working. It is creating a new supply chain here in our country.
In addition to that, the Uyghur Act is being enforced, it is
being enforced, and there are countless panels not coming into
our country because the border and customs folks have been
enforcing that act.
So, I just do not agree with your facts, which began with a
presentation of one of the most outrageously persistent lies
that I hear, which is this private jet. We do not own a private
jet, I do not own a private jet. I personally have never owned
a private jet, and obviously it is pretty stupid to talk about
coming in a private jet from the State Department up here. Just
honestly, if that is where you want to go, go there.
Believe me, let me tell you, inflation is down----
Mr. Mast. The chair now recognizes Mr. Kim for 5 minutes.
The chair now recognizes Mr. Kim.
Mr. Kim. OK, thank you, Mr. Chair. Secretary Kerry, thanks
for coming on over here. And I know you have been peppered with
a lot of different questions about China on a range of
different issues. I guess I just want to ask you what is your
agenda? You know, with regards to this trip coming up in a
couple days, I think it would be helpful for this committee to
just hear directly from you, not just about all these other
issues, but what are you trying to achieve, what are you trying
to raise, what are you hoping to focus on?
Mr. Kerry. Well, because we have been interrupted several
times over the course of the last year, we haven't had as much
engagement as we did in the last 6 months anyway. But what we
are trying to achieve now is really to establish some stability
if we can, in the relationship, without conceding anything.
There is no concession. I'm not going over with any
concessions.
What we are trying to do is find ways we can cooperate to
actually address the crisis. Because China, as the world's
second largest economy, and as the world's largest emitter, is
critical to our being able to solve this problem. It would be
malpractice of the worst order, diplomatic, and political, and
common sense.
Mr. Kim. Are there certain issues that you feel like right
now can be places where that conversation can buildup?
Mr. Kerry. That's a good question, Congressman, thank you.
We hope that we can make some progress on a number of areas,
methane is particularly important for our cooperation. China
agreed to have a methane action plan out of our prior talks in
Glasgow, and again in Sharm El-Sheikh. We hope that that is
something we can make progress on. We hope we can make progress
on the transition away from coal.
Coal is the dirtiest fuel in the world, and emissions that
are not captured from coal are the worst cause of the warming
of the ocean, and the torrential downpours that we see now that
come because more moisture rises because of the heating of the
ocean. Ninety percent of the warming of the earth goes into the
ocean, and now we are seeing exactly what happens with these
floods as a result of that increased moisture.
I mean there is a clear scientific tracking of relationship
here. What we want to do is find ways to see if China and the
United States can advance the cause together for the rest of
the world by accelerating rates of doing things, by increasing
the deployment of renewables, by improving grid management.
There are a host of things that we think are really worthy of
conversation.
And if we can make some progress on that, we think we can
tamp down this edgy sense of competition, which could lead to a
mistake, which takes you to a place you didn't mean to go to.
Mr. Kim. You talked about methane a couple times, we have
also talked about COP 28 coming up later this year. I guess I
just want to get a sense for you, what would success look like
at COP 28, what are you hoping to see come out of that.
Mr. Kerry. I think that there are a number of things. First
of all, COP 28 already requires a global stock take. That is a
valuation of how the world is doing with respect to the
promises that have already been made. Second there will be an
adaptation report, which will help to make a judgment about how
we can accelerate adaptation for places that are really in
jeopardy.
Island States, vulnerable nations, they are the ones
suffering the most, but they do not contribute to the problem.
But they are suffering the most as a result of the problem. And
then in addition to that, there is the finalization of the fund
that was created, the so called Loss and Damage Fund, which is
simply a recognition, it does not have any liability in it.
We specifically put phrases in that negate any possibility
of liability. But it is there to try to help some of these
vulnerable less developed areas from the problems that they are
facing. Now, in addition to that we want to see global raising
of ambition. Everybody has to try to reduce emissions faster.
We have set a very ambitious goal under President Biden's
leadership where fifty to fifty-two percent reduction in
emissions, hopefully.
We believe we are on track to be able to do that, even
though they have gone up slightly in this past year. What is
happening right now in terms of new technologies coming online,
in terms of the reduction of coal, in terms of the capture of
emissions and so forth, we are at least able to turn the corner
and begin to reduce, rather than increase. And we think we can
meet the targets that we have set, which can help keep 1.5
degrees as the limit of the warming of the planet.
Mr. Kim. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, I yield back.
Mr. Mast. Thank you.
And I will now yield to Mr. Moran for 5 minutes.
Mr. Moran. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, you said
earlier, this is a quote I wrote down when you were answering a
question from one of my colleagues, we have 12 years within
which to make decisions to avoid the worst consequences of
climate change. In regards to that quote then, my question
would be what is the U.S. doing to force China to reduce its
CO2 emissions?
Mr. Kerry. Well, the 12 years, first of all, was set by the
scientists, not my number, it is their number, they say that is
the framework.
Mr. Moran. Regardless, you adopted that as truth today
before the committee.
Mr. Kerry. I adopted the best science in the world as a
good guidepost for good governance, and I think that is what we
need to excise. Now, I can answer your question----
Mr. Moran. If you are the special envoy on behalf of the
President working on climate issues, and you take the position
that we have 12 years within which to make decisions to avoid
the quote worst consequences, then what are you doing to force
China to reduce its CO2 emissions?
Mr. Kerry. Well, I am going there to start with, but I am
not sure that that presence alone is enough to force them.
Mr. Moran. I agree with that. Which, it is a reasonable
question. I mean you have been asked to do this, I didn't ask
you to do it. The President asked you to go abroad, and to have
this conversation with China. And so, I want to know, what are
we going to do to twist their arm----
Mr. Kerry. It is the use of the word force, I think that it
is important to have a dialog about how you can both reach
agreement to do things that are sensible.
Mr. Moran. Replace the word force with influence. What are
you going to do to influence China to reduce its CO2 emissions?
Mr. Kerry. Well, we have had very successful rounds of
meetings with them, and have moved significantly. China, let me
give you an idea of what China is doing now in response to some
of the pressure that I think has been evident. They are----
Mr. Moran. But I want to get real specific about actions
you are going to ask them to do. What actions are you going to
go to the table with like we need you to do this?
Mr. Kerry. Well, we are looking at the CBAM. I told you, we
are looking very closely at the CBAM, as is Europe, and other
countries. We are looking at other ways to be able to try. But
our preference is to have China say, yes, that makes sense.
Let's see----
Mr. Moran. But China hasn't. Because in the past decade, as
you know, we have reduced emissions here in the United States,
but in the same timeframe China's emissions have increased. All
the while they continue to say we are working on it. And all
the while you continue to go over there and ask them to work on
it. But we have not seen real deliberate action on their part
to match the U.S.'s efforts in this regard, is that correct?
Mr. Kerry. We have actually seen some action, which isn't
evident to everybody, because people, they do not advertise it,
but I will tell you what is happening. Let me just answer your
question. China is manufacturing and deploying more renewable
energy than all the rest of the world put together. That is
what they are doing. China right now has about somewhere in the
vicinity of a couple thousand gigawatts, but they are now going
up. And by 2030, our judgment is China may well be around
2,200, 2,400 gigawatts of renewable.
Mr. Moran. The pollution that is coming out of China by the
sea----
Mr. Kerry. Correct, that is exactly why we are working at
what we are doing, because----
Mr. Moran. And you said yourself earlier, quote this is a
global universal issues, and we do not want it to become
captive to other issues. But I am curious when you say that if
you are ignoring these other issues like my colleague brought
up here, human rights issues. Would you agree that human rights
issues are also global universal issues?
Mr. Kerry. Absolutely.
Mr. Moran. But you want to keep them separate when you are
talking to China is what you said earlier, is that true?
Mr. Kerry. What I said is well, no, we do not keep them
separate in terms of our priorities. I go there----
Mr. Moran. No, that is exactly what you said. You said
President Xi, and President Biden agreed at the outset to
separate out the climate issue----
Mr. Kerry. Correct.
Mr. Moran. So it would not get caught up in these other
issues.
Mr. Kerry. Correct.
Mr. Moran. So, were you correct then----
Mr. Kerry. That doesn't mean you do not talk about them.
But it means that they are not going to become show stoppers so
that they are playing one off against the other. I will give
you an example. We do not trade any component of any of those
other issues for what we are trying to do on the climate front.
On the climate front we have agreed we will deal with that, and
we have to find a pathway forward.
And there are others, the Assistant Secretary of State, the
Secretary of State, the NSC who deal directly on those other
issues. But what we are trying to do----
Mr. Moran. OK, and I presume that you are----
Mr. Kerry. You know what we are trying to do? We are trying
to make sure that you do not have to worry that John Kerry is
going to give away some right on human rights in order to get
what he is trying to get from China.
Mr. Moran. So, I get that, and I presume that you are going
to have conferences with your counterparts that are having
those discussions on those other issues, and that President
Biden has said to you, and those others, which one is more
priority over the others. So, my question would be is human
rights the bigger issue? Is the slave labor coming out of the
Uyghur people a bigger issue, or is it climate change?
Mr. Kerry. Congressman, this Administration is capable of
keeping all its priorities on the table, and treating all of
them simultaneously. But we do not have to wrap them up so one
becomes hostage to the other, or you do not make progress. You
have got to----
Mr. Moran. Do you plan to hold China accountable if they do
not follow through with the activities that you are going to
suggest and reduce their emissions? Because they are able to
get ahead of our economy by producing many more emissions, and
having less regulatory action on their businesses than we are
here in the U.S.
Mr. Kerry. And we do not want that to happen. That is
precisely why----
Mr. Moran. Then how are you going to hold them accountable?
Mr. Kerry. Because that is exactly why President Biden has
asked us to examine the countervailing efforts----
Mr. Moran. I have never seen an examination hold anybody
accountable. We need action to hold them accountable.
Mr. Kerry. Well, that is exactly what is happening, and you
have got several senators, you have some in the House. I
believe there are a number of House members who are looking at
the border adjustment mechanism. I know Senator Coons, and some
others, Senator Whitehouse have different plans for how to do
that. This is gaining, I think some steam legislatively because
people are frustrated by what is happening.
So, you first have got to come up with the legislation, and
somehow it has got to pass the U.S. Congress at large. So,
hopefully we can get there.
Mr. Moran. We do not legislate China, but we need to hold
them accountable.
Mr. Kerry. No, but you can legislate a CBAM.
Mr. Mast. The Chair now recognizes Ms. Dean for 5 minutes.
Ms. Dean. Thank you, Chairman Mast, Ranking Member Crow.
Thank you, Secretary Kerry, for being here, and for your
decades of varied and rich service to our country. As you point
out, and as the world knows, the climate crisis is a global
problem requiring global solutions, international cooperation.
So, you are extraordinarily well suited from your passion for
this subject, for your passion for this country, and our world
to be in the role you are in.
We are lucky to have you, and I thank the Administration
for on day one returning to the Paris Climate Accord which the
former President in June 2017 walked away from. What a shame
for our country that that happened. And I really speak to you
today not just as a legislator, but as a mom and a grandmom.
[Inaudible] climate change with extraordinary storms, smoke
filling the atmosphere and hurting our eyes.
In August 2021 a crazy Hurricane Ida came up right through
suburban Philadelphia, the five-county area. Massive flooding,
tornadoes, unprecedented for our area, suburban Philadelphia,
and extraordinary loss and damage. I want to just draw a
contrast, because I absolutely share your opening thoughts
about the opportunity in this moment, the absolute challenge of
it, the crisis in front of us on so many fronts, but today we
are talking about climate.
But the unbelievable opportunity. I have the honor of
serving on the Regional Leadership Council, we are working
directly with the Administration for the Invest in America
bills, to bring these investments to every single one of our
communities. You pointed out the investments, the historic
transformational investments through IRA and infrastructure.
Could you give us a little more detail?
The Inflation Reduction Act dollars, those transformational
dollars, as well as the bipartisan infrastructure bill, and
what this massive investment, and I contrast this with the last
Administration, never got any of these things done, never dealt
with climate, just pulls out of the Accords, we got massive
legislation passed to make a difference for my grandchildren,
and their children. Can you emphasize some of those investments
we need to make?
Mr. Kerry. Well, the investments we need to make, happily,
thank you, Congresswoman, appreciate the question. The
investments that need to be made are being made as a
consequence of the Inflation Reduction Act. And there is a
certain irony in it, the estimates are right now that about 338
billion dollars of the targets of that act are being
distributed in what are called red States, and there is about
180 billion that is going to what are called blue States.
So, the vest largest benefit is going to parts of the
country where you have skilled workers who were in other forms
of energy production, who can readily be available, and
transition into the new technologies, whatever they are going
to be. Whether it is direct carbon capture, or building out a
storage capacity. I mean, frankly, what one of the beauties I
think of that particular legislation is there is no one winner,
it doesn't pick a winner.
What it is doing is creating incentives so that people can
go out and make their own decision about where they think the
best opportunity is going to be. So, a lot is happening right
now. We have about two thousand gigawatts of renewable power
that is just queued up waiting for approval. And what we need
to do is find a way to bust that out, get it through the queue,
and approved.
Because that is going to generate even that much more
energy, and clean energy for the country. So, that is one
example of what is happening with it.
Ms. Dean. I want to pick up on that irony, it is not lost
on any of us where these investments will go. They will go out
with equity, not going out following the votes, or the lack of
votes that came for these massive transformational,
generational changes. I want to just take you to some of the
opening statements, and I wonder what your reaction was, I
think at some point someone called you, that you were carrying
a far left radical agenda.
I have to admit to you, if anybody thinks it is radical to
care about the protection of this planet for future
generations, sign me up. It reminds me of Martin Luther King in
the letter from Birmingham Jail when he was called a radical,
and an extremist. He said wasn't Jesus a radical for love? So,
I embrace the term radical whenever I am attacked that way when
I am focused on something so worthy. What are your thoughts,
are you embracing some far left radical agenda?
Mr. Kerry. Well, thank you for the opportunity to hang
myself. I think I am pursuing common sense for political right,
political left, republican, democrat, because as I said, what
we are looking at is something that is human created. The
problem we face right now comes from the way we inadvertently,
it is the way the world developed starting in the middle of the
1800's with the industrial revolution, and we have all
benefited from it.
Americans particularly have had the richest lives on the
planet because we had the best healthcare, we have had so many
different pluses that have come with the development we were
able to create. Now we have learned as of 1988, alarm bell,
problem, what you have been doing and taking for granted is
actually destroying a lot of things on the planet.
We lose about 8 million people a year to the quality of
air, lack of quality actually, air pollution. Greenhouse gases
are pollution, and that pollution is having an impact on the
lives of our fellow Americans, negative impact. We are now
seeing, because of the warming that comes with the emissions
piling up in this level of the atmosphere above the Earth, it
prevents the cooling from normally taking place.
And so this warming is now totally documented, everybody
knows it is happening, humans creating it from the way we
propel our cars, light our rooms and factories, heat our homes,
that is what it is. It is the emissions. And if we can figure
out, you know, so you have sort of got a simple choice here.
You either stop making those emissions, or you can do something
with them that is useful, and doesn't harm things.
And there is no proof to this date that we have the ability
to be able to do that.
Ms. Dean. I thank you.
Mr. Mast. The chair now recognizes Mr. Perry for 5 minutes.
Mr. Perry. Thank you, Chairman, thank you, Secretary. In an
attempt to get to net zero by 2050, do you support the
Administration's goal of cutting U.S. emissions in half by
2030?
Mr. Kerry. Yes, I do.
Mr. Perry. Secretary, in 1997 the Senate voted ninety-five
to zero, including you, and then Senator Biden in favor of the
Byrd-Hagel Resolution, which resolved that the U.S. shouldn't
cut emissions until China, Mexico, India, Brazil, South Korea,
and other so called developing nations cut emissions as well.
Do you remember that?
Mr. Kerry. I do, very, very well, because I was managing it
on the floor of the Senate.
Mr. Perry. And since 1997 have emissions from China, India,
and Mexico all increased?
Mr. Kerry. Yes, as they have from the United States.
Mr. Perry. And global emissions have continued to increase
as well, right?
Mr. Kerry. Yes.
Mr. Perry. Have any of those countries submitted a credible
plan to get to net zero emissions by 2050?
Mr. Kerry. Which countries?
Mr. Perry. Let's just go with China, India, or Mexico.
Mr. Kerry. No.
Mr. Perry. It seems that, have you abandoned your position
that those other nations would cut emissions before Americans
would have to make choices between the groceries on their table
and paying for these policies?
Mr. Kerry. I think the reality is that the world changed in
that period of time. Let me explain to you----
Mr. Perry. OK, so you voted that way, but you changed----
Mr. Kerry. But let me explain to you the vote, because I
did manage this on the floor, and I know exactly what happened,
because I am the one who said to our colleagues I think
everybody ought to vote for this. And the reason was that it
fundamentally had the message that it is not fair. The one we
were talking about earlier with the Chairman, it is not fair
for us to be reducing.
And China, which was producing three times more emissions
than us, and then producing goods that come into our country
from that dirty power, and we have a problem. So, we wanted to
address that, but we knew not every aspect of that piece of
legislation, it is what we all call a message, it was a message
vote, and the vote was clear. We wanted other people to join us
in the effort to reduce emissions.
Mr. Perry. OK, fair enough.
Mr. Kerry. That hasn't happened sufficiently.
Mr. Perry. It hasn't happened sufficiently now. Secretary,
in 2015 at the Paris Climate Conference, you said that if all
industrial nations go to zero emissions, it would not be
enough. And then at the White House's Climate Day in January
2021, you said almost ninety percent of the planet's emissions
come from outside the U.S. We could go to zero tomorrow, and
the problem isn't solved.
And in April 2021 you told the Washington Post that even
the U.S. and China going to zero emissions tomorrow will not
solve the climate's problem. Then in April 2021 you said that
global net zero is not enough, and that CO2 must be removed
from the atmosphere. How much is the correct amount of CO2?
Mr. Kerry. Let me explain to you, if I can, so you
understand exactly what I said. It is close, but it is not
quite exactly what I was saying. What I am saying----
Mr. Perry. Can you just tell me what the correct amount is?
Mr. Kerry. Let me tell you what I am saying, I am going to
tell you what the correct--here is how it works. Because we
have put, I forget the exact number of tons, millions of tons
of CO2, and other greenhouse gases are now in the atmosphere,
they are there, and every day we are adding more. And so every
day the heat is going up, and we have to figure out how we are
going to tame the monster here.
The only way to do that is to reduce emissions on an
ongoing basis to get control on the current level of emissions
that we have created, and then to actually suck----
Mr. Perry. Sir, with all due respect, you have been through
this before. What is the correct amount? I do not want to spend
a bunch of time about a history lesson about things that people
do not care about.
Mr. Kerry. Well, it changes every day, I cannot tell you
exactly what it is.
Mr. Perry. The correct amount changes?
Mr. Kerry. Yes, it does. So----
Mr. Perry. So, Secretary, you probably know that for
approximately 200 million years, what is the parts per million
now? About four hundred, right? Can we agree on that?
Mr. Kerry. It is over four hundred, it is about four
twenty.
Mr. Perry. All right, for about 200 million years, two
thousand parts per million. Did mother nature get it wrong for
200 million years?
Mr. Kerry. Here is the difference, Congressman. The
difference is yes, there were periods which all scientists, all
the scientists who deal with climate acknowledge that there
have been moments on the planet, which is billions of years
old, in which there were greater heat, and there was greater
carbon dioxide----
Mr. Perry. Tell me the difference quickly, I have got a
limited amount of time.
Mr. Kerry. The difference is human beings are creating
this, that is the difference, we are creating this.
Mr. Perry. So, human beings are about three hundred
thousand years old, but during these periods of time where it
was two thousand parts per million life existed. As a matter of
fact, we are in one of the lowest periods.
Mr. Kerry. Not people, not human beings walking around, no.
Mr. Perry. Mr. Secretary, we are in one of the lowest
periods of carbon in the atmosphere in not only recorded
history, in the history of life existing on the planet. In
December 2022 you told the Washington Post we need to remove
1.6 trillion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere via
direct air capture. The cost for that is about one thousand
dollars per ton, or 1.6 quadrillion dollars.
Now, you said you didn't know, but since 2015, since the
last El Nino, about 500 billion tons have been emitted into the
atmosphere. During that same period of time, 2015, if you look
at the temperature graph, this is from NOAA, the temperature
has gone down. Show the next slide. This is from NASA satellite
data, temperature has gone down.
You want to have the American taxpayers, my constituents
that are having a hard time afford their groceries, pay for a
car, buy a new home, spend 1.6 quadrillion dollars to fix a
problem that A, doesn't exist, and as a matter of fact, you
might be exacerbating. Because it is unknown, it is unknown at
this time the low level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
that might actually destroy life.
Because plant life all depends, as you know Secretary,
plant life all depends on CO2. And when we kill it, then we are
done too.
I yield the balance.
Mr. Kerry. Congressman, let me just say that I do not agree
with what you are saying out there for any number of reasons. I
do not have time to go into all of them now, but I will just
tell you point blank that the difference between the periods
you are looking at in terms of heat, et cetera, and human input
is night and day, No. 1. No. 2, why do you think one hundred
ninety-five countries in the world, their prime ministers,
their presidents----
Mr. Perry. Because they are grifting, like you are, sir.
Mr. Kerry. That is a pretty shocking statement. That you
believe that all the scientists in the world are grifters.
Honestly.
Mr. Perry. Not all scientists agree with you, Mr.
Secretary.
Mr. Kerry. Ninety-eight percent of all the scientists in
the world agree----
Mr. Perry. Science isn't about agreement, it is not about
consensus, you know that.
Mr. Kerry. Well----
Mr. Mast. The chair now recognizes Mrs. Cherfilus-McCormick
for 5 minutes.
Mrs. Cherfilus-McCormick. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wanted
to start off by saying representing Ft. Lauderdale, who just
experienced over a thousand years of flooding that we have
never seen before, that we most certainly know that climate
change is real, and we are feeling the effects, and we
understand that the work that you are doing, Secretary, is very
important, and we thank you for being here.
My first question is earlier this year I had the privilege
of accompanying Vice President Harris to build on the
commitments made during the U.S. Africa Leadership Summit last
December. During her travels, the Vice President announced over
7 billion in private sector and U.S. Government commitments to
promote climate resilience adaptation, and mitigation across
Africa.
Last month, Beijing announced a major grant to offer South
Africa with solar panels and generators. To what extent is it
essential to improve our climate support of Africa to compete
with China?
Mr. Kerry. Personally--I'm going to speak personally on
this. I do not think that the choice we make with respect to
Africa ought to be just based on what China is doing. It ought
to be based on what we ought to be doing, and what all of us
ought to be doing. Africa, I mean there are 48 Sub-Saharan
African countries, 48, that equals 0.55 percent of emissions.
They are not causing this problem. But 17 of the top 20
impacted nations by climate are in Africa.
Now, if we do not stop and think about that in terms of
global responsibility, and global politics, we are really
missing something. And right now, I find the tensions between
global north and global south are growing. And food production
in Africa is threatened, water is threatened in south central
Asia, in Africa in various places.
And this is why the Congressman who was speaking earlier
about showing on his charts, there is only one group of people
in the world that I know of who are busy trying to tell people
that this is not happening, and it is fake, and that somehow we
are missing something. Only one group of people, and they are
here in Washington, and some of them spread around the country.
The fact is that, all around the world, smart people,
people who lead countries, who are responsible for the lives of
millions of people just like you are, and we are, are
responding to the clearly defined crisis of climate. So, I
think we have to look at this beyond the China. I think we have
to look at this in the context of what is our responsibility to
the future, and what is our responsibility to our fellow human
beings.
And how do we deal with a crisis that has been brilliantly
described over these last thirty years or more where everything
predicted is happening, only it is happening faster and bigger
than it was predicted.
Mrs. Cherfilus-McCormick. My second question is, according
to the Biden-Harris Administration national security strategy,
no region impacts the United States more directly than the
western hemisphere. In June, Haiti experienced intense flash
flooding, rock slides, and landslides that destroyed thousands
of homes and killed over fifty people combined with the ongoing
humanitarian crisis and substantial gang violence, many
Haitians are looking to flee the country.
Secretary Kerry, as the Biden Administration focuses on the
root cause of migration, can you describe how taking action on
climate crisis can help bring civility to our nations, and
other nations where their citizens are looking to migrate?
Mr. Kerry. Thank you so much for that thoughtful question,
and it is really a major, major problem, because there are now
climate refugees already today, who are moving across borders,
and looking for different places to live. Some of the people,
not all of them, but some of the folks coming from Central
America, and South America fit into that category.
There are folks who used to farm, who now find they cannot
find the products, the goods that they were farming, and so
they are migrating. And one of the things that we learned
during the course of the war in Syria was a million people
moved into Damascus, which greatly complicated the war.
But then they began to migrate, and became a political tool
actually, and were sort of pushed to migrate into Europe, and
had a profound impact, a negative one, on the politics of
Europe as a result. So, this is a major issue, and it is one we
really have to pay attention to.
Mrs. Cherfilus-McCormick. Secretary, I wanted to ask you
one question before we end, which is imperative. In April, Ft.
Lauderdale, which is in my district, witnessed unprecedented
flash flood caused by the highest record rainfall in one single
day. The flooding resulted in significant property damage, the
closure of the airport, and shortages of gas all across south
Florida.
Recently ocean temperatures in Florida Keys soared to
ninety-six degrees, highlighting the impact of the rising
temperatures on the region's marine ecosystem. Can you explain
to us why this is happening, and what is causing the increased
weather, and extreme weather, since there are people who do not
believe in climate change?
Mr. Kerry. Well, thank you, again. I just might point out
that I just saw this article this morning that Farmers
Insurance has pulled out of Florida, affecting 100,00
policyholders. And the reason the insurance company has pulled
out is because this unprecedented change in weather patterns,
et cetera, has affected their ability to be able to make
policies, and for people to be able to afford those policies
under the current circumstances.
This has been a predicted happening. I mean, everybody has
been talking about the potential impact on insurance, and now
it is happening in various parts of the world. So, I mean, the
reason, as I said earlier, 90 percent of the heating of the
planet, which is documented, goes into the ocean, and that
warming of the ocean then increases the moisture that rises
from the ocean, and travels around the planet with the
planetary winds. And when it decides to fall in rainfall, it is
in much larger amounts than ever before because of the increase
of the moisture. It has changed wind patterns, and weather
patterns, and the heating has other ancillary effects.
Mr. Mast. The chair now recognizes Mr. Issa for 5 minutes.
Mr. Issa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, it is a
pleasure seeing you, it is a pleasure knowing that you are in
this Administration, and I mean that quite sincerely. I am
often disappointed in this Administration, I am not necessarily
in lock step with all of your opinions, but you and I go back a
long way of trying to do the right thing.
First of all I wanted to get a figure you gave that I may
have miswritten. You predicted, you didn't give the amount they
have today, but you predicted twenty-two hundred gigawatts in
China by 2030, is that accurate?
Mr. Kerry. That is what our current estimates are showing,
this comes from a number of different sources. But it could be
more, it could be less.
Mr. Issa. But today how many gigs do they have, roughly?
Mr. Kerry. Let me get back to you. I was actually talking
with folks about that yesterday, and I couldn't get it pinned
down, but I will come back to you with a number.
Mr. Issa. OK, that would be good for me to have that,
because that is a lofty goal that as you and I both know, you
go to China, you see a lot of amazing cranes. But then when you
go back, you see the cranes in the same position, so it doesn't
always mean that they are doing what they say they are going to
do. In 2021 you told this committee that trusting China in
climate change promises would be stupid, and malpractice.
Without directly using that quote again, would you
generally agree that it still would be malpractice?
Mr. Kerry. I think trusting a lot of the players who have
been involved in this, government, and also private sector, is
not the smartest thing in the world, because we have been
burned.
Mr. Issa. Now, China is a country that buys all of the
above, no question at all. They buy a massive amount of ours,
and the rest of the world's coal. They are increasing their
coal, they are buying natural gas, they are putting in nuclear,
and as you said, they are doing some considerable work in the
photovoltaic that they produce. But India has a tendency to
continue burning both dung and coal.
You are going to China, but we had the head of India here
for a joint session just recently, and he said a lot of great
things, but he didn't say we are going to buy natural gas, or
do other incremental things to reduce the carbon footprint. Are
we dealing with two problems, a China that it is malpractice to
believe that they will do what they say they will do, and an
India that constantly seems to say they are too poor to do what
they should do to do any part of climate change reduction?
Mr. Kerry. Well, interestingly, Congressman, and thank you
for your comments, we have enjoyed working together on a number
of things. India has set a very lofty goal of trying to deploy
five hundred gigawatts of renewable energy by 2030, that is
their goal. And if India could succeed in doing that, India
would be in compliance with the effort to keep--that would be a
1.5 degree plan, that would be really possible.
Mr. Issa. And I understand that, Mr. Secretary. But if for
example, if India had simply switched its coal production to
natural gas, they would have reduced more than that amount, and
they would have done so at a lower cost. So, isn't it fair to
say that India sets lofty goals like China, but actions speak
louder than words, so far their actions----
Mr. Kerry. Well, India is deploying. They are deploying,
their hope is to deploy, and their hope is to close coal. Now,
they cannot afford, they do not have LNG, and they----
Mr. Issa. Well, they do not have LNG because they haven't
built the plants, or signed the contract.
Mr. Kerry. Well, that is true, but on the other hand, they
cannot afford to do that on their own, they were not able to at
that point in time. India is growing now, its economy is
growing. The visit here produced some significant joint
initiatives going forward. I am actually going to India before
the end of this month to followup on conversations we had with
both the prime minister being here, but also before that with
some of his other teams.
Mr. Issa. OK. And if I could squeeze in one more quick
question, you are going to meet in China with a number of
leaders, but the President called Xi Jinping, called him a
dictator. Do you believe he wields the power of a dictator
today in China? Meaning is his ability similar to Putin's
ability to affect what he says he will do, such that if he
makes a promise he can keep it?
Mr. Kerry. There is no question at all that President Xi is
the major decider of the direction, and of the policies of
China.
Mr. Issa. Is he in fact effectively a dictator?
Mr. Kerry. Well, I do not think it is useful to get into--I
am not going to get into----
Mr. Issa. But he does wield the power of a dictator----
Mr. Kerry. He wields enormous power as the leader of China,
absolutely, and everybody understands that. But I do not----
Mr. Issa. Do you wish the President had used another word?
Mr. Kerry. No, I do not even--frankly, all of that is sort
of like water off the duck's back, and I do not think we ought
to get tangled up in labels, and names, and whatever. What we
ought to do look at the heart of what we are trying to do.
President Biden actually has a very good relationship with
President Xi, and President Xi vice versa, he honors the
relationship he has with President Biden.
And I think in Secretary Blinken's visit to China, and
subsequently in Janet Yellen's visit with China, where you saw
in her own statements publicly, and assessments, there was
frank conversation. But the effort is well underway now to try
to stabilize, and avoid conflict by virtue of unforeseen
consequences or mistakes.
Mr. Mast. The chair now recognizes----
Mr. Issa. Mr. Chairman, can I just ask one follow, it
doesn't require--but would you commit, when you have had those
meetings with India, and China, to in writing, or in some other
way report back to us so we have an update?
Mr. Kerry. Sure, I would be happy to.
Mr. Issa. I thank you, Mr. Secretary. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Mast. Thank you, Mr. Issa.
The chair now recognizes Ms. Titus for 5 minutes.
Mr. Titus. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. When you go toward the
end there are not many questions left to ask, but you have the
luxury of having heard everything gone before and kind of
reached some conclusions. One thing I heard was my colleague on
the other side call the secretary, most of the scientists in
the world, and the heads of 195 countries who belong to the
U.N. Climate Agreement grifters.
Now, that's something that should be taken down, but since
he's gone in his typical hit and run fashion, it would not be
much point. Now, the arguments that I've heard from both sides,
on the other side of the aisle we hear you cannot make China do
anything. You cannot force China to do anything, you cannot
impose any restrictions on China, therefore we shouldn't be
doing anything in the United States.
On the other hand, when you are getting ready to go to
China, and try to negotiate something, or make some points, or
try to influence their decision, they do not want you to go,
they think that's not a good idea. Also we hear that you have a
pro-China, not a pro-American approach, and you are not helping
U.S. business and workers.
On the other hand, these people who are saying this voted
against the Inflation Reduction Act, which made a big
investment in manufacturing, and workers, and solar energy
panels that we do not have to get from the Uyghurs, but can be
made here. Speaking of the Uyghurs, there's a real, now sudden
interest in human rights of the Uyghurs, but it doesn't bother
them too much to deal with Saudi Arabia when it comes to these
issues.
Also we know that this is a world issue, climate change
affects everything from demographics, to politics, and
economics, and yet we are not looking at the rest of the world,
it is as though only the U.S. and China exist on the globe. So,
I would ask you, Mr. Secretary, because climate change, and
energy policy is so pervasive in everything we do, it is not
just about dealing with the next storm, or the next wildfire.
It has so much of an impact on peacekeeping, on development
of foreign countries, on our role internationally. Is what you
are hearing from the other side diminishing our influence?
Hurting our role as we try to kind of move back into being
international leaders, kind of upsetting some of our NATO
relations because of what Europe is doing, and what we are not?
Are the cuts in the budget going to make a difference
because we cannot now invest what the President would like to
see us do to help the rest of the world with these global
problems? Would you just address that sort of thing for us?
Mr. Kerry. Well, Congresswoman, thank you very much. Let me
just say I got the figures delivered to me here, if I take 15
seconds on this. China, according to the International Energy
Agency by 2030, China will have somewhere between three
thousand and four thousand gigawatts of renewable energy.
That's by fathoms larger than any other country on the planet.
And so, they are moving very aggressively in that regard.
With respect to--look, people really do count on America for a
lot of things in the world, and I think everyone should be
extraordinarily proud of our history of doing things. We are
the largest humanitarian donor in the world, and you look at
what we have done with AIDS in Africa, or Ebola, through
various counter terrorism efforts, other things.
But we also, for a long period of time, projected, and this
is sort of the soft power projection, but we also helped people
develop, we helped people do more. That has been retreating in
the last years. We are now giving less than a lot of other
countries are doing in order to help particularly on climate.
And I think it does have an impact. I think that people ask
questions, I certainly hear these questions.
Why aren't you doing this, why aren't you more present,
look at who is giving us help here, and so forth. So, I think
that you cannot just sit there anywhere and wish that things
are going to be as they have been historically. You have to
invest in it. You have to actually proactively have people on
the ground. You have to build relationships, you have to do
things that people see you doing not just on an economic
competitive basis, but because it is the right thing to do.
And I think we have fallen a little behind on that. I know
President Biden feels very strongly about living up to our
commitments, and our values.
Mr. Titus. Thank you very much.
I yield back.
Mr. Mast. Thank you, Ms. Titus.
The chair now recognizes Mr. Waltz for 5 minutes.
Mr. Waltz. Mr. Secretary, in exchange with Mr. Mills, you
just testified under oath that you never owned a private jet.
Mr. Chairman, I'd like to enter into the record an article here
from February 15th of 2023 that the John Kerry family private
jet was sold shortly after accusations of climate hypocrisy.
[The information referred to follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Mast. Without objection.
Mr. Secretary, do you stand by that testimony that you have
never owned, or your family, by your family----
Mr. Kerry. I personally, yes, my wife owned a plane, and
sold the plane, but that's been----
Mr. Waltz. And you flew on that plane?
Mr. Kerry. Not in a number of years, but I have flown on
it, sure.
Mr. Waltz. And this article is not then, inaccurate, that
your family owned a plane, you flew on a plane?
Mr. Kerry. My wife owned a plane.
Mr. Waltz. Mr. Secretary, here is the issue. This isn't
some kind of partisan gotcha. When we are asking Americans to
make serious sacrifices as we transition for the common good,
and your family, and or your self are flying around on private
jets, that smacks of hypocrisy, it actually hurts your cause,
Mr. Secretary. But I just wanted to know from a records
standpoint----
Mr. Kerry. Afford me the right, at least to set the record
straight here. I do not fly on a private jet, I fly
commercially on all of my responsibilities----
Mr. Waltz. Have you flown on a private jet since you have
taken this position?
Mr. Kerry. Let me just finish. I have flown five times in
the last two and a half years on MILAIR, which you also fly on,
or some of you travel fly on. Five times. Otherwise, all of my
trips are commercial airlines.
Mr. Waltz. Have you flown on a private jet in a personal or
official capacity since you have taken this position?
Mr. Kerry. Possibly once. I think--I'm trying to think of a
date.
Mr. Waltz. I think you need to take the broader point of
how this appears to the American people as we are asking them
to take that----
Mr. Kerry. But no, it shouldn't get there, and let me tell
you why----
Mr. Waltz. You know these testimoneys----
Mr. Kerry. We are not asking Americans not to fly, you are
trying to create an unequal thing----
Mr. Waltz. No, we are asking you to lead by example, Mr.
Secretary.
Mr. Kerry. We are not saying do not fly, which is why I fly
commercially.
Mr. Waltz. You, your family, and others to lead by example.
In that vein, does your office, or the State Department keep a
record of your official travel, and scheduled meetings?
Mr. Kerry. Of course.
Mr. Waltz. Does that include the individuals you are
scheduled to meet with? Can you provide those records to
Congress? Will you provide those records to Congress?
Mr. Kerry. Of who I have met with?
Mr. Waltz. Your official travel, taxpayer funded, while in
this position.
Mr. Kerry. Sure, happy to do so.
Mr. Waltz. Thank you, I appreciate that commitment.
Switching topics here to some of the other diplomacy you have
conduct. In a 2018 interview you admitted to speaking with
Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif quote three or four times from
the start of the previous Administration. How many times did
you speak with the Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif during the
last Administration? And I'll enter into the record, Mr.
Chairman----
Mr. Mast. Without objection.
[The information referred to follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Waltz. That three or four times, let's take that at
face value. Did you communicate with him using Signal,
WhatsApp, Telegram, any other?
Mr. Kerry. I do not recall how I communicated with him. I
met him formally in the course of international--specifically,
I think it was at UNGA in New York. I saw him in Munich, at the
Munich Security Conference, which he was invited to. I saw
him----
Mr. Waltz. According to leaked audio provided by the New
York Times, Zarif said you told him that Israel attacked
Iranian assets in Syria, quote, at least 200 times, and Zarif
was surprised you would reveal such sensitive information. Now,
that was according to leaked audio. Now, under oath, do you
stand by your previous denial that that ever happened?
Mr. Kerry. I absolutely stand. On the day that that report
came out we made it crystal clear, in a release that we put
out, that that never took place. It was at a time when there
was public discussion of those attacks. It was in public
circulation. I do not know what he is confusing, or what he
did, but I can tell you that I never had that conversation. And
I can tell you that in 5 years running one of the largest
prosecutor's offices in America, in 2 years lieutenant
Governor, in 28 years in the Senate, as a member of the
Intelligence Committee, as a Secretary of State, nobody ever
questioned----
Mr. Waltz. I only have a few seconds left, Mr. Secretary.
This is why I am raising that issue. Would you find it
appropriate if a former Trump Administration official traveled
around and talked to the same officials you are, and said, you
do not have to abide by these agreements; hold fast until 2024,
a new regime, or a new Administration may be coming in; and
therefore undermining current Administration diplomacy. Would
you find that appropriate?
Mr. Kerry. I am not going to speak to any hypotheticals,
but I can tell you I never engaged in that kind----
Mr. Waltz. Shadow diplomacy undermines American goals.
Mr. Kerry. Depending on what it involves, shadow diplomacy
has also saved us from a war. If you look at 1963 with the
Cuban Missile Crisis, it was behind the scenes, back-channel
conversation.
Mr. Waltz. Mr. Secretary, I would posture that your shadow
diplomacy now has us on the verge of Iran having a nuclear
weapon.
Mr. Kerry. I wasn't conducting shadow diplomacy. I was at a
security conference.
Mr. Waltz. That is now exploding as they race toward full
enrichment, from 20 percent to sixty percent, on the verge of
having a nuclear weapon in a nuclear arms race in the Middle
East. As Americans we do not undermine other Administrations.
Mr. Kerry. The reason that happened, my friend, is because
Donald Trump pulled out of that agreement. There was no way
they could have had a nuclear weapon under the agreement that
existed. And even in Israel, the security establishment of
Israel believed that agreement had done the job. President
Trump just pulled out, gave it away.
Mr. Mast. The chair now recognizes Mr. Schneider for 5
minutes.
Mr. Schneider. Thank you. And Special Envoy Secretary
Kerry, thank you for your time today. Earlier we had an
exchange that I guess you can only describe as childish, but I
thought I would engage a little bit on the science. How old is
the Earth?
Mr. Kerry. I do not remember how many billions, but
billions.
Mr. Schneider. Four and a half. I'll answer, it's four and
a half billion years. Or, in another way of looking at it,
4,500,000 millennia. And I used to, with my kids, walk through
an exercise, if the Earth was a year old, where things place.
And just some of the numbers on that, if the Earth was a year
old and formed on January 1st, it would be mid-February when
life arose on Earth. It would be sometime in mid-November when
the fish started swimming in the oceans. The dinosaurs would
have gone extinct around Christmas. And all of human existence
would have been captured in the last hour of the last day of
the year. So, this idea of comparing numbers from long ago,
human existence is a relatively very short period of Earth's
existence.
The other thing in this, Mr. Secretary, just to State the
obvious, is there a difference between life existing on Earth
and civilization thriving on Earth?
Mr. Kerry. Sure.
Mr. Schneider. And is what we are talking about, addressing
climate change, making sure we are doing everything we can to
ensure that civilization, society, America continues to thrive
on Earth?
Mr. Kerry. Indeed.
Mr. Schneider. OK. Just another statistic I'll point out,
40 percent of all people on Earth live within 100 kilometers,
or 62 miles, of a coast. In United States, that number is 50
percent of all Americans live within 50 miles of the coasts.
And in some of the notes in preparing for this last night, I
read that the first experience of climate change is oftentimes
with water, whether it is too much, or too little.
I think that is one of the key things we face. It is our
biggest threat to our Nation, climate change is, to our way of
life, to the world, to civilization, and halting the
displacement, instability, and myriad of other consequences I
think is the greatest challenge, or one of the greatest
challenges we face. So, thank you for your leadership in
addressing this.
And I know in Congress, last Congress, we passed the
Bipartisan Infrastructure and Jobs Act. We passed the Inflation
Reduction Act, which is being accorded as the greatest to date
investment. And one of the pieces of that that I am very proud
of was the work we are doing on sustainable aviation fuel. We
have to eliminate, or reduce greenhouse emissions every way we
can, we can electrify our ground fleet, our air fleet will be
something different.
Secretary, can you talk about how we are working with our
friends, as well as our adversaries, or competitors to ensure
that we are doing everything we can to reduce greenhouse
emissions for the long term?
Mr. Kerry. Well, Congressman, thank you. I mean, obviously
the entire U.N. process is geared to bring people together
around a common goal. And that goal is to try to keep the
Earth's temperature increase limited to 1.5 degrees. Why 1.5
degrees? Because again, the scientists have--running all the
models, a myriad of models by the way, which show what the
damage is to Earth at certain levels of temperature. And so
that is our goal.
And the only way to achieve that goal is by coming together
in a multinational basis in order to negotiate some common
sense approach as to how we are going to deal with this. Now,
20 countries, the 20 largest economies on the planet equal shy
of eighty percent of all the emissions. Twenty countries are
the principal cause of what is happening today.
Ten of those countries or so have all agreed to plans to
try to reduce emissions to keep the 1.5. We are still working
with other countries to empower them to be able to do that. If
a country is entirely dependent on coal today, they are not
going to shut their economy down overnight. So, we have got to
try to find a way in common enterprise for all of our lives,
for life on the planet to help some of those countries to be
able to make that transition.
And we are getting a little stuck there because some people
just do not want to do that.
Mr. Schneider. And I just want to reclaim my time to make
two last points. One, the United States cannot solve this
problem alone, we have to work with the world----
Mr. Kerry. Correct.
Mr. Schneider. But the world cannot do it without the
United States. But to my colleagues on the other side, we are
talking about the sacrifices people are being asked to make to
address climate change. I would argue that the cost we are
putting on people by not addressing are far greater. Food will
cost more, as you touched on already, insurance either costs
more, or is completely unavailable for people living in some
states.
Cleaning up after major, extreme weather events. From
hurricanes, tornadoes, fires, droughts, every one of these is
putting an economic burden on communities across the Nation,
and across the world. And if we do not act now, if we do not
lead, it is only going to get worse.
I yield back.
Mr. Mast. The gentleman yields back.
The chair now recognizes Mr. Burchett for 5 minutes.
Mr. Burchett. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Secretary Kerry, thanks for being here. Sir, you are
unelected, and you are a non-Senate-confirmed bureaucrat,
basically. Can you tell me what the cost of some of these
climate agreements that you have gotten the American taxpayer
in, how much it is going to cost them?
Mr. Kerry. Well, Congressman----
Mr. Burchett. Just in dollars.
Mr. Kerry. The last thing, I think, I ever wanted to be in
life was called a bureaucrat. But----
Mr. Burchett. Well, we are. All are, so, you know.
Mr. Kerry. Well, speak for yourself.
Mr. Burchett. I do not trust government; I am the
government, so----
Mr. Kerry. Let me just say that the cost, you know, we all
committed, internationally, the world committed to put $100
billion into a fund that would help these other less developed
countries be able to transition. We've never actually met that
full $100. We've made some commitments. I mean, I cannot run
through them all. There were a lot of different bits and pieces
to it. But, by in large, we're seeing many of those things
repay themselves many times over because of the transformation
of our economy.
And, but----
Mr. Burchett. But can you just tell me how much we--how
much is it going to cost us? Is there surely some economic
effects of policy?
Mr. Kerry. Well, the U.N. Finance--you're right. And, sir,
the U.N. Finance Analysis suggests that it will cost trillions
of dollars. Maybe $2.5 to $4.5 trillion a year between now and
2050, to actually affect the full transition to a clean energy
economy.
But that's not spending. Most of that is calculating
private sector funding that will invest in these new
technologies and in these new economic opportunities.
For instance, we have to build out a grid, a competent
grid, with a smart grid, so we can balance the distribution of
energy in certain places.
Mr. Burchett. Yes, sir. But you understand, though, when
they invest, I mean, it just--this money just doesn't appear.
Mr. Kerry. No. You're absolutely correct.
Mr. Burchett. And they're going to charge us--you know, I
was always in the State legislature, and somebody said, well,
let's just put another nickel on a can of beer. And I was like,
well, you know, they're just going to pass that onto every--to
your constituents. So, I mean, I hope you understand that.
Let me move on a little bit. Can you explain why you and
other members of the U.S. delegation to the United Nations
Climate Conference in 2021 and 2022 did not follow the
President's direction to track your carbon emissions?
Mr. Kerry. Yes. It's unfortunate, but there is--they ran
into problems, apparently, in how it could get measured and how
it gets accrued. It should be done, and we're trying to get
people to sort of bear down.
Mr. Burchett. Some of those bureaucrats?
Mr. Kerry. Yes, I guess.
Mr. Burchett. Yes. All right. You've also agreed that
countries need to pay poor and developing countries for loss
and damage due to climate change. Why do the good folks in East
Tennessee, that work very hard for their dollars, need to pay
for a flood in Africa or South Asia?
Mr. Kerry. Well, we're not specifically paying for a flood
in South Africa. Though, sometimes, money may go to something
like that. But the United States, as I said, is proudly the
largest humanitarian donor in the world. And Republican and
Democrat Administrations alike have historically--I mean, look
at what, you know, President George W. Bush put a significant
amount of money into the AIDS program in Africa. Ronald Reagan
put significant amounts of money into denuclearizing and other
things.
I mean, we try to help the world. And you all, as the
elected officials, have to balance to what degree, what is that
amount going to be, and for what it's specifically going to go.
But I think our country is enriched and that our civilization
is better for the fact that we do try to help people out in
other places when they're in trouble.
Pakistan, when 30 million were dislocated last year in an
unprecedented flood, we put, I think, you know, a few million
dollars, $100 million, I think it was, ultimately, to help them
recover under this.
Mr. Burchett. Let me get onto something else, Mr.
Secretary. I apologize to you.
Mr. Kerry. That's all right.
Mr. Burchett. But we've said here that China is considered
a developing country, and that can be left for later debate,
but how many American tax dollars do you intend to pay the
Chinese Communist Party for climate change?
Mr. Kerry. None. We're not paying them for that. And I do
not think there's been one bilateral disbursement of money to
China since 2018, when President Trump was President of the
United States.
Mr. Burchett. Right.
Mr. Kerry. But the Biden Administration has put zero into
that.
Mr. Burchett. Zero. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Thank you,
Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Mast. Thank you, Mr. Burchett. The Chair now recognizes
Mr. Keating for 5 minutes.
Mr. Keating. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you
for allowing me to waive onto this subcommittee on this
important hearing today.
Thank you, Secretary Kerry, for being here. Your experience
is well-known. You've been in the executive branch at the State
government level, you've been in the Senate and the legislative
sector for 28 years, and Secretary of State. And I think,
perhaps, in this morning's testimony, what we heard is a
reflection of that, to an extent, that the questions posed to
you in your official capacity really are in the province of the
Secretary of State of the United States. Or some of the
solutions are found in the legislative side in the House or the
Senate.
And you're here as the envoy. You're here because there's
an important new position that was created, because if you look
at the importance of climate change right now, it's clear, it
touches everything. If you were doing it in legislative
committees, you could easily be testifying in front of the
Armed Services Committee, or the Intel Committee, or
Agricultural Committee, or Energy and Commerce, or Homeland, or
Appropriations.
If you were dealing with Cabinet responsibility, you could
go through the whole specter of the President's Cabinet and
find how climate change is a directly affected and important
piece of their function.
So, I think, given your background, our government is well-
served by having you in this role of envoy. Bringing together
all these fragments into one important position. And I thank
you for that. But I want to give you the opportunity this
morning, and as I'm at the last of the queue here, mercifully,
you might be thinking. But, as I'm last in the queue or pretty
close, I'll say this, I just want to give you the chance. We've
talked about what the past has been. Some people are going back
to creation. We've talked about the near-term effects of what
we're doing, the current effects of what we're doing.
But, you know, given the importance of dealing with this
issue existentially, given the fact that scarcity of water
creates wars, famine creates migration, everything that we have
and the immanence of things getting worse, could you take a few
moments and just share some of the discussions you've had and
the knowledge you've had, on what the future is going to look
like more concretely?
Not just deadlines for dates, but this is real stuff. This
is a real, there's a real urgency to this analysis. And can you
take a few minutes on those matters of how this is going to
affect the lives of everyone on this planet, how it's going to
affect all those areas. And just share with us some of the
things you have learned talking with others around the world.
Mr. Kerry. Well, thank you, Congressman. Obviously, we're
already seeing ways in which it's going to affect people. We've
had increasing, every year, increasing storm intensity, storm
damage.
We're spending billions--literally, actually, trillions. We
had a trillion in damages, I think, it was over the last 10
years. And that's money thrown away, in a sense. No, not that
it's inappropriate; we should be helping people afterwards. But
would not it make a lot more sense if we were avoiding that
damage in the first place, or minimizing it?
And you asked the question, what's it going to look like?
That depends on what we decide to do. It's very obvious that
there are huge threats here. Literally, food production for an
entire continent could implode. Water is already diminishing.
Last year, the Rhine River was down to inches. They had to stop
navigation on the river because of it. You're seeing glaciers
that are now absolutely predictable as to when they will be
completely gone. And at the rate the ice is melting in the
north and south of Antarctica and Arctic, there are dire
predictions now about how that's moved forward by about 30
years at the pace of which it is vanishing.
And parts of the earth are warming much faster than other
parts of the earth. The Arctic, for instance, is warning four
times faster than the rest of the earth, other places are.
We're hitting heat levels in places that have never been lived
by human beings on a regular basis.
So, you know, what is life going to look like in the
future? I'm an optimist. I'm genuinely an optimist about this.
I'm watching what is now happening because of the Inflation
Reduction Act. I'm seeing new processes, new seriousness of
purpose among people who up until now never thought they had to
be serious.
So, I have a sense that if we could come together and
continue to accelerate the reduction of these emissions, we
have an incredibly bright energy future staring us in the face.
We can have clean energy. We can have energy that if not
renewable, is still clean in nuclear, whichever.
You know, I look at the U.S. Navy, we've had ships that are
nuclear, a small nuclear plant that have never had a sailor
killed or lost or an accident. Never had a spill. We know how
to do this. We are just not choosing to do many of the things
that are available to us to be able to do.
So, I think there is a huge, exciting set of possibilities
for what will happen in this new economy that is going to
develop. And it is going to develop, because I see the most
serious of our entrepreneurs, the most successful of our
entrepreneurs, the best of our financiers, all of them are now
seized by this issue and they're out there trying to push new
processes, new technologies, new possibilities.
And if we do what historically we humans have done, we are
going to hopefully adapt and make the right choices.
Mr. Mast. The Chair now recognizes----
Mr. Keating. With that optimistic thought, I yield back.
Mr. Mast. Thank you. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Smith.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary. Welcome. It
is great to see you again. Let me just say at the outset how
grateful I was when you were Secretary of State. And
legislation that I had introduced to help end the practice of
child abduction. The bill passed twice. I named it after Sean
and David Goldman. Sean was a young man who was abducted to
Brazil.
You changed the policy of the Obama Administration, because
before that they were against it. It sat in the Senate for 5
years, having sent it over several times. And I want to thank
you for that. I had an oversight hearing on it just the other
day in my committee, the Human Rights Committee. And we are
mitigating the number of child abductions that are occurring
and helping to bring people back.
So, thank you so much. It was your change of heart, not
you, but the change within the Administration that made that
happen. So, I'm very, very grateful.
I would like to ask you if you could--you know, I had a
hearing last July. I've chaired 79 congressional hearings on
human rights abuse in China. My most recent was yesterday. I
chair the China Commission. We had Enes Freedom, who use to
play for the Celtics, was fired because he wore Free the
Uyghurs on his shoes. He was fired because of that.
And, as a result, the NBA, and I think in a cowardly way,
has told everybody in the NBA, just shut up, say nothing about
human rights in China. And his testimony yesterday was
absolutely compelling. And we're going to do a followup. We've
invited, or are inviting, the NBA to come to that hearing.
But, last July, I chaired a hearing on the Lantos
Commission, because we were out of power, it was Republican.
So, Lantos, we could call hearings. It was on the exploitation
of children and adults in the Democratic Republic of Congo who
are mining cobalt and soon will be mining lithium.
We found out, and I've raised this issue before, but the
hearing just was, you know, a catalyst for, we need to do more
on this. Something on the order of 40,000 children are in these
artisanal mines. They're dying. They're getting sick. There is
cave-ins. They're inhaling all kinds of debris without proper.
Now, who runs it all? The Chinese Communist Party. They own
just about every mine there. All of the finished product--well,
not finished, but the mined product of cobalt is sent to China
for processing. Then it goes into EVs by way of the batteries.
An, it seems to me that no matter where anybody comes down
on the advisability of having more electric vehicles, it should
not be on the backs of African children, be they in DR Congo or
anywhere else. And 70 percent of all the cobalt, as you know,
does come from the DR Congo.
I introduced a bill, H.R. 4443, that would look to enforce
the Tariff Act Section 307 and require an all-out effort to try
to protect those children and those adults from this egregious
human rights practice by the Chinese Communist Party.
I did meet with our Ambassador, and it was a very good
meeting, Lucy Tamlyn, a couple of weeks ago, to the DR Congo.
And I had known that they're talking about an MOU, but the
problem with the MOU is it's just aspirational. It's like Sense
of the Congress or Sense of the Senate language. There's no
teeth in it.
And I'm asking you today, you know, I know you are very
much in favor, as is the Administration, of electric vehicles.
But they should not be--the supply chain should not be
contingent on whether or not we get it from the DR Congo by way
of the Chinese Communist Party.
Please take a look at the bill. You know, we've got to
protect those kids and those adults. They are dying. We had
people talk about the lung diseases that they're getting. And
these kids have no healthcare, so they just die. And there's
beatings that are occurring by Chinese Communist Party soldiers
who are deployed there. And, unfortunately, the DR Congo
leadership just basically looks the other way, because they're
getting perhaps even paid off.
If you could speak to the issue of the cobalt, and soon the
lithium, that will also be coming out of the DR Congo.
Mr. Kerry. Well, Congressman Smith, thank you very much for
your persistent, over the years, work on all of this. You've
been really tenacious and super-focused on it. It was a
pleasure to work with you on it before.
Let me just say to you that we have an MOU with the DRC and
Zambia on advancing critical minerals now and to add processing
capacity there. So, we're focused on it. And I will convey your
thoughts to the appropriate bureau in the Department out of
this. But we thank you for that.
Mr. Smith. I would appreciate that. And again, the MOU is a
good idea, but it doesn't go far enough. It is all
aspirational. And, again, when the Chinese Communist Party is
paying people, high government officials, and there's
suggestions that that is happening.
Mr. Kerry. Yes.
Mr. Smith. You know, I would love for the DR Congo to own
it all and to spread the wealth that is gleaned from that to
their own people.
Mr. Kerry. Yes, it's not.
Mr. Smith. Instead of it all going and being processed by
the PRC, where another slave-labor-type process takes place
once it gets to China.
Mr. Kerry. Thank you.
Mr. Smith. So, please take a look at the bill. And I hope
you can support it.
Mr. Kerry. You got it. Thanks.
Mr. Smith. Thank you.
Mr. Mast. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Huizenga for 5
minutes.
Mr. Huizenga. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Secretary Kerry.
I appreciate the opportunity to ask you a couple of questions.
I'm going to, before I get into the Partnership for Global
Infrastructure and Investment and some other projects, I do
want to touch base on nuclear energy that has been somewhat
controversial. Obviously, ensuring a way of sufficient baseload
generation is significant.
I served in the Michigan Legislature on, spent 6 years on
the Energy and Technology Committee. I serve on the Financial
Services Committee and do a lot of work with the development
banks and have over my tenure here.
And I have in my district one of the--potentially one of
the first projects. It's called the Palisades Power Plant in
Covert, Michigan, that may be restarted. It's a program that is
new. It was on the brink of decommissioning and could come
back.
You know, obviously, the United States is working to assert
itself, reassert itself as a global energy leader. I think it's
wise, as we saw with what was happening in Europe, that we
break our own as well as our allies' dependence on energy
resources of global bad actors.
So, I'm curious, do you believe that projects like
Palisades and other that potentially are on there, would it
help us achieve these goals and reduce CO2 emissions? What's
your view on restarting some of these nuclear power plants?
Mr. Kerry. The Biden Administration is very proactive on
the nuclear front. We believe that nuclear--that you cannot
really reach the targets that have been set without some
nuclear.
Mr. Huizenga. OK. All right. I want to--I think I've got
about 3 minutes here. So, I'm going to try and move quickly.
At COP 26, you and Romanian President Klaus Iohannis
pledged that Romania would build a small modular nuclear
reactor project in which the Partnership for Global
Infrastructure and Investment invested $14 million. Are there
any concerns that your policy and willingness to, or potential
willingness to, forgo financial viability of projects to
satisfy the environmental side?
I mean, are you looking at the business model as you are
involved in these?
Mr. Kerry. Of course. It's imperative.
Mr. Huizenga. OK. All right. I want to move to a question
regarding sort of your scope and authority. I think this is a
new position. Very new to a lot of people, including those of
us that are constitutionally obligated to have oversight of
those things.
And I'm curious, does your funding, just making sure I
understand, does your funding to fund your 45 full-time
equivalent CFTs, as well as your salary and your travel, does
that all come out of the State Department?
Mr. Kerry. Yes.
Mr. Huizenga. OK. And yet you do not report to Secretary
Blinken, correct?
Mr. Kerry. Well, sure I do. I mean, I report, he's a friend
of mine.
Mr. Huizenga. But, I mean, I'm not trying to create a trap.
Mr. Kerry. No, no, no. I know you're not.
Mr. Huizenga. I'm just trying to understand.
Mr. Kerry. I know you're not. I'm just trying to say,
formally, in terms of strict legal accountability, I report to
the President of the United States.
Mr. Huizenga. OK. That's great.
Mr. Kerry. But, informally, obviously, I keep the Secretary
completely--there's only one Secretary.
Mr. Huizenga. That's informed. Yes.
Mr. Kerry. I keep him fully informed.
Mr. Huizenga. And you've served in that position.
Mr. Kerry. I consult with him. And----
Mr. Huizenga. Reclaiming my time on this.
Mr. Kerry. Sure. Go ahead.
Mr. Huizenga. You certainly--you served in that position.
In that position you had the authority and the ability to
negotiate on behalf of the United States, and had the ability
to bind it or speak on behalf of the President.
What are the scopes of your duties with this? And under
what authority are you able to go in and be able to, for all
intents and purposes, negotiate on behalf of the United States?
Mr. Kerry. Well, I'm negotiating, formally charged by the
President of the United States and his executive authority, and
the appropriate congressional notification and approval, an
executive order, et cetera, that created the job.
Mr. Huizenga. OK.
Mr. Kerry. So, we have had special envoys for years and
years and years. And we've used envoys in----
Mr. Huizenga. I do not think anything with quite this
scope.
Mr. Kerry. Well, that may be.
Mr. Huizenga. OK.
Mr. Kerry. Because of the scope of the problem.
Mr. Huizenga. Sure. All right. I need to hit one last thing
here. In March 9, 2022, an email from the SPEC's Office, Senior
Director of Climate Finance, the official wrote that a call or
a meeting should be held with you soon saying quote, I would
also suggest a call or meeting soon with JK to update him on
Fiscal Year and 1923, focusing on all the elements we cannot
put on paper.
What are those elements that couldn't be put on paper?
Mr. Kerry. I have no idea.
Mr. Huizenga. So, it sounds like we need to pull him in to
ask that question?
Mr. Kerry. Well, I do not know.
Mr. Huizenga. Or, are you willing to go ask and find out
and come back later with the answer?
Mr. Kerry. I would personally absolutely. I'm not sure what
it is that couldn't be put on paper.
Mr. Huizenga. All right. And I know my time is expiring
here. But, it's my understanding that there is a FOIA request
for Fiscal 2022 that the State Department has said they will
not be able to fulfil until 2025, April 2025.
Does that sound right to you?
Mr. Kerry. I spoke--yes, no. It doesn't sound right. But,
it sounds accurate.
Mr. Huizenga. Would that be acceptable?
Mr. Kerry. I spoke----
Mr. Huizenga. You and your Senatorial----
Mr. Kerry. No, that's not acceptable. And I believe it was
an algorithm that kicked that out kind of crazily. Maybe that's
a metaphor for other kinds of challenges.
But, no. I'm confident that I cannot imagine any FOIA that
would take that long.
Mr. Huizenga. So, you'll pledge to work with us on
expediting that?
Mr. Kerry. Well, we will communicate to the office that
you're asking and that it's important to try to get to it as
soon as possible.
Mr. Mast. Mr. Secretary, I know you have travel. And we
have one more member to ask questions.
Mr. Kerry. Sure.
Mr. Mast. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Pfluger for 5
minutes.
Mr. Pfluger. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for
allowing me to waive onto this Committee. Mr. Secretary, good
to see you.
I want to followup on a couple of things. Before I get to
that, I know you're traveling to China. I hope that that will
include touting American energy.
China has rapidly produced coal plants over the past couple
of years. They are concerned about baseload capacity. They are
concerned about reality.
And yet, we have Administration officials who are touting
the Chinese Communist Party as the leader around the world in
combating climate change. Which is just incredulous in its
nonsense.
So, I hope that on your trip there that you'll tout
American LNG. If we were to replace the coal plants that China
has, we could reduce the CO2 footprint immediately overnight by
about 50 percent.
So, following up on my colleague here, in your position as
Special Envoy, you made it clear that you do negotiate, you
know, on behalf of the President. But, let me ask you this.
Do you have the authority to bind agreements?
Mr. Kerry. No.
Mr. Pfluger. OK.
Mr. Kerry. No.
Mr. Pfluger. So, you're negotiating and those binding
agreements are the responsibility----
Mr. Kerry. They're not binding. They do not become a
binding agreement unless they're ratified by the Congress and
by the Senate.
And it's not a treaty that binds you. It's an executive
agreement. So, it's binding between that Administration, but
not beyond that.
Mr. Pfluger. OK.
Mr. Kerry. And it doesn't have the force of law in
international law.
Mr. Pfluger. In this position, do you advise President
Biden on energy policy?
Mr. Kerry. In terms of global challenges and U.S.
interests, yes.
Mr. Pfluger. Did you advise the President in recent months
to travel to Riyadh and to ask OPEC to increase production of
oil and gas?
Mr. Kerry. No, I did not.
Mr. Pfluger. So, Secretary Granholm testified before me on
my primary committee, in Energy and Commerce, and was a little
wiggly on whether or not she was the primary advisor on energy
policy for this Administration.
Mr. Kerry. Well, she is, in regard to, writ large, the
energy policy. Sure, she is the primary.
Mr. Pfluger. I'm glad to hear that answer. And I'm trying
to figure out who advised the President to go to Riyadh and ask
for an increase in production of oil and gas.
Let me ask you this. In previous times where we've had the
opportunity to have you before this Committee, I've asked the
question, do the renewable sources of energy, like wind and
solar, let's just be, let's just limit it to those, do they
have the ability to provide baseload capacity in this country?
Mr. Kerry. Back-up baseload, no. But, some primary they
could be part of it. But, can they on their own guarantee that
when the wind isn't blowing and the sun ain't shining, no.
Mr. Pfluger. No.
Mr. Kerry. That we all know.
Mr. Pfluger. Well, I think that's good. And I'm glad to
hear that, because that's really the fight that we're in.
Mr. Kerry. But, we could with battery. We could with--
there's ways to make that work. Germany is heading to a very
high percentage of renewable, others are.
Mr. Pfluger. I'm glad you brought up Germany. I'm actually
very concerned about the path the German government has taken.
Mr. Kerry. So, are we.
Mr. Pfluger. Because this repower plan is completely
ignoring nuclear. And instead of having Russian natural gas,
which does provide baseload capacity, they're moving in a
direction that could put them in a very, a very bad spot with
regards to baseload capacity.
When we look at the Administration's desire, specifically
of the EPA, to have a mandate for EVs in this country, and
there's a couple of different timelines. How much electricity
does the United States use on an annual basis right now?
Mr. Kerry. I do not know exactly where we are right now.
Mr. Pfluger. OK.
Mr. Kerry. I do not think it's----
Mr. Pfluger. It's 4,000 terawatts. How much additional
demand would we need if we got to, let's just call it 50
percent EV mandate, 287 million cars on the road?
Mr. Kerry. Probably double.
Mr. Pfluger. OK.
Mr. Kerry. I'm not sure.
Mr. Pfluger. That's actually what the Secretary of Energy
said. I think it's less than that. But, here's my point. Is
that I've questioned the EPA Director Regan, Secretary
Granholm, Mr. Goffman, other high ranking officials in the
Administration, and I do not believe anybody has done the math
on this.
And so, there's multiple balls in the air here when we're
talking about energy.
Mr. Kerry. Yes.
Mr. Pfluger. And I do not think anybody in the
Administration has actually done--I do not think, I know nobody
has done the math on this, because we cannot get a straight
answer.
And so, when you go to China and talk to the Chinese about
baseload capacity and the power that's required there, I think
they're doing the math on it and they're building coal plants
to meet that demand.
Mr. Kerry. Actually, I do not, with all due respect,
because I know you represent a district that has tremendous
wind in the Permian Basin and so forth, and so you have a lot
of knowledge of this.
But, I think there was a recent article showing that it
was, in fact, renewables that kind of helped Texas through the
hurdle of this heat, because of its reliability and where the
energy comes from.
But, let me just say to you that I think the math, I know
the math has been done. And I know that there's a clarity that
as the number of electric vehicles go up, as you electrify the
country in various ways, you're going to need a lot more power.
And that's precisely why the Administration is trying to
move on the permitting for many of the transmission lines that
are essential to being able to get that power out there.
So, we have about 2,000 gigawatts now of potential power in
the queue that is not able to be deployed. So, if we can deploy
more rapidly, we will fill the void, we will meet the need.
Mr. Pfluger. Mr. Chairman, I need 10 seconds. We are going
to enter into a crisis in this country if we do not use the
resources that are primary sources of energy.
I am not an all of the above fan anymore. I am a best of
the above fan. And, Mr. Secretary, please advocate for the best
of the above in this country, which starts with primary sources
like liquefied natural gas that comes out of the Permian Basin
that I represent.
And it's critical that we lead in the world, or we will be
cold, dark and----
Mr. Kerry. Do you also believe it's critical that they
capture the emissions if they're going to make them?
Mr. Pfluger. These companies are doing just that. We've
reduced emissions, harmful emissions, ones that are listed in
the Clean Air Act.
Mr. Kerry. And you believe that can be brought to scale?
Mr. Pfluger. We have scaled it----
Mr. Kerry. And be affordable?
Mr. Pfluger. We have scaled it in the Permian Basin. We've
gone from one million barrels a day, just 12 or 13 years ago,
to five and a half million barrels a day, 43 percent of the
total production in the United States. And, in doing that, we
have also reduced harmful emissions by over 40 percent.
Mr. Kerry. Well, that's great. And, look, I'm--and I've had
conversation with many of the CEOs of our biggest companies
asking them, and trying to get fully knowledgeable about what's
doable and what isn't here.
The key is, folks, we've got to meet the target of the
reduction of emissions that we know will help us avoid the
consequences of what's happening. That's the key.
And I'm not picking which way it's going to happen. I want
to see it happen, and we'll go from there.
Mr. Pfluger. Let's use the best of the above. Mr. Chairman,
thank you for letting me waive on. I yield back.
Mr. Mast. Thank you, Mr. Pfluger. Thank you, Mr. Secretary
for your time today. Thank you for your answers on this
Committee. We do not approve of engaging in personalities with
the witnesses. Though it is not a rule, it's not something that
we approve of. So, you have our Committee----
Mr. Kerry. Can I just mention one thing though, Mr.
Chairman?
Mr. Mast. Absolutely.
Mr. Kerry. And thank you for your stewardship of this
hearing, which I really appreciate. Because I didn't get a
chance to answer it, Congressman Waltz, I think it was, whoever
was asking about the airplanes.
Mr. Mast. You have a couple of minutes. As long as you have
time, you have a couple of minutes.
Mr. Kerry. No, because it's trivial in my mind. But I want
to make it clear because it keeps resurfacing. We are not, I
have not, President Biden has not, we are not saying to people,
you should not fly. That's not the message.
The message is, let's find a way to be able to make sure
when we fly, we're not leaving emissions that we cannot capture
or we aren't capturing them, we aren't avoiding them in the
first place by creating sustainable aviation fuel.
So, we're looking to technology to help us. And when
somebody says, well, we're asking--you're asking people to
sacrifice this and that. No. We do not believe that this
transition actually requires sacrifice.
We think it will wind up making life better, cleaner,
healthier, more secure. Our country will be strengthened. With
clean energy and some of our supply that avoids many of these
other problems.
So, you know, this battle over the airplane or whatever, is
kind of ridiculous, and not relevant to what we're really
trying to achieve here. You know, we're not saying to people
you shouldn't fly. You should fly. But let's find a way to make
sure that's not contributing emissions, just as when you drive
we do not want to be contributing emissions.
Or when you have a building. Buildings are a big source of
emissions. We have to build them in a way that they're not
contributing pollution, which is in effect what it is, in ways
that hurt people.
So, that's our hope. That we can get onto a sort of more
serious, how do we solve this problem? Which I think is self-
evident to anybody whose eyes are open and whose mind is open
at the same time.
Mr. Mast. I appreciate your closing thoughts.
Mr. Kerry. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Mast. Just to wrap up a few thoughts for myself. I
would say this, I started with some questions myself. I did not
get all the answers that I wanted.
But, it is important that your office, every office, every
congressional office, that they have transparency. It's
important that we know what your mission statement is, what
you're trying to do on behalf of the American people, whether
every American agrees with you or not.
It's important for us to know those that are working in
your office, what backgrounds they come from. The ways in which
individuals are vetted.
For me personally, you know, there's various kinds of power
that we see the United States of America wielding. When it's
hard power, I think it's important that we put the fear of God
into those that challenge us.
When it's soft power, I think it's important that we look
at every way in which that soft power may help Americans
thrive, or may help our adversaries, our enemies, or those that
wish to rise up against us to potentially thrive, and take that
accordingly into account.
And I hope that you do that. In that, I would just say
this. I wish you well on your travels. I wish you safety on
your travels. I thank you for your testimony.
Other members of the Subcommittee may have some additional
questions for the witness, and we would ask that you do respond
to those in writing.
And I will now recognize my colleague here, Mr. Crow, for 5
minutes of closing remarks if he has any.
Mr. Crow. Thank you, Chairman. And thank you, Secretary
Kerry, for your testimony and your time here today.
First of all, I just want to rebut a couple of themes that
were prevalent throughout the hearing. It is wrong to say that
your office, and the State Department, and folks that work with
you and for you, have been nothing but transparent. Just
yesterday you produced 700 pages of material in response to
requests from this Committee.
And you have been, in my view, nothing but transparent and
open, and including today, spending well over 2 hours answering
everybody's questions. Staying until the very end and ensuring
that everybody had their opportunity. And I thank you for that.
It is also wrong to say that engagement with the world,
including with our adversaries and those who we do not have,
you know, common ground in all areas, is in any way a show of
weakness. You know, it is actually a show of strength to engage
with the world. And to do so from a position of confidence.
Right.
We do not have to have his crisis of confidence where we
shy away from tough conversations and tough situations. And you
have shown that very clearly. And I applaud your effort,
including today. Going to have very hard conversations with
people that we have very deep seated disagreements with,
because that's in the best interest of the American people.
And it is also wrong to be the subject of personal attacks.
And I'm grateful to the Chairman for actually calling out that
that is not the course and conduct of this Committee to engage
in personalities.
So, thank you, Chairman, for mentioning that. Because you
have been a public servant to this Nation in a variety of
capacities for your adult life, including your own military
service as well, of which we find common faith and fidelity in.
And I am grateful for that.
So, you know, there is this saying in politics, of when you
cannot attack the message, when you have nothing to say, you
attack the messenger. And, unfortunately, you are at the brunt
end of that today.
So, you know, we will respond accordingly. But thank you
for being calm and for staying focused on the important issues.
But these are substantive issues. And the American people
deserve a full and robust discussion about it. And you have
adequately outlined for the Committee and for the American
people that this is in our best economic interest.
The economic future of this country relies on us making
this transition. There will be more jobs, a stronger economy, a
more resilient economy. That our safety relies on us making
this transition in reducing the risk of flood, to wildfire, to
pandemic, to crop collapse, and so many other major crisis that
our world and our country face.
And it's in our national security interest that we make
this transition. That we will be a safer and more prosperous
country if we engage globally. If we win the strategic
competition around the world and we address these national
security issues.
So, thank you for making that strong case. And I join the
Chairman in wishing you well on your travels. And I yield back
the balance of my time. Thank you.
Mr. Mast. Pursuant to Committee rules, all members may have
5 days to submit statements, questions, extraneous materials
for the record, subject to the length limitations.
Without objection, the Committee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:54 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
APPENDIX
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RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
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