[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 

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

                                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                    
          
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------     
                      
                      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

                              ----------                              
                                                                   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
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]	

            RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]	

                                 [all]