[Senate Hearing 118-75]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 118-75
WHO PAYS THE PRICE:
THE REAL COST OF FOSSIL FUELS
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HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
May 3, 2023
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Budget
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
www.govinfo.gov
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
53-166 WASHINGTON : 2023
COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island, Chairman
PATTY MURRAY, Washington CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa
RON WYDEN, Oregon MIKE CRAPO, Idaho
DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina
BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin
MARK R. WARNER, Virginia MITT ROMNEY, Utah
JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon ROGER MARSHALL, Kansas
TIM KAINE, Virginia MIKE BRAUN, Indiana
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland JOHN KENNEDY, Louisiana
BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico RICK SCOTT, Florida
ALEX PADILLA, California MIKE LEE, Utah
Dan Dudis, Majority Staff Director
Kolan Davis, Republican Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Mallory B. Nersesian, Chief Clerk
Alexander C. Scioscia, Hearing Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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WEDNESDAY, MAY 3, 2023
OPENING STATEMENTS BY COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Page
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Chairman............................. 1
Prepared Statement........................................... 30
Senator Charles E. Grassley, Ranking Member...................... 3
Prepared Statement........................................... 32
STATEMENTS BY COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Senator Tim Kaine................................................ 14
Senator Ron Johnson.............................................. 16
Senator Roger Marshall........................................... 18
Senator Ben Ray Lujan............................................ 20
Senator Mike Braun............................................... 21
WITNESSES
Dr. Ted Gayer, President, Niskanen Center........................ 6
Prepared Statement........................................... 34
Dr. Nicole Deziel, Associate Professor of Epidemiology, Yale
School of Public Health........................................ 7
Prepared Statement........................................... 41
Ms. Diana Furchtgott-Roth, Director of the Center for Energy,
Climate, and Environment, The Heritage Foundation.............. 9
Prepared Statement........................................... 57
APPENDIX
Responses to post-hearing questions for the Record
Dr. Gayer.................................................... 71
Dr. Deziel................................................... 74
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth.......................................... 76
Charts submitted by Chairman Sheldon Whitehouse.................. 77
Document submitted for the Record by Chairman Sheldon Whitehouse. 78
Statement submitted for the Record by Our Children's Trust....... 83
WHO PAYS THE PRICE: THE REAL COST OF FOSSIL FUELS
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WEDNESDAY, MAY 3, 2023
Committee on the Budget,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
The hearing was convened, pursuant to notice, at 10:04
a.m., in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Sheldon
Whitehouse, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Whitehouse, Kaine, Lujan, Grassley,
Johnson, Marshall, Braun, and R. Scott.
Also present: Democratic staff: Dan Dudis, Majority Staff
Director; Matthew Bolden, Climate Policy Advisor.
Republican staff: Chris Conlin, Deputy Staff Director;
Krisann Pearce, General Counsel; Nick Wyatt, Professional Staff
Member; Jordan Pakula, Professional Staff Member.
Witnesses:
Dr. Ted Gayer, President, Niskanen Center
Dr. Nicole Deziel, Associate Professor of Epidemiology,
Yale School of Public Health
Ms. Diana Furchtgott-Roth, Director of the Center for
Energy, Climate, and Environment, The Heritage Foundation
OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN WHITEHOUSE \1\
Chairman Whitehouse. Let me call the hearing to order and
express my appreciation to the witnesses for their patience.
Senator Grassley and I and other members have multiple
committee hearings taking place during the day and where you
stand in the queue in those other committees depends on whether
you have checked in in person. Senator Grassley and I are both
checking in in person in finance, and I thank you all for your
patience.
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\1\ Prepared statement of Chairman Whitehouse appears in the
appendix on page 30.
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We are going to start with opening remarks by me and
Senator Grassley and then I will introduce the witnesses. We
will proceed with five minute statements and then go on to
questions and answers.
I want to welcome everyone to what is our seventh committee
hearing on the economic and budgetary perils of our
overdependence on fossil fuels. We have heard repeated
testimony from non-partisan, knowledgeable industry leaders
about the threat climate change poses to entire sectors of our
economy, healthcare, insurance, coastal economies, wildfire
areas and, of course, the carbon bubble, leaving fossil fuel
assets stranded. So in light of those threats and warnings,
what are we, the federal government doing, to protect the
American people? Well, actually what we are doing is
subsidizing the danger. As we will hear today, the United
States subsidizes the fossil fuel industry with taxpayer
dollars. It is not just the U.S. according to the International
Energy Agency. The fossil fuel handouts hit a global high of $1
trillion in 2022, the same year that big oil pulled in a record
$4 trillion of income. You see the dependence on public funds.
In the United States, by some estimates, taxpayers pay
about $20 billion every year to the fossil fuel industry. What
do we get for that? Economists generally agree, not much. To
quote conservative economist Gib Metcalf, these subsidies
offer, and I quote, ``little, if any, benefit in the form of
oil patch jobs, lower prices at the pump or increased energy
security for the country.'' The cash subsidy to big oil is both
big and wrong.
But the really big subsidy is the license to pollute for
free. The IMF called this global free pass an implicit fossil
fuel subsidy. Economists call it an unpriced externality.
Behind these benign sounding phrases occurs a lot of harm.
Start with the harmful effects of local air pollution.
Researchers from Harvard found pollutants from oil and gas
combustion were responsible for 8.7 million premature deaths
annually. The increased mortality rates from heat and air
pollution we heard about at last week's hearing. Then growing
costs from intensifying disasters, wildfires, floods, droughts,
which according to the United States Office of Management and
Budget (OMB) could cost the federal budget $2 trillion annually
and reduce U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) 3 to 10 percent by
the end of the century.
You tally up the harms and the International Monetary Fund
estimates that the penalty is a $5.4 trillion annual subsidy
worldwide. In the United States, it is a $646 billion subsidy
every single year. Worse, this almost certainly undercounts the
true costs. The London School of Economics reports that studies
often underestimate the harm of climate dangers by failing to
account for, as we've heard in these hearings, how hazards can
cascade across ecological and economic systems.
The cascades can cause irreparable damage to human well-
being, to ecosystems and to the U.S. economy. These are the
systemic risks that we have been hearing about in these
hearings. And as we'll hear from one of our witnesses today,
the very act of extracting these dirty fuels has terrible
consequences for human health, especially for children. From
high rates of birth defects to childhood leukemia, there is
ample evidence that communities around oil and gas extraction
sites pay an especially high price.
It is textbook economics that the price of a product should
reflect its true cost. The fossil fuel industry violates this
rule of market economies. It does so by spending billions of
dollars on disinformation, false doubt, climate obstruction and
political dark money. And why not, to protect one of the most
lucrative subsidies in human history? This, ladies and
gentlemen, is why we can't have nice things like clean air,
safe coral reefs, secure coast lines and affordable clean
energy.
Over in the House, MAGA extremists are doubling down on
polluter handouts to their big donors with their Default on
America Act that put the American taxpayer on the hook for
climate disaster. That bill is not about debts or deficits.
It is dirty work for an industry that controls one of the
main political parties in this country.
Oil and gas extraction represents only about 5 percent of
GDP. Farming, manufacturing, food and beverage, insurance,
finance, restaurants, retail, housing, healthcare, all
represent a larger share of GDP. Clean energy now accounts for
more employment than the fossil fuel industry. But for
political influence, to protect those massive subsidies,
nothing compares to fossil fuel.
It is a fundamental principle of democracy that everyone
should get an equal say. But with fossil fuel, the rich and the
powerful hoard all the benefits for themselves and leave
everyone else, often the most vulnerable Americans, to pay the
price.
Senator Grassley.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR GRASSLEY \2\
Senator Grassley. Last week's hearing on climate change and
public health was another missed opportunity to discuss our
nation's ailing fiscal health. That same day, House Republicans
passed legislation to reign in excessive government spending,
lift the debt ceiling and impose meaningful fiscal controls.
Meanwhile, Senate Democrats haven't lifted a single finger.
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\2\ Prepared statement of Senator Grassley appears in the appendix
on page 32.
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Now instead of working together to write a responsible
budget, we are here discussing an alleged scheme involving
fossil fuel overlords. Rather than attacking important American
businesses that employ tens of thousands of Americans, we
should work together to reduce an unsustainable national debt.
Reaching a consensus will require us to respectfully listen
to opinions of experts whose views may differ from our own. No
one learns anything sitting in an echo chamber. This is one
reason why I have invited witnesses with a variety of views
during this series of climate change hearings.
Sometimes I have discussed with a witness that I invited on
this or that subject, but sometimes I have disagreed with
witnesses I have invited on this or that, but I value their
opinions. Today is no different. Ms. Furchtgott-Roth and I
don't see eye to eye on all energy matters, particularly when
it comes to renewable fuels and wind. However, we do agree oil
and gas are critical to lowering energy costs, protecting our
national security and reducing CO2 emissions. We also agree
that President Biden's war on fossil fuels has been disastrous
for the economy and terrible for consumers.
I believe in all-of-the-above energy strategies, oil, gas,
biofuel, wind. We need them, all for national security and for
economic success. President Biden, on the other hand, believes
in all of his preferred and none-of-the-rest strategy.
It is kind of simple in this town, people say they are all
of the above. Well, half of them are for none of the above, but
everything below. And the other half are for everything above
but nothing below the ground. This sort of one size fits all to
solving this problem just doesn't make sense.
I have been saying for 30 years, a long time before climate
change was much of a debate, that we had four goals that we had
to have for energy policy, one, fossil fuels, number two, all
of the alternative energy you can think of and number three,
conservation, both government-imposed and personally imposed,
and four, nuclear. It seems to me that that is still a policy
we are going to have for the next 25 years except for the
unrealistic views that we can get everything by wind tomorrow.
Poor policy decisions have consequences. And as a result,
we have seen energy prices rise substantially across the board.
This is why the two leading topics of concern that I have heard
from Iowans during the Biden Administration have been inflation
and the price of gasoline. The President can deflect blame all
he wants, but the rise in the price of gasoline has been a
direct consequence of his administration's energy policies.
Candidate Biden vowed to end fossil fuels during his
campaign. On his first day in office, he decided to shut down
the Keystone pipeline, stifling our ongoing energy independence
and killing thousands of jobs. Also in January 2021, he issued
an executive order pausing new oil and gas leases on public
lands and federal waters.
And now he complains because Saudi Arabia is cutting down
on the pumping of oil by $1 million a day and the price going
up, and we reduced the national strategic reserve to the lowest
level in 40 years. It just doesn't make sense that we would
stop jobs in this country to increase more jobs in Saudi Arabia
and import the oil here and probably dirtier oil than we
produce in this country. A barrage of his destructive
environmental regulations followed, which continue to prevent
the construction of much needed fossil fuel infrastructure.
Last month, President Biden issued his first veto to uphold
his 401(k) investment rule. The rule will even hurt everyday
Americans' investment just to further liberal Environmental
Social Corporate Governance, or ESG as you know it, whereas the
federal law requires under the Employee Retirement Income
Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) that the fiduciary has the
responsibility to make sure that you get the most return on
your money. That's what the law says. And this administration,
through ESG, is violating that law.
And just a few weeks later, President Biden's Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) announced his plan to mandate two-
thirds of all new vehicles be electric by 2032. These are the
same Electric Vehicles (EVs) most Americans can't afford. The
same EVs that they say in California last year don't plug in
during the heavy use of utilities because you may not get the
electricity to charge your EV. But Democrats want to continue
subsidizing these as part of their misnamed Inflation Reduction
Act, which by now the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has
proven to not reduce inflation but actually enhance inflation.
And that's that green energy program that is within that bill
that has a price tag that seems to be ballooning way above what
CBO said it was going to be.
And to prove that, we have the Joint Committee on Taxation
telling us its tax subsidies will cost $300 billion more than
originally advertised, and its costs could rise further once we
receive updated scores of EV subsidies.
The average price of an electric vehicle according to
Kelley Blue Book is $65,000, roughly the equivalent of Iowa's
median household income. But even if half of the Americans
could afford an EV, which they can't, an even bigger problem
exists. We have neither the load capacity nor the materials to
achieve President Biden's energy overhaul.
Large swaths of the U.S. electric grid are at risk for
shortfalls this summer. Grid reliability is a significant
concern already let alone the concerns over the grid handling
load of President Biden's electric vehicle fantasy. Moreover,
we all know that the Communist Party of China has a monopoly on
critical mineral mining and refining required to build EV
batteries. They are forcing Uyghurs into slavery to bolster
their supply chains. That is all being supported by this
administration. Meanwhile, environmentalists won't allow us to
permit mining projects here in the United States.
And think of inconsistency between the human rights
policies of this administration, which I have no disagreement
with, but letting the Uyghurs, with forced labor, to produce
some of the stuff that we are going to use in our electric
vehicle cars or look at what, I think it is cobalt or something
else that we get from the Congo Republic, that child labor is
being used to produce. And this administration and the
Republicans in this Congress are against using child labor for
anything as far as that is concerned.
So not only is this administration pushing policies that
drive up the price of gasoline, but their policies would make
us even more dependent on a supply chain that runs directly
through China. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you, Senator Grassley. Let me
just take a moment and salute you for your long-term leadership
on conservation issues on alternative fuels, particularly
ethanol, and on wind power which is important in your home
state.
Mr. Grassley. I am the father of the Wind Energy Tax
Credit.
Chairman Whitehouse. There you go exactly and have defended
it very strongly. And we worked together.
Mr. Grassley. We get 60 percent of our electricity from
wind. And in 4 years, we will get about 80 percent.
Chairman Whitehouse. And for what it is worth, my Chevy
Bolt is very affordable. Let me turn first--let me introduce
the witnesses. We have Ted Gayer here. He is the President of
the Niskanen Center. He was formerly the Executive Vice
President of the Brookings Institute. He served as Deputy
Assistant Secretary for Microeconomic Analysis at the
Department of Treasury and as a senior economist on the Council
of Economic Advisors under President George W. Bush. We welcome
his testimony.
Next, we have Dr. Nicole Deziel, who is an Associate
Professor at the Yale School of Public Health. She is an expert
on the human health impacts of oil and gas development. Her
work has contributed to the field's understanding of the
underlying exposure mechanisms, the unequal distribution of the
health impacts, and the policies for mitigating these dangerous
hazards. We look forward to her testimony.
Finally, Ms. Diana Furchtgott-Roth is the director of the
Center for Energy, Climate and the Environment at the Heritage
Foundation and an Adjunct Professor at George Washington
University (GW). She was formerly a senior fellow at the
Manhattan Institute and the Hudson Institute as well as a
fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
She served in the White House under Presidents Reagan,
George H.W. Bush and W. Bush and as Deputy Assistant Secretary
for Research and Technology at the Department of Transportation
as well as Acting Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy of
Treasury during the Trump Administration.
Dr. Gayer, welcome. You have five minutes to deliver your
statement.
STATEMENT OF DR. TED GAYER, PRESIDENT, NISKANEN CENTER \3\
Dr. Gayer. Chairman Whitehouse, Ranking Member Grassley and
members of the committee, thank you for inviting me here today.
My name is Ted Gayer, and I am the President of the Niskanen
Center. As Senator Whitehouse said, I previously served as
Deputy Assistant Secretary at the Department of Treasury and a
senior economist at the Council of Economic Advisors, both in
the George W. Bush Administration.
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\3\ Prepared statement of Dr. Gayer appears in the appendix on page
34.
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I want to address three points today. First, instead of
providing subsidies to fossil fuels, our Tax Code should
promote market incentives that factor in the external costs of
energies.
Second, the size of the existing fossil fuel subsidies
depends on various factors, such as whether one if focusing on
their overall size or their size compared to subsidies granted
to other industries, as well as whether, as Senator Whitehouse
mentioned, when it counts for the external costs of fossil
fuels.
And third, eliminating fossil fuels would have a minimal
impact on both fossil fuel production and prices.
Historically, federal energy tax policies have at various
times sought to boost domestic energy production, generate tax
revenue and promote environmental quality. These goals are
often in conflict, such as when we impose a gas guzzler tax to
reduce fuel consumption while we simultaneously subsidize oil
production to increase output.
Energy tax policies should instead address the sizable
external costs of energy consumption, such as the costs
associated with climate change and in particular pollution by
implementing a carbon tax that encourages consumers and
producers to reduce emissions through market incentives.
However, the presence of fossil fuel subsidies in the current
Tax Code contradicts this goal.
Most fossil fuel subsidies are implemented as tax
expenditures in our Tax Code. The Joint Committee on Taxation,
which I will refer to as JCT, defines a tax expenditure as a
provision that deviates from their baseline income tax. If one
considers a consumption tax as a baseline tax system, then many
current provisions would not qualify as tax expenditures.
Furthermore, several fossil fuel tax expenditures apply to
other industries within and outside the energy sector, so their
magnitude depends on whether one is interested in their overall
size or the size compared to subsidies granted to other
industries.
There are four significant types of tax provisions for
fossil fuels: cost recovery, the treatment of inventories, the
treatment of foreign profits and tax credits. JCT classifies
most provisions within these categories as tax expenditures.
According to JCT, the total value of fossil fuel tax
expenditures from 2022 to 2026 will be approximately $12
billion. However, this estimate would be smaller if one
considers the size of these expenditures relative to other
industries. For example, the last in, first out accounting
method in some accelerated depreciation provisions apply to all
industries under current law.
It is also worth noting that not all oil and natural gas
companies can fully benefit from these tax provisions. For
example, small non-integrated oil and gas producers get a more
generous treatment than big integrated oil and gas producers in
expensive and intangible drilling costs.
Fossil fuel subsidies are unlikely to help increase
production in the United States significantly. The
Congressional Budget Office estimates that fossil fuel
subsidies led to a minimal impact of about a half a percent
more domestic oil production. The U.S. Treasury and academic
studies, such as the one Senator Whitehouse alluded to, also
finds similarly small effects of these subsidies on domestic
production.
This means that they currently do not achieve the goal of
insulating domestic prices from foreign supply disruptions,
particularly since prices are determined in the global market.
In conclusion, fossil fuel subsidies move us away from
energy prices that accurately represent the extensive external
costs associated with their use. My preferred policy is a
border adjusted carbon tax that creates incentives to account
for the costs for energy use.
This would provide incentives for businesses to innovate,
to use cleaner energy sources and to invest in more carbon
efficient production techniques.
Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Grassley, thank you once more
for the opportunity to speak today, and I look forward to the
questions.
Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you, sir. Dr. Deziel.
STATEMENT OF DR. NICOLE DEZIEL, PhD, MHS, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR,
YALE SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH, DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL
HEALTH SCIENCES, YALE SCHOOL OF THE ENVIRONMENT, YALE SCHOOL OF
ENGINEERING & APPLIED SCIENCE, DEPARTMENT OF CHEMICAL AND
ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING \4\
Dr. Deziel. Chairman Whitehouse, Ranking Member Grassley,
and distinguished Members of the Senate Budget Committee, it is
an honor to participate in today's hearing.
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\4\ Prepared statement of Dr. Deziel appears in the appendix on
page 41.
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My name is Nicole Deziel, and I am an Associate Professor
at the Yale School of Public Health in the Department of
Environmental Health Sciences. My testimony will address the
human health impacts of oil and gas development.
These remarks are informed by a strong body of evidence,
including my own 9 years of research and more than 25
publications on the exposures, health and environmental justice
impacts of oil and gas development. I have five key points to
share today.
First, living near an oil and gas development has been
associated with a range of health problems, with the greatest
evidence of risks reported for children. In 2021, there were
nearly a million oil and gas wells in operation and
approximately 18 million U.S. residents living within one mile
of an oil and gas well.
More than 50 peer-reviewed epidemiologic studies, including
some from my own research group, provide evidence of a
relationship between oil and gas development and adverse health
outcomes such as birth defects, childhood leukemia,
hospitalizations, asthma exacerbations, mental health issues
and mortality among the elderly. The weight of evidence
indicates that the risk of adverse health outcomes increases
with the greater proximity to, or density of, oil and gas wells
around people's homes.
The strongest evidence is for health in newborn babies,
such as birth defects, preterm birth and low birth weight. Such
associations have been observed across numerous states
including Pennsylvania, Colorado, Ohio, California, Texas and
Oklahoma. The consistency of results across multiple studies
that were conducted using different methodologies, in different
locations, during different time periods and different
populations provides confidence in this body of research.
Two, a growing number of environmental monitoring studies
have concluded that oil and gas development contributes to air
pollution, noise, odors, water contamination, radioactive
releases, seismic activity and increased traffic.
Three, exposures and health risks are not distributed
equally across communities, with disproportionate impacts for
some disadvantaged populations. As we have seen time and time
again with other industrial and hazardous sites, certain
subgroups of the population, such as communities of color or
lower income bear a disproportionate burden of exposures and
health risks from oil and gas development.
For example, studies in Texas and Ohio demonstrated that
oil and gas wastewater disposal wells were more likely to be
sited in communities of color or areas of lower income. In
Texas, Hispanic populations were more likely to be exposed to
flaring, a practice of burning excess gas, yielding light at
night, noise and noxious odors.
We found that communities with a higher proportion of lower
income and elderly populations in rural areas were the most
vulnerable to groundwater pollution from hydraulic fracturing
in the Appalachian Basin.
Finally, a recent California study found that Black,
Hispanic, and socioeconomically marginalized people had
disproportionately higher exposure to oil and gas wells.
Four, the limited availability of monitoring data,
particularly in rural areas where substantial drilling occurs
is a challenge to understanding the hazards and risks fully.
Five, multiple complementary strategies would more
adequately address oil and gas hazards and better protect
community health.
One of the most commonly used policy protections for
communities near oil and gas wells currently are setbacks,
which is the allowable distance between an oil and gas well and
a sensitive receptor, such as a home or school.
The utility of setbacks is based on the premise that
hazards emitted by oil and gas operations attenuate with
distance. While setbacks do offer critical public health
protections to nearby communities, many states have not updated
them to reflect the current science. And it is challenging to
establish a universal distance that protects against all
hazards because hazards decrease at different rates.
Furthermore, setbacks do nothing to prevent the release of
methane or other greenhouse gases that contribute to climate
change.
In conclusion, there is clear evidence for health hazards
from oil and gas development, and these are not being
adequately addressed by current policies. Thank you. And I look
forward to your questions.
Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you, Doctor. And now Ms.
Furchtgott-Roth, welcome.
STATEMENT OF DIANA FURCHTGOTT-ROTH, DIRECTOR, CENTER ON ENERGY,
CLIMATE AND ENVIRONMENT AND THE HERBERT AND JOYCE MORGAN FELLOW
IN ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY, THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION \5\
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth. Thank you very much, Chairman
Whitehouse, Ranking Member Grassley. Thanks for giving me the
opportunity to testify today about who pays the price of
President Biden's energy policies.
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\5\ Prepared statement of Ms. Furchtgott-Roth appears in the
appendix on page 57.
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I direct the Center for Energy, Climate and Environment at
The Heritage Foundation, and I am an Adjunct Professor at
George Washington University.
Let me start out by saying that I am an American due to
fossil fuels. My father on a job interview here in 1967 was so
impressed that Americans heated their bathrooms that he moved
his whole family here from London.
In London, my dad heated the house with kerosene heaters,
filling them up every night, which gives me a profound
appreciation both for fossil fuels and for central heating
systems.
Poor and middle class people pay a steep price for
President Biden's energy agenda. They suffer a decline in
value, safety and security while the regulations do not
mitigate climate change because emissions are simply displaced
to China and other poorer countries.
Americans' oil and gas jobs are being sacrificed to Chinese
making wind turbines and solar panels. Americans' auto jobs are
being sacrificed to Chinese making batteries and mining for
rare earth minerals. Sometimes Chinese slaves and child workers
are taking these American jobs. We are supposedly doing all of
this to improve the climate, but displacing energy intensive
manufacturing to China does not reduce global emissions.
In order to produce renewables, China is increasing its
construction of coal-fired power plants. America has 225 coal-
fired power plants, and China has over 1,000. That is half of
all the coal-fired power plants in the world. That is one
reason why China has increased carbon emissions by over 5,000
million metric tons over the past 16 years while America's
carbon emissions have declined by 1,000 million metric tons due
to the use of our clean natural gas.
Last week, Stellantis, after closing an Illinois plant in
December, announced it would be cutting 3,500 jobs due to its
forced transition to electric vehicles. GM and Ford are also
laying off workers for the same reason.
United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain said on April 26,
``this is a slap in the face to our members, their families,
their communities and the American people who saved this
company 15 years ago. Even now politicians and taxpayers are
bankrolling the electric vehicle transition, and this is the
thanks the working class gets.''
In April, the Joint Tax Committee estimated that green tax
credits from the Inflation Reduction Act will cost taxpayers
$570 billion from 2023 to 2033. As of 2022, wind and solar
power produced less than 6 percent of our domestic primary
energy consumption. The reality is that the federal government
is spending billions on renewables, making electricity
disproportionately more expensive for poor people.
Fossil fuel companies generate tax revenues for federal,
state and local governments. The oil and tax and gas extraction
industry paid 19 percent of income in federal taxes in 2018
compared to 11 percent for industries as a whole.
In order to comply with EPA's recent proposed rules to
regulate tailpipe emissions, 60 percent of vehicles would have
to be battery powered electric in 2030. These regulations would
make new and used cars disproportionately more expensive for
the poor and middle class people who can least afford them.
The Department of Energy also wants to regulate other
appliances, depriving Americans of the ability to have a simple
gas stove. Poor and middle class people will be
disproportionately paying higher appliance prices.
Fossil fuels are essential for fertilizers and agriculture.
If the world gives up its agricultural security, countries will
see higher food costs and decreased food access with poor
people disproportionately paying the price for higher food
costs. Already this year U.S. food prices have risen over 8
percent. Eggs are over $4 a box, and milk is $4 a gallon.
President Biden's plan to transition away from fossil fuels
is making the United States weaker and China stronger without
noticeable effects on global temperatures.
Thank you for allowing me to testify today.
Chairman Whitehouse. Let me begin with a few questions for
Dr. Gayer if I may. Doctor, your doctorate is in economics,
correct?
Dr. Gayer. Yes, sir.
Chairman Whitehouse. Could you explain what economists mean
by the term externality, particularly in the context of fossil
fuels?
Dr. Gayer. I would be delighted to. I will do it in
economist talk. You actually did a much better job, I think,
when you talked about subsidizing the license to pollute for
free. The idea of textbook economics is you want the market
price to reflect the cost of producing the good that you are
selling.
And in most cases, the market does a fine job of that, and
we would not need to have any hearings or, I would hope,
government involvement in it. But we need to account,
especially when it comes to certain environments, that when a
production process is causing health costs, such as Nicole had
referred to, or climate costs, as you and I had talked to,
those costs are not going to be reflected in the market price.
And so the economic prescription for that is simple, which
is to try and set a tax equal to that price, so not to shut
down a market, not to penalize unnecessarily. It is not a
matter of retribution. It is a matter of what makes good
economic sense, and it accounts for the cost of the production
of a good. So that is internalized into the production and
consumption decisions. And it relies on the power of prices in
order to allocate these goods accordingly.
Chairman Whitehouse. Simply put, if you had two factories
on the same river, and one was throwing all of its trash and
waste into the river and the other was paying to have it
cleaned up, that would be an unfair subsidy of the one that was
throwing all of its trash and waste in the river, correct?
Dr. Gayer. Yes. That is much more elegantly put than my
textbook example, but yes.
Chairman Whitehouse. If we were to do a carbon price, that
creates the risk of giving advantage to overseas competitors.
Dr. Gayer. Yes.
Chairman Whitehouse. And your testimony calls for your
carbon price idea to be border adjusted.
Dr. Gayer. Yes.
Chairman Whitehouse. Could you explain what you mean by it
being border adjusted and what kind of effect that would have
on pollution from other countries, specifically China and
India?
Dr. Gayer. Yes. So one of the attributes of a carbon tax is
relative to a lot of other policies, it is actually not super
complicated to administer. You levy the tax at the source. If
it is a domestic source, you levy it at the coal mine or the
well head. But if you were to just stop there, then imported
goods would not--their prices would not reflect the carbon
content of their goods and, as you said, would give an unfair
advantage to foreign imports.
And so the idea of a border adjusted tax is to make sure
that any goods that we import, their costs reflect the same
external that domestic producers are facing. And so you would
adjust the tax and make sure that they are subject to the same
tax.
The advantage of doing so, I would say, are twofold. One is
in the realm of economics. As you said, it doesn't--it would
alleviate or eliminate any competitive advantage that foreign
companies would have in exporting to the United States if we
had a carbon tax.
And, two, it's less about economics and more diplomacy. And
we need to get it to the world where we are leading the world
in addressing climate change and doing so and levying a tax
internally and also on products that people sell to the United
States is a clear signal that we need reciprocity and this
needs to be a global solution.
Chairman Whitehouse. You just passed its carbon border
adjustment mechanism. They call it their CBAM. That will put
tariffs on United States goods and far steeper tariffs on
Chinese goods. And they suggest that will move the European
supply chain from China to the United States, increasing jobs
and manufacturing here in the United States, specifically in
steel, aluminum, cement, pharma and other, you know, major
industries. Does that sound right to you and how would domestic
industries benefit----
Dr. Gayer. Yeah, I----
Chairman Whitehouse [continuing]. From carbon border
adjustment?
Dr. Gayer. I don't know the particular of their pricing,
but it does sound right to me. And I believe their pricing is
again reflecting the relevant carbon content of the goods that
China versus the U.S. exports. And to the extent that we are
less carbon intensive than the Chinese, we would be subject to
less of a levy, which would make us more competitive on those
industries.
Chairman Whitehouse. Dr. Deziel, your publications that you
mentioned are peer reviewed?
Dr. Deziel. That is correct.
Chairman Whitehouse. What does that mean to the laymen
listening?
Dr. Deziel. Yes. Peer review is the process we use in the
scientific community to ensure the quality of existing
research. So when we submit journals for publication, they
undergo intense scrutiny from multiple other scientists who are
not involved with the work to check the numbers, check the
assumptions, check the interpretation and make sure the studies
are valid.
Chairman Whitehouse. Your work focuses on your multiple
observations. The proximity to oil and gas production
facilities has enormous health effects, adverse health effects
on children. What would you say is the specific vector for that
and with specific reference to methane, if you would?
Dr. Deziel. Yes. Thank you for the question, Senator. Oil
and gas releases so many hazards that it is quite complex.
There is potential for air pollution, the methane emissions,
water contamination, the stress of having your community
disrupted, increased traffic.
So most studies have not pinpointed the exact factor and
likely it is a combination of multiple factors that are
contributing to some immediate harms, like birth defects, but
also methane is contributing indirectly. It is not toxic to
children who live nearby, but it is contributing to climate
change, which is certainly harmful for the next generation.
Chairman Whitehouse. Senator Grassley.
Senator Grassley. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. My
first three questions will be to Ms. Furchtgott-Roth. We have
heard references to an International Monetary Fund (IMF) study
that claims the fossil fuel industry receives $660 billion in
annual subsidies from our country, our government.
According to President Biden's own budget, repealing all
specific oil and gas related tax preferences would raise only
$45 billion over 10 years, a far cry from the $660 billion.
Would you please explain how the IMF arrives at this ridiculous
inflated figure?
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth. Sure. Yes, thank you for the question.
Well, this is a working paper that does not represent the view
of the IMF, as its authors say at the beginning, and it has not
been peer reviewed or published in a peer reviewed journal the
way that Dr. Deziel's articles have been.
Several features of the working paper are worth noting.
China has $2.2 trillion in subsidies. The United States
supposedly has $660 billion in subsidies. The IMF uses the word
subsidies to include not just direct taxpayer support for fuel
use, but an estimate of environmental costs for the combustion
of the fuel.
Nearly half of the subsidy calculations are related to coal
use. In fact, to the extent that onshore and offshore oil and
natural gas development provides additional volumes of natural
gas that can substitute for coal combustion, it would
substantially lower the IMF estimates of the effective subsidy.
In addition, the report makes no adjustment for revenues
collected by federal, state and local jurisdictions for oil and
gas development of public and private lands. And according to
the Department of Interior, the federal government alone
collected over $100 billion in oil and gas revenues between
2005 and 2015.
A further limitation of the paper is it doesn't effectively
address uncertainty in calculations from the environmental
costs of oil and gas use, especially given advances in control
technologies.
The paper has no estimate of environmental costs from wind
or solar or hydropower. It discusses benefits of making fuel
more expensive but not benefits of making it less expensive. No
estimate of benefits from fossil fuels, such as availability of
electricity, drinking water and sewage system, cooking systems,
rather than wood or dung, health benefits or benefits from the
idea of manufacturing jobs are given by the IMF paper, and
there are many benefits from fossil fuels.
Senator Grassley. Agriculture is very important to Iowa's
economy. Over the course of these climate change hearings, we
have heard from Democrat witnesses who support market altering
and consumer policies to limit fossil fuel consumption and
drive down emissions.
Conveniently, they ignore the devastating impact that their
policies would have on working class Americans and small
businesses, including family farmers. What role do fossil fuels
play in maintaining food security, domestically and abroad? And
I know you touched on this a little bit in your opening
statement.
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth. Yes. Not only our energy security, but
our agricultural production and food security depend on fossil
fuels. Raising the price of fossil fuels raises the cost of
food and poor and middle class people pay the price.
Fossil fuel is essential for food production because of
nitrogen used in fertilizers. In 2021, Sri Lanka President
Rajapaksa banned synthetic fertilizer and pesticide imports.
Prices rose in Sri Lanka, and there were riots.
Protests are also occurring in the Netherlands and in
Belgium as policymakers attempt to curtail fossil fuels in
agriculture. Farmers are rioting because they are losing their
livelihoods in the name of fighting climate change as European
governments seek to reduce emissions of nitrogen oxide and
ammonia, which are vital inputs to modern agriculture.
European farmers are being told that because of the aim for
NetZero emissions, their industry is being phased out. And this
disproportionately hurts poor people, who have to pay more for
food and who cannot afford to do so.
Senator Grassley. The Biden EPA recently proposed a new
emission standard for light and medium duty vehicles. This rule
would require two-thirds of the new cars to be electric by
2032. Given your background as an economist, can you speak to
this rule's feasibility and the cost it would impose on our
economy and the consumer?
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth. It would impose massive costs on the
economy. It would require 60 percent of new vehicles sold to be
battery-powered electric in just 7 years and right now 6
percent of vehicles sold are battery-powered electric.
These new electric vehicles cost more, and charging also
costs more. Used electric vehicles will be hard to find, and
most Americans buy used vehicles, with electric vehicles you
don't know how long the battery is going to last. And electric
vehicles take longer to recharge. They don't go well in cold
climates. That is why there are only 510 of them in Wyoming and
fewer in North Dakota and South Dakota because the range is
very limited.
They harm the environment through mining for minerals.
And many of these minerals are mined with child labor or
slave labor.
Electric vehicles will make America weaker and China
stronger because the electric batteries and components are made
in China as opposed to oil and natural gas, which is produced
by Americans with well-paying jobs here in the United States.
Senator Grassley. Thank you.
Chairman Whitehouse. Senator Kaine and then Senator
Johnson.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR KAINE
Senator Kaine. I want to thank the Chair for calling this
important hearing. When we talk about things like externalities
and social costs, it can often seem like a theoretical concern
and some of the discussions that I have been in about climate
change over the years has suggested that it is a tomorrow
issue. But I just want to tell you in Virginia, it is a today
issue.
We have one of the most vulnerable parts of the United
States in terms of sea level rise in the Hampton Roads area.
And in Appalachia we are seeing extreme weather patterns that
are creating more and more events of extreme rain, flooding
that damages homes, people's livelihoods, infrastructure,
schools and roads.
Interestingly enough, some of the rain data in Virginia on
an annual basis is not changing that much in these communities.
It is just that the frequency, the randomness, the severity of
storms is changing, and the infrastructure was not really built
for that.
And so now when we talk about climate change in Virginia,
including in some areas that have traditionally been producers
of fossil fuel, the coal fields of southwest Virginia, people
understand it is not a tomorrow issue or it is not somebody
else's issue. It is theirs.
We also see species disappearing in our National Park
species that require a certain temperature level to reproduce.
As temperatures rise, they have to move higher and higher up in
the Shenandoah National Park, for example, and eventually the
acreages where they can live and reproduce are disappearing.
We also in Virginia see the effects of fossil fuel
industries in other ways. Black lung disease affects those who
mine coal. If you mine Appalachian coal, you have about double
the change of getting black lung disease as miners of coal in
other parts of the country because of the way the coal was set
up and the other components that are there. So these are very,
very serious issues and important to us.
If I could ask, to Dr. Gayer and Dr. Deziel, when Congress
has programs that address the social cost of a specific
activity, such as black lung treatment and benefits related to
coal mining, can you talk about why it is important to ensure
that we internalize the cost with policies such as this?
Dr. Gayer. Thank you, Senator. First, I think you remind me
of an occupational hazard of being an economist, which is I
intend to talk in theoretical concerns. So I appreciate the
reminder that we all need every day, these are real people
facing real harm.
Having said that, I am going to slip back into technical
terms. The reason why we need to reflect the true cost of our
activities, including our burning of fossil fuels, is for
everything that you alluded to. This is an activity that causes
real damages, not just in the sense of global climate change,
but in the local pollutants that my colleague here Nicole was
talking about and as you alluded to.
And so the kind of pointed headed academic textbook answer
at its heart is to help real people and to have a flourishing,
dynamic economy that accounts for the costs of the activities
that spur that economy. And that's why, as I said before, the
policies that we need to look at or that I would recommend for
all of you is to ensure that the burning of fossil fuels
accounts for those costs, those very real costs, that affect
Americans.
Senator Kaine. Dr. Deziel.
Dr. Deziel. Thank you so much, Senator, for raising the
issue of the workers. The oil and gas extraction workers have a
high fatality rate. Workers die each year from explosions,
falls, vehicle accidents and then there are also the exposures
from all the chemical hazards. They are closest to the hazards,
whether it be fencing, hydrocarbons, silica dust, which also
causes lung diseases. And the workers are often overlooked and
understudied. Most of the health research has really focused on
the community in part due to difficulty accessing worker sites.
So I think this is an extremely important issue that should
be factored into these analysis.
Senator Kaine. And if I could say, Mr. Chair, the reason
that I appreciate you doing this hearing is we have proven
unable during my time in the Senate to do big meaningful
climate legislation in a bipartisan way.
The first climate bill that was introduced in the Senate
was a bipartisan bill, John Warner and Joe Lieberman. But we
have been unable to do it in a bipartisan way. We were able to
make some significant advances in the Inflation Reduction Act.
And we did some things in the Infrastructure Bill that had
bipartisan votes that can help us.
But we do climate legislation a lot if you count coming in
after the fact to try to do a flood insurance program, to try
to do a Superstorm Sandy cleanup package, to have a Black Lung
Benefits program. We don't do the prevention and go at root
causes very well. But we are willing to do legislation at the
back end when it's really expensive to do it often.
And I appreciate the fact that we can bipartisan votes for
a flood relief or Black Lung Benefit program or, you know,
other programs on the back end. I just am convinced we need to
more on the front end, and this hearing helps focus on that.
And I appreciate it, and I yield back.
Chairman Whitehouse. Thanks, Senator Kaine. Senator
Johnson.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOHNSON
Senator Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Gayer, you
are an economist so I want to go compare and contrast fossil
fuels versus green energy in terms of subsidies, in terms of
externalities, in terms of benefits. So let's first talk about
the cost of subsidies.
In your testimony, you said that the subsidies in the U.S.
for fossil fuel is about $12 billion over 5 years, correct? The
Inflation Reduction Act, I think it is over 10 years, about
$400 billion, but a Goldman Sachs study said it would be closer
to $1.2 trillion. So just compare that $12 billion versus
$1,200 billion worth of costs is sure subsidizing a whole lot
more green energy, correct?
Dr. Gayer. According to those numbers, yes.
Senator Johnson. One hundred times higher cost and that's
just one piece of legislation. Let's talk about the benefits. I
mean, it's undeniable that fossil fuel is going to power 80
percent of our economy decades into the future, correct? So
when you are powering 80 percent of the economy, you're, oh, I
don't know, paying for air conditioning to allow people to
escape the heat.
Certainly, China and India are going to use fossil fuels to
lift their people out of poverty. Mr. Gayer, do you believe
there is any chance whatsoever that India and China are going
to stop using fossil fuels?
Dr. Gayer. Nor do I think we will, yes.
Senator Johnson. Zero chance of that. Okay. Are you aware
of the climate alarmist studies? Their own models show that
even if we eliminated all CO2 emissions in the United States,
it would have a negligible, less than a degree difference, in
terms of what their projections say in terms of climate change?
Dr. Gayer. I don't know which models you are referring to.
I don't think that's true.
Senator Johnson. Pardon?
Dr. Gayer. I don't think that's true. But I don't know what
you are referring to.
Senator Johnson. Oh, it's true. Again, if you look at----
Dr. Gayer. I have to make a----
Senator Johnson [continuing]. So my point being, okay, we
could eliminate all of this. We could shoot ourselves in the
foot. Spend $1.2 trillion, have no impact on climate whatsoever
and still have 80 percent of our power provided by fossil fuel.
I think that's crazy.
Now let's talk about externalities. Okay? No doubt about
it, and I think it would be nice to be able to figure out some
way to price that in, but, you know, the pollution from the
extraction of fossil fuels plus the pollution from burning
them, again I acknowledge that, but there are also
externalities to green energy, correct?
Here is one right here. This is a photo of a cobalt mine in
the Congo. There is child abuse going on here. This is child
labor. Is that okay because it's just not occurring in the
U.S.? Why are we not accounting for all the mining that is
going to be required to provide the copper, the lithium, the
rare earth minerals, the cobalt? Have you studied that cost of
externalities? Have the climate alarmists studied that? Are
they accounting for whatsoever not to mention the
impracticality of actually mining enough to produce the number
of electric vehicles they are contemplating? Ms. Roth, can you
speak to that?
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth. It is very important to be able to
take into account all of these different costs of mining. And I
find it very surprising that people who are against coal mining
in the United States are in favor of mineral mining in the
Congo----
Senator Johnson. Because it's happening someplace else?
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth. It's happening someplace else,
exactly.
Senator Johnson. Again, I think it is kind of grotesque,
pretty arrogant. Dr. Deziel, can you tell me, what is the
biggest adverse event? What is the major one that you are
finding your studies from fossil fuels?
Dr. Deziel. The strongest evidence is for risk to children,
like preterm birth and birth defects.
Senator Johnson. Okay. So what is the background rate of
the birth defects that you are talking about? What is the
background rate?
Dr. Deziel. Birth defects are quite rare, but we see an
additional increase----
Senator Johnson. Okay. So I'm asking what is the background
rate of a birth defect rate in hundreds of thousands? I mean,
what's that background rate?
Dr. Deziel. Well, I can double-check on the statistics.
But I think----
Senator Johnson. This is your study.
Dr. Deziel. Yes, about 3 percent of births have a----
Senator Johnson. Okay, 3 percent. Okay. What is it then due
to--in your studies, how does that increase? What does it go
to? Does it go to 5 percent or 6 percent? Or what is the
increase off of that 3 percent?
Dr. Deziel. Thank you, Senator. In the studies, we find
that there is about a 20 percent increase in risk, which is not
to say the 20 percent increase in number of cases, but there is
a 20 percent greater chance of birth defects in children whose
mothers live----
Senator Johnson. So that means it would go from 3 percent
to 3.6 percent? Again, I am trying to understand your study.
It is very easy to play with statistics. It is very easy to
scaremonger, which is what climate alarmism is all about. But
you have to actually take a look at the reality of the
situation. Again, China and India are not going to stop using
fossil fuels, nor are we.
So we can continue to spend trillions of dollars and have
no impact on any of these things or we can actually concentrate
on the things we can fix. And, again, if there are some real
problems, you know, living around drilling that is something we
can fix without spending $1.2 trillion. So, again, I'm trying
to figure out what is the reality situation here? What does
your study actually show?
Dr. Deziel. Well, and my study and others we see----
Chairman Whitehouse. You may answer the question and then
it is Senator Marshall's turn.
Dr. Deziel. Thank you. Yes, we see up to--for another
example, in another one of my studies we saw a doubling of risk
of childhood leukemia in children whose mothers lived within 2
kilometers of oil and gas sites. And this is consistent across
more than five epidemiological----
Senator Johnson. Well, I would like to see your actual
data. I don't like the percentages. I want to see the data.
Okay. Thank you.
Chairman Whitehouse. Senator Marshall.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR MARSHALL
Senator Marshall. Thank you, Chairman, and I am sorry to
pick on you, Dr. Deziel, but I also want to follow-up on the
studies. I didn't know that is where my colleague was going to
take you. How many of your studies you talked about did multi-
regression analysis?
Dr. Deziel. Most of the 50 studies that I have been
referring to used multiple regression analysis, meaning they
controlled for many other----
Senator Marshall. I know what it means. And you mentioned
the word association as opposed to statistically a difference.
Dr. Deziel. Mm-hmm.
Senator Marshall. So did any of these have a statistical
difference or were they all just associations?
Dr. Deziel. Most of the studies observed statistically
significant associations, meaning an increased risk of health--
--
Senator Marshall. Well, that's two different--you're the
epidemiologist, but those are two different terms from a study
to say if there is an association versus statistical
difference, meaning two standard deviations outside of the
mean.
Dr. Deziel. Most of the studies did observe statistically
significant----
Senator Marshall. Then why in your testimony did you use
the word just associated?
Dr. Deziel. Just trying to use simple terms.
Senator Marshall. Okay. All right. That's helpful. So much
of this is done with religion as opposed to science so we are
trying to see where we can agree on the science.
Dr. Gayer, for you, you are the economist here, two of the
tax benefits that are often talked about are the percentage
depletion allowance and the intangible drilling cost. If we
eliminated those, how would they impact someone like Exxon or
Shell, Chevron, some of those big oil companies?
Dr. Gayer. Marginally. I think every study, if you look at
the full suite of tax expenditure subsidies, have only a
marginal effect on promoting production. So it would increase
their tax bill for sure. But as far as production and prices
go, it would have a de minimis effect.
Senator Marshall. So my understanding that the folks that
benefit from these, from the bottom line, are the small
producers. Small producers like in Kansas making five or ten
barrels per day and that these larger companies don't benefit
from them. So I think that's a common misconception. And I
think it is so important for national security that we have
more than four big oil companies making oil and gas for this
world and that these small oil producers need those to stay in
business.
I want to talk about methane for a second as well and
probably go back to Dr. Deziel. A third of the methane produced
in this country is from wetlands and about 20 percent from city
landfills. You spoke about methane in particular. Did your
studies take that into account? Were these locations close to
some type of wetlands or to city landfills as well?
Dr. Deziel. Thank you for the question. Actually, my
studies did not focus on methane. My studies focused on more of
the hazardous emissions coming from oil and gas sites. Methane
contributes to climate change so in that sense it is hazardous,
but my studies looked at the more immediate consequences of
exposures to toxic.
Senator Marshall. But certainly methane is one of the
major, you know, concerns for greenhouse gases from the oil and
gas industry. You know, certainly, the oil and gas industry
needs to own that, that about a third of them do come from the
oil and gas industry, but a third of them come from wetlands as
well.
So are you suggesting we should, like, I don't know, what,
bulldoze in the wetlands, too? It's a rhetorical question. I
shouldn't have asked it as well.
So often in this world we live in in D.C., we try to think
about the environment in different perspectives. And certainly,
I just want the chairman to know, my friends across the aisle
that I want to leave this world cleaner, healthier and safer
than we found it. But also we need to think about affordability
and reliability when it comes to energy as well, that this
administration's policies have been an attack on certainly
American energy. It's been an attack on American agriculture,
and it has been an attack on the hardworking Americans as well.
When we see grocery prices going up 20, 25 percent.
Energy costs, oil and gas, utility costs as well, going up
over 30 percent, that is an attack on hardworking Americans. So
I guess my question is, when we make policies, do we ever think
about the affordability and the reliability of energy as well?
I think I will just leave it there. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Chairman Whitehouse. The question was rhetorical? You're
not seeking an answer from any of the witnesses? The question
was rhetorical, just to be clear.
Senator Marshall. It is not rhetorical. I think I was just
out of time and trying to be respectful of our time.
Thank you.
Chairman Whitehouse. Okay. I think next up is Senator
Lujan.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR LUJAN
Senator Lujan. Chairman, thank you very much and thank you
and Ranking Member Grassley as well and all of the panelists
that are with us today.
Dr. Gayer, I particularly appreciated your statement that
energy policy should account for the sizable external cost of
energy production. We know what these costs are. The cost is
climate change. The cost is air pollution. The cost is damage
to our environment as well.
One of the costs that I have tried to address is the cost
of oil and gas wells that have been abandoned by the industry.
Too often oil and gas companies fail to plug their wells when
production ends. Some of those wells then go to different
ownership, but we saw this enormous problem that fortunately
colleagues came together in a bipartisan way to agree that they
should be plugged.
As a result, the wells pose significant risk to the
environment and surrounding communities by leaking toxic
chemicals into the air, contaminating groundwater and
contributing to climate change through methane emissions. One
of the abandoned wells that I visited before passage of the
bill was in an area where there was cattle grazing. And anyone
that is familiar with these wells knows that there is a bucket,
if you will, that is connected to the tank where a truck will
go up, and they connect.
While this particular well had been abandoned, the cattle
were still eating in the area, and they were drinking from that
bucket. And there was a lot of stuff in there, as you can
imagine. And so that is just one example of a challenge that I
witnessed personally that needed to be fixed.
So millions of abandoned wells across the nation needed to
be cleaned up, hence working together in a bipartisan way on
the Regrow Act.
This bill provided $4.7 billion to plug oil and gas wells
that were abandoned by those who profited from leaving this
mess behind. This wasn't about leaving things better than you
found them. This wasn't even cleaning up after yourself.
Now under current statute, we have no choice but to
remediate them at taxpayer expense to prevent the continuing
suffering of disadvantaged communities. So my question, Dr.
Gayer, is yes, or no, is it irresponsible of energy companies
to abandon their oil and gas and wells and force taxpayers to
pick up the tab for cleanup?
Dr. Gayer. I don't know the particular examples. My short
answer is yes. My long answer is, yes, I think you are right.
This is an issue that carbon taxation has lots of merits, but
it is not going to meaningfully address the concern of
abandoned wells. So regulatory, legal liability and in this
case, public funding to clean up the mess, I think, is the
right way to do it.
Senator Lujan. You touched on my follow-up question, which
was do you believe that operators should be held responsible
for their activities' impacts upfront before drilling begins
rather than offloading the burden on taxpayers?
Dr. Gayer. So once of the risks is--you are asking a legal
question to an economist so I don't know the legal aspects and
I don't know what the current existing law is. But certainly,
we should have a legal apparatus where you cannot abandon
harmful materials and leave it to either harm people or for the
federal government to intervene ex-post.
Senator Lujan. I appreciate that. Dr. Deziel, last year
Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act. And this historic
piece of legislation is accelerating the transition to a clean
energy economy, creating millions of good paying jobs and
providing cleaner air and better health for us.
There was a substantial investment, $369 billion in
production and investment tax incentives to promote
technologies that improve air quality and reduce emissions.
Yes or no, will the Inflation Reduction Act improve public
health by reducing air pollution?
Dr. Deziel. Thank you, Senator. Emission, I mean,
engineering controls, like emission controls that can be
implemented at oil and gas sites, is certainly an important
public health tool for the fossil fuel industry. However, it is
not enough. These devices only capture certain pollutants like
air pollutants or potentially methane. They do nothing to
address noise, water contamination, traffic, the degradation of
the landscape. So they are an incomplete solution to the public
health issue of oil and gas extraction. They would have to be
coupled with some other strategies.
Senator Lujan. Do you think repealing the Inflation
Reduction Act would damage the health of citizens across the
country, especially children and the elderly?
Dr. Deziel. I think we need as many protections, layers of
protections, as we can get, including air emission controls to
protect public health.
Senator Lujan. Why do we need more protections? Why do we
need more of those tools?
Dr. Deziel. Well, oil and gas sites have been shown to emit
toxic air pollutants and methane. There are many studies have
concluded that.
Senator Lujan. So if there are fewer of those protections,
then that would lead to a concern with public health?
Dr. Deziel. Yes. Fewer protections would mean more
exposures and health risks to nearby communities.
Senator Lujan. I appreciate it. Mr. Chairman, that sounds
to me like if there was a repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act
that it would create damage to the health of citizens and the
elderly and children as well.
I thank you for the time, and I appreciate the panelists
being here.
Chairman Whitehouse. We turn to Senator Braun.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR BRAUN
Senator Braun. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have been
listening to the entire conversation, just not from here. But I
have been involved in it as a Republican from almost the time I
got here in the U.S. Senate. And my interest in climate goes
way, way, way back further than that.
So I have never seen anything where there could be two more
disparate views. And you heard it, I think, eloquently from the
Chairman and Ranking Member Grassley earlier. The question is
how do you sort through all of this? What is the truth?
This is the Budget Committee. I am going to weave it back
into that discussion here in a moment. But the fact is for as
long as we have been talking about it, whatever modeling has
been out there has probably not been that good because it has
not, I think, created enough urgency for many that dismiss the
idea as even being out there worth discussing.
And on the other side, I don't think it is given enough
certainty to where you do what we have done so far, which is
give so much advantage to our geopolitical competitors that are
the gross emitters that are there growing their economies,
building coal-fired plants nearly weekly in places like China
and India. So how do you sort it all out?
Well, I think then you have got to come back and take what
has been kind of weak information, modeling that if it was that
good, the case would be made. And how do you survive into the
future to do something about it?
Then let's look at what else is in play. This comes back to
budget. We are currently running $2 trillion deficits. And I
think if the other side of the aisle had its ways, it would
even be deeper than that because there would have been more
legislation based upon borrowing money on something that is a
little amorphous in general.
Let's look at the other side. The start of the climate
caucus here with Chris Coons back in July, I think, of '19 and
there is clear consensus, I think, across the economic
community here in this country that something is afoot. When I
talk to the main stakeholders, even in places like Exxon,
Chevron, they say there is an issue. They also tell me they
have no idea how they are going to get beyond the low hanging
fruit, in other words past the things they have committed to do
2030 to 2035. And the consensus I hear mostly is that it is
going to take some technological breakthrough that we haven't
even found yet. A lot is working there as well.
So do you absolutely plow forward to where it is the
concept of present value? Present value in finance means the
variables you know about are what is happening closer to the
present. In other words if you're spending, investing so much
currently, you don't know how it is going to turn out until you
get the uncertain cash flow that occurs down the road.
I think that is where we are at. I know as one who got
texts when you got involved in climate, have you gone to the
dark side? I don't think so. I think we ought to be in the
conversation. And I get that politically from young
Republicans, young conservatives, faith-based communities, from
Evangelicals to Catholics and then you throw farmers in there
who are conservative politically by nature who know something
is afoot. I am still involved in that, and I would have to
agree with that.
But it gets back to my original point. A lot of this is
amorphous information that has not been modeled well and then
let us come back to the financial point. We are consistently
going broke as a country because we are projected to be $51
trillion in debt in just 10 years. That is close enough to
where that is a key figure you can stick into the present value
analysis. That is not good.
How do you deal with things out of your control where
you've got the two biggest emitters in the future that seem to
be giving it lip service only? And in business and anything
else you have got to mix the short run survivability with your
long-term goals. We should have never gotten rid of our energy
independence like we did because I think that has caused
political problems across the spectrum, especially on the other
side of the aisle.
Budget deficits that look like they are going to worse
rather than get better, what do we do with it? Where do we go
from here? We obviously don't want to add further to the
present value of pain financially. We need to revive whatever
it is going to take to have reliable base load production on
the electric side. We are going to need--transportation is
going to have to be looked at. It would overtax the grid in a
way that we couldn't do it, but we still need to navigate
towards something that is affordable.
I put this out there now as a statement. I will have a few
questions if you are going to do a second round. I want to
respect that. But I am saying that the most important thing is
we have got to survive into the mid and long-term financially,
and we currently don't look like we are doing it in the way we
run the federal government in general, whether it is on health
care, whether it is on climate, whether it is on anything else
we do. I will yield back and if there is time for further
questions, I will have a few.
Chairman Whitehouse. I would be delighted to make time for
further questions and to have a second round. Senator Kaine
will lead off with that. Let me just say before Senator Kaine
begins his questioning that I would like to take a moment to
express my admiration for you and the sincere and thoughtful
way you have addressed these issues. You have been a good
person to work with on climate solutions.
And to your point, if I had my way, the debt number would
be much higher, I would just like to say I think the debt
number would be much lower because I actively support a robust
carbon price, and I actively support cleaning up the Tax Code
of its many, I would say, corrupting inequalities. And between
those two, that would create deficit reducing revenues.
But with that, let me turn to Senator Kaine, and then back
to Senator Braun, and then Senator Lujan, if he wants.
Senator Kaine. I will be less than a minute. And it is just
a point that I wanted to raise inspired by a question that my
colleague Senator Lujan asked. He asked whether the repeal of
the Inflation Reduction Act would have, you know, direct
effects on people's health.
And I want to point out in one way it would, and it was one
of the lesser discussed parts of the Inflation Reduction Act.
Obviously, the IRA dealt with prescription drug costs.
The IRA dealt with clean energy. But the IRA also had a
really important public health provision, which is fully
funding the Black Lung Benefit program.
That program had been funded on an excise tax on coal
extraction. But it was set at a level that fully funded the
program, but then that excise tax expired and was not
reauthorized. And it rolled way back, which put the burden of
the program on the backs of general taxpayers rather than coal
companies.
In the Black Lung Benefit--in the Inflation Reduction Act,
we did a permanent fix of the financing of the Black Lung
Benefit program so that the miners in Virginia and elsewhere
who face the significant risk of black lung disease--and in
Appalachia, because of the condition I mentioned earlier, folks
are getting diagnosed with black lung disease earlier and
earlier and earlier in their careers. It used to be something
that somebody would get diagnosed with maybe in their late 40s
or 50s. It is not uncommon to see coal miners in their 30s now
getting diagnosed with black lung disease because of the
conditions, the amount of silica and other components that they
have to breathe as they are doing coal extraction.
But we have fixed--we haven't made coal mining safer, but
we did fix the benefit program so that at least people who get
diagnosed can count on the fact that benefit program will be
there. If the IRA was repealed, we would go back to a situation
where the funding would not be there, and people wouldn't be
guaranteed they could have access to a program that would
protect their health in the tragic circumstances of black lung
diagnosis.
So I just wanted to acknowledge that was a really important
part of the IRA, especially in Virginia and other coal mining
states. And a repeal would throw that program into jeopardy and
thus hurt people.
Chairman Whitehouse. As we switch back to Senator Braun,
let me put into the record the announcement from EPA regarding
its pollution standards for cars, light duty trucks, reporting
that reduced fuel and maintenance costs under the proposed
standards would save the average consumer $12,000 over the
lifetime of a light duty vehicle as compared to a vehicle that
was not subject to the new standards. And with that, Senator
Braun.
Senator Braun. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. When it comes to
the whole budget discussion, I am going to just briefly give an
answer to the Chairman's comment.
Running $2 trillion deficits, the Trump tax cuts, which by
the way were getting close to paying for themselves pre-COVID,
that is chump change, $150 billion per year. So that is only
7.5 percent of our current deficits.
The carbon tax, that is something that, I am not sure how
you would model that in terms of what it would do, but until we
get our spending in line with historical revenue generation,
which has always averaged 17.5 to 18 percent of our GDP other
than 3 years in the Clinton Administration, we just don't have
an economy that will give us more revenue. And if you do tax it
more, you will have lower economic growth over time as another
consideration philosophically in terms of what you do with
budget.
My question to all three of you would be the fact that
you've got the now second largest economy and the soon to
become third largest economy, India, which is about ready to
eclipse Japan's economy, when they are plowing forward, Senator
Johnson talked about some of it, what is happening elsewhere,
how do you justify from your own points of view when that is a
reality, you can actually put some numbers down there, and
where the savings, in terms of what you do by mitigating
climate, has got a little more speculation to it?
Give me the pros and cons from each point of view of how we
navigate through all of that. And if you want to throw it in
the context that we are borrowing nearly 30 cents on every
dollar we spend here, which is a budget consideration, if you
want to spend money, how do we justify doing that?
We will start over there, Doctor, on the left.
Dr. Gayer. Thank you, Senator. First, I want to commend you
for the framing of the problem. You did say that there was no
more disparate views. Maybe I am being overly optimistic. I
hear equal concern for the welfare of Americans, whether or not
it is health or whether or not it is economic.
So I am going to try to sell you a little bit on where I am
for a carbon tax. A carbon tax is less intrusive. It will spur
innovation. It will protect the economic interests of
Americans. It is a simpler approach. I think it's a market
friendly approach, that is why I am for it. So the way that I
can----
Senator Braun. How much roughly a year would you say that
is going to generate?
Dr. Gayer. It certainly depends on the tax, but you are
right. It is probably in the order of $100 to $200 billion,
something--and then of course----
Senator Braun. And then again, we are talking, just for the
record, my Carbon Pricing Bill was priced out at about $2
trillion over 10 years.
Dr. Gayer. Okay, of revenue.
Senator Braun. That would be then in line with 10 percent
of our current deficit. So that means it is a lot of room to go
from that and say changing tax policy. Still we are spending a
lot of money that we can't generate through tax policy. Go
ahead.
Dr. Gayer. My point is it helps----
Senator Braun. Yes.
Dr. Gayer [continuing]. And also the reducing the fossil
fuel subsidies, although not massive, even smaller helps.
Senator Braun. But the heaviest lifting would have to be
done through spending if you want to get to a balanced budget.
Dr. Gayer. Sure, for taxes. Yes, that's right. So, you
know, I guess I am trying to be a little bit more optimistic
that there is a policy out there that kind of joins the two
sides and their concerns on both the economic and health
consequences of our energy use.
On China, I commend you also. It is an issue. It is a
global pollutant. We heard today about the local pollutant
effects. Those are real. Those have nothing to do with China in
the sense that, you know, addressing fossil fuel use here would
help the health of Americans in that sense.
But in the global sense, you are right. We have China. We
have India. It is a global problem. Again, I think I come from
a bit of optimism on my policy here. One, we don't doubt that
this is a serious problem so we can't just say because we can't
solve the global issues we can ignore it.
I certainly think if we don't have smart policy that
addresses the issue domestically, other countries are less
likely to act. But indeed reciprocity should be part of it,
which is again the border adjustment tax helps with that.
And, again, I will get to what to what I said before. I
think a price signal will lead to innovations. I think it will
give you the tech breakthroughs that you said are necessary. I
think that is where the answer lies. And quite honestly, as we
have seen in other sectors, if Americans have tech
breakthroughs, the Chinese will adopt that technology. And so I
think there is real hope there as well.
Senator Braun. Thank you.
Dr. Deziel. Thank you, Senator, for the thoughtful
question. I am not an economist so I will just briefly say that
the studies that I have cited are not about modeling the
future. They are not amorphous. They are about kids who already
have cancer, have birth defects, have asthma. So addressing
fossil fuel now will have very real impacts to communities
today and that energy justice is an incredibly important issue.
We all deserve access to reliable and affordable energy, but
just not at the expense of fence line communities. Thank you.
Senator Braun. Thank you.
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth. Yes. Thank you for the question. I
would say in order to help the deficit, we could repeal the
$570 billion of green tax credits in the Inflation Reduction
Act without repealing the whole act, thereby leaving the Black
Lung program provision as it is.
I am against a carbon tax because it is regressive. It
hurts poor people the most. Their prices go up for appliances,
for food, for other kinds of things. The border adjustment,
according to the World Trade Organization, might not be
completely legal. So we might have foreign products coming in
at lower costs than American products.
An additional tax would slow GDP growth in the United
States. These taxes are never perfect. And it is always
difficult to estimate the amount of carbon in a particular
product. And so you might find some exemptions, some not. Most
importantly, this is very similar to a value added tax, which
we have seen rise over time. They start small.
Europe has a 20 to 25 percent value-added tax that started
very small. Canada's rose also. And Congress, you Senators, are
unlikely to repeal the income tax or any other tax. So this
would be one tax layered on top of another tax.
America's air has been getting steadily cleaner. The six
criteria pollutants, if you look at the EPA data, are getting
cleaner all the time because of clean, natural gas. If we
offshore production to China, they are making these electric
batteries, the wind turbines, the solar panels with coal-fired
power plants. It is not reducing global emissions or helping
climate change.
What we need to do is use our own oil and natural gas
resources and encourage other countries to use clean natural
gas also either by us exporting it or by us exporting the
technology so that they can do fracking also. That would be far
more useful than these $570 billion in green tax credits, many
of which, by the way, are going to be benefitting China. EVs
now apparently they don't have to be made in the United States
to get the credit if they are leased, because they count as
commercial vehicles, which opens a loophole to, again,
subsidizing China, making China stronger and the United States
weaker. Thank you.
Senator Braun. Thank you. And thanks for your comments. And
one final conclusion in terms of a comment from me. We are
entering into a much broader discussion. It is right in front
of us now with what is happening over in the House in terms of
debt limit and all of that.
I come from the world of being an entrepreneur with an
emphasis on finance. And I can tell you that you can't run any
enterprise like we are currently running it. And since the Gulf
Wars, to date, we have been taking our country and its balance
sheet into a place that regardless of what you want to do here,
it's not healthy.
The crowding out effect of interest in and of itself is
going to be a heavy weight that gets worse each year. And all I
can tell the American public, whoever is listening, the numbers
always win. You can't escape them. And currently, we are in a
place where we have got time, but it takes political will and
discipline just like you would have to exercise in any other
venue to kind of rein things back in so that this place is
healthy for all the people that look to it for whatever reason
it might be. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you very much, Senator Braun.
One clarification, if you don't mind, Dr. Gayer, if natural gas
is used as a feedstock for fertilizer and not combusted, does
it pay a carbon tax?
Dr. Gayer. It depends where you are administering the
carbon tax. So there are different--I am trying to think from
memory. If you levy it at its source, then it would be in the
price.
Chairman Whitehouse. Unless an adjustment were made for----
Dr. Gayer. And it is a question of how much--you can't get
100 percent of it. And so you can make adjustments for where
you want to levy the price and how far upstream you levy the
price.
Chairman Whitehouse. And if we wanted to exert pressure on
countries like China and India to move off of fossil fuels and
to accelerate their transition to clean energy, what U.S.
policy would most likely accomplish that?
Dr. Gayer. That was what I was mentioning to your colleague
before. I think the carbon tax is both credible. It is
supportive of a strong U.S. economy. It helps us transition our
energy. It leads to technological innovation, and it helps us
both from a diplomatic point of view and also from a
technological transfer point of view to get other countries to
move in a similar direction.
Chairman Whitehouse. With a robust border adjustment
obviously.
Dr. Gayer. Exactly, so, yes, sir. Thank you.
Chairman Whitehouse. Dr. Furchtgott-Roth, welcome back to
hearings with me. As you know, you are a frequent flyer here in
the halls of Congress, and I think always called by the
Republican side and with an astonishing range of expertise.
My review of your testimony is that you have testified on
subjects as diverse as the Capital Gains tax, the challenges of
the 21st Century workplace, Chief Justice Roberts' record on
women's rights, education reform, the Paycheck Fairness Act,
residency and right to work issues, medical bankruptcy reform,
Samoan fishery subsidies, the gender pay gap, a balanced budget
amendment, that the Affordable Care Act would lead to high
unemployment rates, that to help older workers find jobs, we
should roll back the Affordable Care Act, eliminate EPA
regulations on coal and approve the Keystone XL pipeline, on
sequestration, on health insurance, on taxation, on empowerment
in the workplace, on job vacancies, on the American Rescue Plan
telling employees not to show up for work and on a range of
climate related issues. Is that a pretty fair summary of the
breadth of your testimony across various Congressional
committees?
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth. Yes, I am fortunate to have been able
to write six books and hundreds of articles. I have been chief
economist of the Labor Department, the equivalent of chief
economist of the Treasury Department and chief of staff of the
Council of Economic Advisers. So I have had a lot of----
Chairman Whitehouse. Yeah, that's in your resume. And you--
--
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth. Yes. And----
Chairman Whitehouse [continuing]. Worked before for the
American Petroleum Institute is that correct?
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth. Four years at the American Petroleum
Institute, but unfortunately----
Chairman Whitehouse. And you worked at the American
Enterprise Institute, is that correct?
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth. Yes.
Chairman Whitehouse. And then the Hudson Institute?
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth. I did work for the Hudson Institute.
Chairman Whitehouse. And the Manhattan Institute?
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth. Yes.
Chairman Whitehouse. And now the Heritage Foundation?
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth. Yes, yes.
Chairman Whitehouse. And every single one of those groups
is funded by the fossil fuel industry, is that not true?
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth. Well, unfortunately, I don't have the
benefit of being able to rely on a family fortune made in the
Minnesota gas business or having my spouse's family fortune
come from United Gas. And the Heritage Foundation is a club
that anyone can join, not just white people. During 2021, it
had hundreds of thousands of individual foundation and
corporate support as representing every state in the United
States.
Chairman Whitehouse. Do you know how much funding it
received from the oil and gas baron Koch Industries political
operation?
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth. The top five corporate givers provided
the Heritage Foundation with only 1 percent of its 2021 income.
Individuals contributed 82 percent, foundations 12 percent,
corporations 1 percent, program revenue and other income 5
percent.
Chairman Whitehouse. The answer is that it is over $5
million from the Koch's various foundations since 1996, from
donor's trusts and donor's capital fund, which are the great
pass-throughs for the fossil fuel industry to obscure their
role. Heritage has received over $2 million. It has received
nearly three-quarters of a million dollars from Exxon since
1998.
In 2019, Heritage reported on its tax return that its
various direct mail, telemarketing and fundraising efforts were
responsible for 19 of the $117 million it received. Can you
explain where the other $98 million came from?
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth. As I have said, we have hundreds of
thousands of individual donors. And I have been writing, as you
point out, the same things throughout all of my career as a
professional economist beginning in 1985, and what I write
doesn't depend on where I work.
Chairman Whitehouse. You wrote, for instance, in a Forbes
column last year that renewables actually increase global
emissions. Do you stand by that comment?
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth. Yes. Because they are made with coal-
fired power plants in China. I did explain that renewables
were--the wind turbines and solar panels are made, and
batteries are made with coal-fired power plants in China. I did
explain that if these were made with emissions-free energy,
such as nuclear power, then the benefits to the environment
would be much greater. But many environmentalists who are in
favor of renewables are against dense emission nuclear power
and therefore making these renewables often raises emissions.
Chairman Whitehouse. In addition to stating that renewables
actually increase global emissions, have you also agreed that
recent data, and I quote here, ``calls into question the
conclusion that humans are the dominant cause of recent climate
change.''
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth. I am an economist, not a scientist.
Chairman Whitehouse. Well, you wrote that for a Wall Street
Journal opinion piece in 2015.
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth. Yes, well, scientists----
Chairman Whitehouse. Do you stand by it here today in 2023?
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth. Yes, scientists disagree on the human
component of global warming.
Chairman Whitehouse. Okay.
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth. And in this book, ``Unsettled,'' by
Steve Koonin, who was Undersecretary of Energy under President
Obama, and who taught for 30 years at Caltech, and has a Ph.D.
in physics from MIT, he says that it is uncertain how much
human activity affects global warming. The case is unsettled.
And I am no better scientist than he is.
Chairman Whitehouse. Well, thank you very much. It is
notable that is the position that the Republican Party intends
to stand by. With that, the hearing draws to its conclusion.
Anybody wishing to ask a question for the record, try to get
that in by noon tomorrow, and one week from that to get any
answers. So if you got a QFR, please respond quickly with an
answer within a week. And with that, the hearing is concluded.
Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 11:36 a.m., Wednesday, May 3, 2023, the
hearing was adjourned.]
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