[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

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

                                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]  
           
           


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             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

                              ----------                              

                         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

                              ----------                              


                         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.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \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.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \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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