[Senate Hearing 118-77]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                                                         S. Hrg. 118-77

                LESSONS LEARNED: LEADERSHIP PERSPECTIVES
                     AND EXPERIENCE ON THE NATIONAL
                        COSTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE

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

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                        COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET
                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                              May 10, 2023

                               __________

           Printed for the use of the Committee on the Budget
           
 [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]                 

                            www.govinfo.gov
                            
                               __________
                                    
                            U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
53-195                             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 10, 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 Mark Warner..............................................    12
Senator Ron Johnson..............................................    14
Senator Chris Van Hollen.........................................    16
Senator Roger Marshall...........................................    18
Senator Alex Padilla.............................................    20
Senator Mike Braun...............................................    22
Senator Ben Ray Lujan............................................    24
Senator Jeff Merkley.............................................    26

                               WITNESSES

The Honorable Malcom Turnbull, Former Prime Minister, Australia..     5
    Prepared Statement...........................................    34
The Honorable Bill Frist, M.D., Global Board Chair, The Nature 
  Conservancy, and Former Senate Majority Leader.................     6
    Prepared Statement...........................................    40
The Honorable Terry Branstad, Former U.S. Ambassador to China, 
  and Former Governor of Iowa....................................     8
    Prepared Statement...........................................    49

                                APPENDIX

Responses to post-hearing questions for the Record
    Hon. Frist...................................................    52
Document submitted to the Record by Chairman Sheldon Whitehouse..    56

 
                      LESSONS LEARNED: LEADERSHIP
                     PERSPECTIVES AND EXPERIENCE ON
                  THE NATIONAL COSTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE

                              ----------                              


                        WEDNESDAY, MAY 10, 2023

                                           Committee on the Budget,
                                                       U.S. Senate,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The hearing was convened, pursuant to notice, at 10:30 
a.m., in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Room SD-106, Hon. 
Sheldon Whitehouse, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
    Present: Senators Whitehouse, Warner, Merkley, Kaine, Van 
Hollen, Lujan, Padilla, Grassley, Johnson, Marshall, Braun, and 
R. Scott.
    Also present: Democratic Staff: Dan Dudis, Majority Staff 
Director; Dan Ruboss, Senior Tax and Economic Advisor and 
Member Outreach Director.
    Republican Staff: Chris Conlin, Deputy Staff Director; 
Krisann Pearce, General Counsel; Jordan Pakula, Professional 
Staff Member; Nic Pottebaum, Professional Staff Member.
    Witnesses:
    The Honorable Malcolm Turnbull, Former Prime Minster, 
Australia
    The Honorable Bill Frist, M.D., Global Board Chair, The 
Nature Conservancy, and Former Senate Majority Leader
    The Honorable Terry Branstad, Former U.S. Ambassador to 
China, and Former Governor of Iowa

          OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN WHITEHOUSE \1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \1\ Prepared statement of Chairman Whitehouse appears in the 
appendix on page 30.
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    Chairman Whitehouse. Good morning everyone. Thank you very 
much for being here. We will begin with five minutes of opening 
remarks by myself and my distinguished Ranking Member, Senator 
Grassley, of Iowa. We'll proceed to the testimony of our 
witnesses and after that we will have time for conversation 
with the Senators who are here in five-minute increments and 
then we will conclude the hearing.
    I'm very happy to be able to host as Chair, this eighth 
Budget Committee hearing, examining the economic risks and 
budgetary costs associated with climate change. Today we are 
very fortunate to hear from prominent political leaders who 
will discuss the costs associated with climate change.
    Prime Minister Turnbull lead Australia from 2015 to 2018 as 
the head of a center right government. The United States and 
Australia share many similarities. Both of continent-sized 
democracies, both are vulnerable to climate change with long 
coast lines, large cities, and productive agricultural regions 
vulnerable to worsening sea level rise, wildfires, floods, 
heatwaves, and droughts.
    Australia is also, of course, home to one of the wonders of 
the natural world, the Great Barrier Reef. My wife, a marine 
scientist, would insist that I mention that, whose very 
existence is threatened by warming and acidifying ocean.
    Senator Bill Frist served the State of Tennessee in the 
United States Senate from 1995 to 2007 and served as our Senate 
Majority Leader from 2003 to 2007. He is now the Global Board 
Chair of the Nature Conservancy. Senator Frist is also a 
doctor, who since leaving the Senate has traveled widely, 
engaged in medical charity work.
    During his travels, Senator Frist has had a front-row seat 
to the public health costs climate change is imposing on 
countries around the world, whether from increased heatwaves, 
more frequent droughts leading to food and water insecurity or 
degraded air quality.
    Last week we held a hearing on the cost associated with 
fossil fuel subsidies, including public health costs. And I 
would like to add to the record of this hearing a new 
environmental research paper that supports the message of that 
hearing. It's entitled Air Pollution and Health Impacts of Oil 
and Gas Production in the United States. Without objection.
    And we also held a hearing on the dangers of nearing a debt 
limit default. At the default hearing, several members 
expressed a desire to come together and work to strengthen 
America's long-term fiscal position. I share that desire.
    A serious conversation about the nation's long-term fiscal 
health requires that we reform our budget process, but also 
that we address potential future shocks to the economy that 
would upend the most carefully laid fiscal plans.
    We could raise revenues and reduce spending and balance the 
budget, but if the economy goes haywire into a climate-drive 
crash, and we have heard very knowledgeable testimony that 
multiple, separate climate-driven crashes are possible, then 
massive budget deficits will loom. That is the entire reason 
why this Committee, the Budget Committee, is holding hearings 
on climate change.
    We've heard that more than $10 trillion of our national 
debt stems from the 2008 financial crisis, a warned of economic 
shock, and the COVID pandemic, another warned shock. Now 
central bankers, economists, financial experts, real estate 
professionals, insurance CEOs, and academics are all warning of 
systemic risks to the economy from climate change.
    There are many coastal and wildfire area property value 
crashes, carbon bubble collapse, dislocation in insurance 
markets, and they are of the sort that could cost the economy 
trillions. We cannot separate our nation's fiscal health from 
these looming and potential catastrophic risks.
    Our witnesses today, political conservatives, are well 
placed to remind us that there is inherently conservative about 
ignoring climate change. There are market-based solutions 
available that align exactly with conservative economic 
principles. Since climate change is, at heart, a matter of 
physics, chemistry, and economics, and not ideology and belief, 
there is a common platform of fact upon which to rely.
    Bipartisan achievements like the Clean Air Act, the Clean 
Water Act, the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, 
the Montreal Protocol eliminating ozone-destroying 
fluorocarbons and the 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act 
prove that tackling climate change could be a bipartisan 
priority. Little achievements like the Growing Climate 
Solutions Law, the 45Q Carbon Capture Credit and Nuclear 
Reforms are current bipartisan building blocks.
    The Ranking Member has long championed wind energy and 
ethanol fuel. There is bipartisan work on an international 
pollution fee to pair up with the EUC Ban. Bipartisan progress 
is possible. Indeed, this past weekend Senator Cassidy and I 
spoke at the McCain Institute's annual Sedona Forum in Arizona 
about pollution tariffs.
    I was, of course, reminded of John and how different things 
were when I arrived in the Senate in 2007. Back then there was 
significant bipartisan work on climate legislation in the 
Senate. We must find a path back to bipartisan work on climate. 
At a time when our nation faces many looming challenges abroad, 
if we are unable to come together at home to address a 
fundamentally non-ideological issue, the warming of our planet 
due to carbon dioxide pollution from fossil fuel combustion 
then our democracy is not functioning as it should.
    We owe it to our children and the world to get this right 
and I now turn to my Ranking Member to join in the 
introductions with the former Governor of Ohio, Terry Branstad, 
who I join in welcoming.

           OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR GRASSLEY \2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \2\ Prepared statement of Senator Grassley appears in the appendix 
on page 32.
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    Senator Grassley. Thank you. Welcome to our panel. Today 
marks the eighth hearing on climate change. Today's hearing is 
in a much bigger room than the normal Budget Committee Hearing 
Room. We have a very large audience we don't always have in 
that room and we have an impressive panel of government leaders 
to educate us.
    If only we were using this platform to shine light on the 
need for Congress to address an unsustainable debt. Just this 
week the Government Accountability Office issued a report 
calling on us to do just that. Yet, the other side continues to 
ignore the core budget responsibilities of the Committee and as 
the Congress as a whole, but I can't say I'm surprised any 
more.
    Senator Marshall hit the nail on the head last week when he 
asked this. ``Why do we have this religious experience with 
climate rather than using common sense?'' I've been asking 
myself similar questions since our first hearing. How do we get 
Democrats interested long enough to fulfill budge 
responsibilities for the American people.
    Now only in D.C. could we have eight climate change 
hearings while spending our country out of house and home. Only 
in D.C. could we show up to work on Tuesday afternoon and leave 
town on Thursday while we're approaching default in our 
national debt. Meanwhile, Senate Democrats haven't even 
attempted to write a budget resolution.
    But as we continue to focus on climate change for the 
eighth time, I'm glad to welcome my friend, long-time friend as 
well, Ambassador Branstad, but in Iowa we refer to him as 
Governor Branstad. As the longest serving governor in American 
history, Ambassador Branstad understands that we can reduce 
emissions and grow our economy at the same time. I might add 
that he broke Governor Clinton's record of New York early 1800s 
or late 1700s, early 1800s to hold the record that he now holds 
for 22 some years, I believe, being governor of Iowa.
    Now alarm won't impede the impact of climate change. A 
combination of adaptation, mitigation, and sound fiscal 
policies will. Ambassador Branstad and I worked together during 
his time as Iowa governor to advocate for renewable and 
alternative energy solutions and now Iowa gets 60 percent of 
its energy from wind and leads the nation in ethanol 
production.
    We also opposed destructive federal policies which would 
have driven up costs and meddled in the lives of hardworking 
farmers and businessmen. We don't need aggressive taxes to 
drive down emissions and we certainly shouldn't cripple our 
economy with more federal regulations. Iowa had a $90 million 
deficit when Ambassador Branstad took office in 1983.
    When he left office in 1999, Iowa had a $900 million 
surplus and you'll see his successor, Governor Reynolds and the 
Republican legislature building upon that surplus, but we 
reduced emissions while erasing the deficit. But these 
impressive reductions only go so far.
    Even if the entire United States stopped emitting 
greenhouse gas tomorrow, projected temperatures would only be 
three-tenths degrees lower come 2100. Under this unrealistic 
scenario, the United States will still need major polluters 
like China and India to pull their weight.
    During his three years as U.S. Ambassador to China, 
Ambassador Branstad experienced the impact of China's pollution 
first-hand. He saw how China mistreats its own citizens, 
violating U.N. human rights standards and American companies 
were mistreated as well.
    I look forward to hearing the Ambassador's first-hand 
account of his leadership in China and whether he believes 
President Biden's policies are on the right track. I also 
welcome Prime Minister Turnbull and former friend and 
colleague, Senator Frist as well. Thank you all for coming.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you, Senator Grassley. I'm 
pleased to have three such distinguished witnesses here to 
testify before us today. First, we have the Honorable Malcom 
Turnbull, the 29th Prime Minister of Australia. In addition to 
having served as Prime Minister from 2015 to2018, he served as 
Minister for Communications and Minister for the Environment 
and Water.
    Prior to his political career, he worked as a lawyer, 
banker, and businessman. He currently serves as a Director of 
the International Hydropower Association. We're delighted to 
have the Prime Minister join us here today.
    We will then hear from the Honorable Dr. Bill Frist, who 
represented Tennessee in the United States Senate from 1995 to 
2007, serving as the Senate Majority Leader from 2003 to 2007 
and indeed serving as a member of this very Committee.
    Welcome back. Dr. Frist is also a renowned surgeon, having 
pioneered heart-lung transplants.
    Since leaving the Senate, he's continued to work in the 
medical field and currently serves as the Global Board Chair of 
the Nature Conservancy. Senator Frist, thank you so much for 
joining us.
    Last, we will hear from the Honorable Terry Branstad, the 
39th and 42nd governor of Iowa and the 12th United States 
Ambassador to China where he served from 2017 to 2020. With a 
total of more than 22 years as governor, he's the longest 
serving governor in U.S. history. In addition to his political 
and diplomatic career, he served as the President of Des Moines 
University and is the current president of the World Food Price 
Foundation. We welcome Ambassador and Governor Branstad.
    Prime Minister Turnbull, please proceed for your five-
minute opening statement, your full statement will be made a 
part of the Committee record.

   STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE MALCOLM TURNBULL, FORMER PRIME 
                   MINISTER OF AUSTRALIA \3\
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    \3\ Prepared statement of Hon. Turnbull appears in the appendix on 
page 34.
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    Prime Minister Turnbull. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 
Australia, as you said, is around the same size as the lower 48 
of the United States, but it is flatter and much drier, very 
vulnerable to the impacts of global warming. Climate and water 
availability, in particular, have always been variable and 
global warming is making it much more so.
    The terrible Black Summer fires of 2019-2020 were 
unprecedented in their extent of 24 million hectors and their 
damage in addition to 33 people killed, over 3,000 homes 
destroyed, $10 billion in property losses, and nearly three 
billion animals either killed or displaced. Many environments 
and ecosystems such as rain forests may never recover.
    One-in-a-hundred-year floods seem to be coming around every 
few years. Only last year I saw the Premier of New South Wales 
stand on a street corner in Lismore surrounded by flood debris 
to tell the media the flood was a one-in-a-hundred-year event. 
I'd stood on exactly the same spot as Prime Minister only five 
years before and said the same thing. So it's pretty clear that 
the consequences of global warming are increasing, are real, 
and we're living with them.
    You can put dollars on these problems if you like, but I 
think it's very hard to estimate it. Deloitte has estimated the 
cost of natural disasters alone in Australia running now at $38 
billion a year and going up every year. Our Bureau of 
Agricultural Research and Economics has estimated that global 
warming is reducing average farm income by 23 percent over the 
next 20 years.
    Now we are at the same time also a very large exporter and 
producer and exporter of coal and gas. Coal is, in fact, our 
second largest export, LNG our third largest export, but the 
good news is that we have very good renewable resources, both 
wind and solar, and they are growing apace. To give you an idea 
of the pace, in 2009 solar and wind were about 1 percent of our 
generation. They're now about 31 percent.
    The critical thing is going to be developing the firming 
ability, the balancing ability through long duration storage, 
pumped hydro, in particular, to make sure that we can make 
renewables reliable.
    Now turning to the politics of all of this, which has been 
a torturous and complex story in Australia. Frankly, the 
problem has been we lost bipartisanship about 15 years ago. I 
think a similar thing happened in the United States, frankly. 
On what you might call the right of politics, the populist 
right, I would say, not the part I occupy, not the true 
conservatives because frankly conservatives believe in 
conserving things and one of the things to conserve is the 
planet we live on and the ecosystems that we rely on.
    But we got to this point where instead of global warming 
being a matter of Physics, it became matter of ideology and 
belief. Now saying you believe or disbelieve in global warming 
is about as smart as saying you believe or disbelieve in 
gravity. You know you can step out of a second-floor window and 
test your belief on gravity pretty easily, but there has been a 
lot of denial about the reality of global warming and this 
politicization--that's not quite the right word.
    The turning it into a matter of what I used to call when I 
was in politics ideology and idiocy--rather than engineering 
and economics has been at the core of the problem. So when I 
was PM seeking to make reforms to support the transition to 
clean energy, my biggest opponents were not in industry, were 
not actually even in the fossil fuel sector. They were actually 
on the populist right of my own party and in particular in the 
right-wing media dominated by Rupert Murdock, who I understand 
is well known in this country.
    You got a similar story where we had these terrible 
wildfires and the Murdock media were pumping out the message 
that it had nothing to do with global warming. It was all a 
matter of arsonists and poor forest management. It's ludicrous. 
Obviously, if you have a hotter and drier climate, you're going 
to get more fires. That is fundamental.
    So I think the most important thing is I would say is for 
conservatives to get back to the science and the facts, and 
again, the answer is engineering and economics, not ideology. 
Thank you.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you very much, Prime Minister, 
Senator Frist.

   STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE BILL FRIST, M.D., GLOBAL BOARD 
   CHAIR, THE NATURE CONSERVANCY, AND FORMER SENATE MAJORITY 
                           LEADER \4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \4\ Prepared statement of Hon. Frist appears in the appendix on 
page 40.
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    Senator Frist. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm appearing today 
before you drawing on three very distinct life experiences. 
First, as a heart and lung transplant surgeon, who has taken 
care of thousands of patients with heart disease and lung 
disease both of which are aggravated by climate change.
    Second, as mentioned, as a United States Senator on this 
Committee from I think it was 1995 to 2002. I'm intimately 
aware of the critical importance of a stable, federal budget, 
both for the fiscal health of our economy, but also our 
economic security and our national security.
    And third, as mentioned, as Chair of the Global Board of 
Directors for the Nature Conservancy. The Nature Conservancy is 
one of the most far-reaching conservation organizations in the 
world and I say that because we have 900 scientists and science 
staff across all 50 states and D.C., but also 78 other 
countries and territories.
    I understand that the long-term physical and the mental 
health and well-being of people absolutely require a 
sustainably healthy planet and climate. A healthy planet and a 
healthy people; they're inextricably connected. The dedicated 
people at TNC are working hard to build a future in which 
nature flourishes and people from all walks of life--and that's 
important from the equity lens, vulnerable populations of 
people who are disadvantaged in some way or another, but from 
all walks of life can enjoy happier lives and healthier lives 
and more fulfilling lives.
    Our ambitious goal at TNC is grounded in scale and going to 
scale based on science to match the severity of these 
interconnections about diversity and climate crisis and almost 
by definition these require responsible policy solutions. 
Recent data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
Administration and NASA showed that 2022 tied as the fifth 
warmest year on record.
    So why does it matter? Well, a warming climate directly 
impacts the health of each of us and our families and our 
communities and business and economies and we're seeing these 
effects right now and scientists anticipate that they're 
expected to grow. The Congressional Budget Office states it 
quite plainly and I quote, ``Climate change increases federal 
budget deficits on net.'' And they go on to explain why a 
reduction of economic output related to lower worker 
productivity and damage to fiscal capital and the corresponding 
drop in income and payroll taxes will create a drag on federal 
revenues while mandatory and discretionary spending demands 
will increase.
    In my submitted testimony, I outlined six areas, six facts. 
I'll list them now. The most extreme and more dangerous 
heatwaves, these rising greenhouse gas concentrations increase 
the average temperatures and make these extreme heatwaves more 
frequent and more intense. In my own field of medicine, cases 
of heatstroke, cases of hypothermia in related conditions 
brought on by these extreme temperatures are climbing and in 
turn exacerbating existing cases of the heart disease that I 
treated every day, of the lung disease that I treated every 
day, and renal disease.
    Second, reduced and contaminated water supplies of more 
frequent and frequent and intense precipitation runoff into our 
water systems increases the risk of water and food-related 
illnesses. And then at the other extreme we have the droughts 
which can limit access to water for agriculture transportation.
    Three, threatens our food supply. Four, certain daily 
diseases are becoming more common. Warmer temperatures lead 
some vector-borne diseases. Things like the deadly West Nile 
Virus and the Chikungunya Virus that have appeared really for 
the first times ever in the last decades in the United States. 
The poor air quality, the increasing wildlife risk, the federal 
budget implications--I have outlined how all of these impact 
human health. All of them impact the financial cost. In 2022, 
NOAA calculated 18 separate weather and climate disasters that 
cost the United States at least one billion dollars. Already, 
the federal government covers a third of our healthcare costs. 
These healthcare costs will definitely escalate with this 
impact of climate change.
    Again, it's a call for leadership, it's a call for 
bipartisanship. I believe, fundamentally, that with time, with 
the progression of science, with working together in a 
collaborative way with recognition of the impact on each of us 
as individuals today and in the future that arguing for nature-
based solutions will go a long way in bringing us together as a 
people for the benefit of the United States and the global 
community. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you very much, Senator Frist. 
And now we turn to Ambassador Branstad.

    STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE TERRY BRANSTAD, FORMER U.S. 
      AMBASSADOR TO CHINA, AND FORMER GOVERNOR OF IOWA \5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \5\ Prepared statement of Hon. Branstad appears in the appendix on 
page 49.
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    Ambassador Branstad. Chairman Whitehouse, Ranking Member 
Grassley, members of the Committee, I'm honored to be invited 
to testify before you today on the subject of lessons learned, 
leadership perspective, and experience in the national cost of 
climate change.
    I've spent my career in public service in the great State 
of Iowa and the United States of America. Leadership is a 
privilege that I do not take for granted. After three terms in 
the Iowa House of Representatives from '73 to '79, I served as 
Lieutenant Governor from '79 to '83 and then governor '83 to 
'99 and again 2011 to 2017.
    Iowa's unemployment rate went from 8.5 percent when I took 
office to a low of 2.5 percent and I left office in 1999 with 
the biggest budget surplus in history and then with taking a 
$90 million deficit to a $900 million surplus. When I became 
governor for the second time in 2011, Iowa had a projected 
deficit of $700 million. Needless to say, running a deficit was 
not acceptable on my watch. Once again, we turned projected 
deficits into surplus and now Governor Kim Reynolds is doing an 
outstanding job of keeping us on track.
    Iowa ended fiscal year 2022 with a surplus of $1.91 billion 
in the general fund, $830 million in reserve funds, and $1.06 
billion in the taxpayer relief fund. Focusing on the budget, 
cutting taxes, and instituting growth-oriented policies is a 
proven formula for success and the Iowa example shows it.
    As Iowa's former governor, it's clear to me how agriculture 
can be a significant boon to our economy and have an enormous 
positive impact on climate change. America's agricultural 
leadership gives our farmers a competitive advantage in the 
global marketplace and the opportunity to lead the world in 
food and energy.
    The agricultural potential of the world is still virtually 
untapped. Plants, including corn, wheat, and rice are just 
essential to feeding the world's population, but also they are 
the Earth's best batteries and nature's best solar panels. 
Researchers at Carnegie Institution and Stanford University 
estimate that up to 1.8 million square miles of abandoned lands 
globally, the equivalent of half of the land in the U.S., are 
available to grow energy crops.
    The most significant opportunity for agriculture in the 
U.S. to bring down emissions are continuing to increase yields 
on existing cropland, utilizing abandoned cropland effectively, 
and unleashing the power of renewable biofuels. U.S. crop 
yields have skyrocketed thanks to continuous innovations in 
precision farming and seed technology, coupled with good old 
American ingenuity.
    According to the USDA, even as the amount of land and labor 
used in farming declined, total farm output nearly tripled 
between 1948 and 2019. Farming practice such as no-till cover 
crops are quickly expanding across the Midwest and are becoming 
more profitable because of reduced fertilizer use reducing the 
input cost for farmers.
    Today one bushel of corn produces 2.9 gallons of ethanol 
fuel, 15 pounds of agriculture feed, and 16 pounds of captured 
biogenic carbon dioxide for bottling, dry ice, and wastewater 
treatment, and others. Thus, ethanol reduces life cycle 
greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent, 46 percent compared to 
gasoline.
    Once again, we can reduce our emissions and improve our 
economic standing at the same time. Alarm is not the answer. As 
a country, we should support energy diversity and development 
of all domestic resources, creating an all of the above energy 
strategy. Wind energy now provides 60 percent of Iowa's 
electricity. I signed Iowa's pioneering RPS back in 1983. This 
wind energy standard directed Iowa utilities to incorporate 
renewables into the state's energy mix and it continues to 
drive billions of dollars in private investment in Iowa.
    The use of renewables can help us build our manufacturing 
base, create jobs, lower energy costs, and strengthen our 
energy security. In fact, nearly all of the nation's high-tech 
companies have placed data centers in Iowa because of our 
action. Iowa's wind energy standard has now been copied by over 
20 other states.
    My experience as Ambassador to China put Iowa's economic 
success in a greater perspective. I have visited the Soviet 
Union, as well as China, and I've seen the disastrous effects 
of socialism. Free enterprise and limited government are 
absolutely critical for economic vitality. China is the largest 
greenhouse gas emitter and its water, soil, and air quality are 
extremely poor. I witnessed it firsthand.
    State-owned enterprises that control fuel distribution in 
China refused to replace MTBE with ethanol. All 50 American 
states have banned MTBE, which is a carcinogenic, for over 15 
years. The actions that the Chinese Government has taken 
demonstrate that they are not serious about water quality or 
soil quality for the benefit of the health of the Chinese 
people. It's unconscionable the way the Chinese Government has 
treated the Uighurs, the followers of Falun Gong and most 
recently the residents of Hong Kong, totally unconscionable.
    Unfortunately, America's good intentions have been taken 
advantage of by the Chinese Communist Party. We need to be more 
vigilant in response to the threat to dominate the world 
economically, politically, and militarily. Just recently, I 
read this book, ``Getting China Wrong''. It talks about how 
America has gotten China wrong for a long time and we need to 
change our policies in order to preserve America's worldwide 
leadership. I look forward to questions and further discussion. 
Thank you.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Thanks Governor. Let me begin with 
Prime Minister Turnbull. You mentioned the terrible Black 
Summer fires. You mentioned the Hundred-Year floods happening 
every five years. You mentioned the $38 billion a year in harm 
that Deloitte has projected in Australia. Those are all 
terrestrial harms.
    The United States and Australia are also coastal nations 
with a significant ocean presence. Would you care to comment at 
all on the ocean harms and costs that are caused by climate 
pollution?
    Prime Minister Turnbull. Well, Mr. Chairman, as your wife, 
the distinguished marine biologist knows better than both of 
us, I suspect, the impact of global warming on oceans is 
shocking. You obviously have the reality of sea level rise, 
which is doing so much damage to coastal communities, threatens 
with destruction of low-lying island nations in the Pacific, 
but also has done a lot of damage to the Great Barrier Reef and 
we've had a series of bleaching events which are being driven 
by warmer temperatures.
    I have to say this is an issue that the Australian 
Government--I mean governments. It's not a partisan of things. 
My side of politics and the current government are both at one 
on this, have been putting huge resources into it. Most of the 
money has been spent on trying to stop runoff into the Reef, so 
particularly agricultural runoff which has nutrients that have 
very adverse effects on the Reef.
    But the fundamental challenge is the one of temperature and 
that can only be dealt with by the world rapidly reducing the 
emission of greenhouse cases into the atmosphere so that we can 
stop this continued growth.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you.
    Prime Minister Turnbull. The oceans are definitely under 
threat. They've done a great job. There's been a temperature 
sink, but that is coming to an end and I think there's a 
reckoning.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Leader Frist, thank you for 
recognizing the economic issue that climate changes present and 
indeed thank you for thanking the Committee for recognizing 
that and proceeding with this work.
    You've talked about the $122 billion plus disasters, the 
5,000 lives lost, the trillion-dollar costs. Indeed, the $134 
billion in costs in just for-risk areas.
    In the context of all that expenditure, does it make sense 
that it should be free to pollute with carbon dioxide and 
methane emissions?
    Senator Frist. I appreciate you mentioning in the testimony 
the budgetary implications because in my experience on this 
particular Committee is really leading me to conclude and the 
reason I wanted to testify is the broad, broad impact across 
every budgetary aspect. Everything that we consider we need to 
put this frame and I think we're doing a better job as we go 
forward.
    There are various ways that you can put a monetary value on 
carbon and we've debated it for the last 15 years or 20 years 
ago when I was in this body, whether it's a carbon tax. And 
from a Republican standpoint, we don't like taxes for the most 
part, as you know, but the default positions you say, okay, 
we're not going to talk about it.
    I will say from a market-based, conservative standpoint, 
putting a price on carbon emissions makes it understandable 
from a market sense, but from a flexibility sense instead of 
over regulating-regulations tend to be stifling. You can't 
change them once they're there. It's just almost impossible to 
get them away. So personally, and Nature Conservancy would say 
putting a price on carbon emissions with responsibility--and 
yes, you have to make border adjustments coming in. So we can't 
oversimplify and border adjustments are very important to do, I 
believe, of coming in if you do it, but it captures the market 
based, the flexibility, the dynamism of the private sector, the 
coming up with solutions in real time because nobody has all 
the answers now. There's not a single bullet here.
    So I do believe putting a price on carbon emission with 
responsibility for that. And I'm not here to endorse any 
particular proposal, it does allow you to use the market what 
we know are, now with science, inevitably conditions which are 
getting worse.
    And the flip side is it can provide some revenue, if 
properly incented, give some revenue to address these issues or 
other issues as these revenues come in.
    Chairman Whitehouse. My time has expired. I will turn now 
to my Ranking Member, Senator Grassley, and after him I'll 
recognize Senator Warner from Virginia.
    Senator Grassley. Governor, the EPA has announced its plan 
to mandate two-thirds of all new vehicles be electric by 2032. 
Polls show that most Americans don't want to move in this 
direction, particularly because of the expense of the electric 
vehicle. Also the Chinese Communist Party has a monopoly on 
critical mineral mining and refining required by most EV 
batteries and is forcing the Uyghurs into slavery to bolster 
their supply chain. What should we be doing as lawmakers to 
better compete with China and to promote domestic energy 
security?
    Ambassador Branstad. The last thing in the world we ought 
to do is become dependent on China for the rare earth minerals 
and the batteries. We have renewable energy produced in the 
heartland of America and with the sequestration of CO2 it 
becomes less polluting than electric vehicles. So we ought to 
be investing in that. That's what we're doing in Iowa. In fact, 
we're partnering with several other states in the Midwest to do 
that sequestration. We have three different projects involved 
in that. They will be completed by the Year 2025 and that will 
give us an advantage.
    We don't need to be stupid like California and they don't 
even have the ability to generate the electricity if you go to 
all electric vehicles. And frankly, there's a lot of problems 
with that, the disposal of the batteries. We could go on and 
on, but the biggest problem is being dependent on China, who is 
our biggest competitor in the world and they are committed to 
being the world leader and displacing the United States.
    Senator Grassley. And now a world leader in putting CO2 
into the air. Governor, you served as Iowa's governor for a 
long, long time. You made sound budgeting and put Iowa's 
finances into good shape. What fiscal challenges did you face 
during your time as governor and what policies did you 
implement to right Iowa's fiscal ship? How important is it to 
place honest budgeting practices?
    Ambassador Branstad. Honest budgeting is critically 
important. I worked with David Vaudt, who was our state auditor 
at the time, to put the state's budget on Generally Accepted 
Accounting Principles and spending less than we took in every 
year. In fact, I think the spending is down to only 88 percent 
of revenue this year and the result is Iowa--I told you about 
the big budget surpluses. We have record and of course Governor 
Reynolds, your grandson, the Speaker of the House and Majority 
Leader and all the members of the Legislature deserve a lot of 
credit.
    Iowa is becoming a lot more prosperous and a lot more 
competitive because we've had good, sound budget practices. One 
of them that we stopped was the legislature purposely 
underfunding the governor's proposed budget in entitlement 
programs like Medicaid and then have to come back and spend 
hundreds of millions of dollars in the subsequent year because 
they had purposely underfunded that program. I insisted that 
that bad practice stop. Governor Reynolds has kept it that way 
and Iowa has been on a track of growth and prosperity ever 
since.
    Senator Grassley. Members of the Congress consistently 
peddle the alarmist idea that climate change will cause 
economic shock to the world's market, making arguments that 
regressive tax hikes and costly federal regulation are the only 
answer to fight climate change. Is that your experience?
    The Honorable Branstad. Exactly the opposite. What we have 
found is investing in renewables and encouraging farmers to 
have the opportunity to do innovative things, such as no-till 
and cover crops and things like that have made a real 
difference. And now, of course, we're working on sequestration 
of carbon so that we'll be more competitive and emitting less 
than electric vehicles and not have all the problems of being 
dependent on China for the rare earth minerals and for the 
batteries and then the disposal of the batteries.
    They haven't thought this whole thing through. We have a 
solution and we're well along in implementing it and many other 
states in the Midwest are working with us on it.
    Senator Grassley. Thank you, Governor.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Senator Warner.

                  STATEMENT OF SENATOR WARNER

    Senator Warner. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. And first, I 
want to commend you. This is a very impressive panel. You've 
got a former Prime Minister, a Majority Leader, Governor. And I 
want to echo, one thing I will point out, Governor, I used to 
be governor of Virginia and we were very proud of the fact we 
kept that AAA bond rating. We actually got rated best managed 
state in the whole country during my tenure. And I think maybe 
we didn't overlap at that point because I know you've done a 
great job in Iowa. We also got named best state for business. 
Something we've had a couple of times, but I like that healthy 
competition.
    I also want to point out there was a fascinating article 
recently in the Economist about Norway where literally 80 
percent of all the new vehicle purchases are now EVs. It's not 
seen a dramatic disruption in loss of jobs. The communities 
accommodated it and I think there are lessons learned. And I 
would simply say, Governor, I'm Chairman of the Intelligence 
Committee. There's nobody more focused on China and our 
competition with China and I concur that we frankly have turned 
a blind eye under Democratic and Republican presidents on 
sourcing those critical minerals.
    We've been asleep at the switch. Not only to China 
obtaining the sourcing of those critical minerals, but then the 
processing component and we're going to have to bring that 
processing, maybe not necessarily all back here, but with many 
of our partners around the world. And I think we have to more 
of the All of the Above.
    One of the things our Committee is going to do, Mr. 
Chairman, is look at the potential in a much broader way on 
small module nuclear reactors. I think SMRs for a long time 
have been over promised and under delivered, but I believe we 
are on the cusp of actual delivery and China's investing a huge 
amount. China and Russia are literally getting countries to 
sign on 50 and 100-year contracts, the kind of Nirvana.
    I worked up on Capitol Hill as a kid in college. The first 
energy crisis in the seventies and people started talking about 
fusion that could be the ultimate breakthrough. I mean there 
are companies now in this country that believe they will at 
least have commercial demonstration fusion projects in the mid 
to late twenties. We'll see again whether they can deliver, but 
a huge, huge breakthrough of possibilities.
    So one of the things--I want to start with you, The 
Honorable Prime Minister, we've passed recent legislation here 
trying to bring back the semiconductor industry to America and 
with our allies and I know Australia has done something 
similar. We've also passed incentives within the Inflation 
Reduction Act. We have this enormously closer relationship with 
both the QUAD and AUKUS. I was in Australia in October. Can you 
talk about how on these issues like the Governor's mentioned 
around critical minerals processing, trying to make sure that 
we are aware of this geopolitical threat around China. How our 
two countries can collaborate in a closer way.
    Prime Minister Turnbull. Well, thank you very much, 
Senator. Australia and the United States are very, very close 
allies. Our relationship is intimate and very trusting. And 
initiatives like AUKUS are making it more so, although it has 
been very close for a very long time, as you know.
    You may recall my government was the first Western 
Government to formally ban Huawei and ZTE from 5G and I had a 
lot of conversations with the Trump Administration about that 
in the lead up to that and frankly we were ahead of the U.S. in 
terms of our assessment of the risk. It was a very careful, 
technical analysis and we concluded that we couldn't mitigate 
it. So it wasn't a political decision, it was a technological 
decision. I've written and spoken about that a lot elsewhere, 
but the fundamental problem was exactly what the Ambassador, 
the former governor, was saying about solar and batteries was 
the United States and her friends and allies allowed China to 
actually take over critical areas of industry so that you had 
in the world of wireless there was no American equivalent of 
Huawei or Erickson, for that matter. So you basically had 
Scandinavian or Chinese companies to deal with.
    In the renewables area, 85 percent of solar panels are made 
in China, very high percentage of wind turbines, very high 
percentage of electrolyzes and so I absolutely welcome the 
initiatives that are being undertaken by you and others in your 
government to bring that manufacturing, to actually get 
manufacturing these critical industries in the United States 
and with close friends like Australia.
    You see I think in the English-speaking democracies we've 
always been a skeptical, particularly on my side of politics, 
on the center right. We've always been skeptical about industry 
policy. We said we don't want to be picking winners. Let the 
market decide. Well, that's fine up to a point. You've got to 
actually decide what it is you want to do and China is 
absolutely focused on that and that is why they are dominating 
these areas.
    So we shouldn't blame China for dominating the solar panel 
industry worldwide, using Australian technology, I might add, 
but we should be criticizing ourselves for not doing more to be 
competitive. So I totally welcome what you're doing in terms of 
rare earths and minerals. We've got a lot of them in Australia. 
We've got to bring these supply chains back with our friends. 
That is absolutely critical.
    Now even if you take the view that China is not a threat 
and that they're warm, friendly, and cuddly, and panda bears, 
not dragons, all of that, take all of that view, we all 
understand that a threat is the combination of capability and 
intent. Capability takes a long time to put in place. Intent 
can change in a heartbeat. So it just isn't healthy to have so 
many critical industries completely dominated by one country, 
particularly one of whose intent you would have to be very 
Pollyannaish to say is always going to be benign.
    Senator Warner. Mr. Chairman, may I get 30 seconds very 
briefly.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Senator Johnson is next and he has 
given you an okay.
    Senator Warner. No, I was just going to say two quick 
points. One, I appreciate what you did with Huawei. Before that 
there was Kaspersky. We're now in this country talking about 
TikTok, which again Australia's moved on. We do need a rules-
based approach that looks at these foreign technologies that 
pose national security. I've got one approach. Maybe others 
have got others, but I hope we get a chance to look at that 
more broadly.
    And then Governor, I do want echo one thing as a former 
governor as well. If you found a way in Iowa to make sure that 
those gosh darn legislators don't follow governor's budget 
recommendations, I'd love to get that solution set.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Senator Johnson.

                  STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOHNSON

    Senator Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    So let me start out by stating that I do not deny climate 
change. I'm just not a climate change alarmist. Climate has 
always changed, always will. My viewpoint is I don't think 
there's anything we can really do about it. So rather than 
spend trillions of dollars trying to hold back the tide, we're 
far better off using limited resources to alleviate human 
suffering in a different way. For example, have strong 
economies so we can afford air conditioning if temperature 
rises and we have heatwaves.
    Prime Minister, first of all, welcome. You said we should 
follow the science and the facts. So let's talk science and 
facts and kind of lay out my case here. Are you familiar with 
the Vostok Ice Core Sample?
    Prime Minister Turnbull. Yes. Yes, I am.
    Senator Johnson. So more than 400,000 years of global 
temperatures, right? Do you know what the total variation is 
and we're approaching the top of the fifth cycle? Do you know 
what the total variation is?
    Prime Minister Turnbull. I'll defer to you, Senator.
    Senator Johnson. 22.7 degrees Fahrenheit. Do you know since 
the last glaciation period, 10 to 20,000 years because 
everybody concerned about sea level rise. Do you know how much 
the sea level has risen in the Bay of San Francisco over the 
last 20,000 years. Want to take a guess.
    Prime Minister Turnbull. I'll leave it to you.
    Senator Johnson. 390 feet. So my point is I don't think 
there's anything man could've done to hold back the tides to 
prevent those 22.7 degrees variations. Again, we're in our 
fifth cycle very consistently 22.7 degrees. Bjorn Lomborg is 
doing a pretty good job of doing some studies. For example, he 
did a peer reviewed paper looking at if every country fulfilled 
their Paris climate change obligations that that would only 
reduce global temperatures by the year 2100 by .05 degrees 
centigrade.
    By the United Nation's own models, if the U.S. were to 
completely go carbon neutral, that would only impact global 
temperatures by .3 degrees Fahrenheit by the Year 2100. Do you 
agree with that science?
    Prime Minister Turnbull. Let me just respond to you, 
Senator. There is no doubt that global temperatures have 
fluctuated and sea levels have fluctuated, but they're now 
what, eight billion people living on the planet and the impact 
on humanity of runaway global warming will be devastating. 
There are whole countries that are going to be--well, look----
    Senator Johnson. It is conjecture. Okay.
    Prime Minister Turnbull. Okay. With great respect, Senator, 
it isn't conjecture and honestly I'm in your house, right, so 
I'll be deferential to you and you may be right and just about 
everyone else may be wrong, but the odds that the trend, the 
momentum in the world is to renewable energy.
    Now the good news is we can have clean electricity and 
cheaper electricity and greater national security, so that's 
the good news. We have the tools on the bench to do the job.
    Senator Johnson. I've got a limited amount of time here.
    Prime Minister Turnbull. Yes, go right ahead.
    Senator Johnson. In previous hearing we had the AIE witness 
say that we spent about five trillion dollars so far combating 
climate change. In the Inflation Reduction Act, that Orwellian 
named bill, green energy subsidies, Goldman Sachs said it's 
about $1.2 trillion worth. So just add those together, $6.2 
trillion of money we've spent to try and hold back the tides, 
have we made any impact whatsoever on climate? And anybody on 
the panel think that China and India are going to stop using 
fossil fuels? The majority witness in our last hearing said no 
way, as a matter of fact, we're not going to stop using fossil 
fuels----
    Prime Minister Turnbull. Can I----
    Senator Johnson [continuing]. Because 80 percent of our 
economies have to be powered by it because we're just not there 
in terms of solar and wind and they're not reliable enough. So 
again, I'm talking about reality here. The reality is China and 
India are not going to stop using fossil fuels. There's nothing 
we can do to hold back the tides. I mean it's a fantasy to 
think we can do these things. So rather than spend $6.2 
trillion we would've been far better off spending that in other 
ways to alleviate human misery and suffering.
    We'll adapt. We'll adapt to this stuff. Stop building 
million-dollar properties on the ocean's edge. That's why the 
costs are going up. So again, my whole point here is let's 
recognize reality. The climate's always going to change, so we 
should spend money wisely, not waste it and that's what we've 
done. We've wasted at least $6.2 trillion and had no impact 
whatsoever. That's money that we'll not recover and money that 
we could sorely use to alleviate human suffering. Thank you, 
Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Senator Van Hollen.

                STATEMENT OF SENATOR VAN HOLLEN

    Senator Van Hollen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank all 
of you for being here. We have a very distinguished group and I 
appreciate all of your testimony, which was reported to me and 
I saw some on TV as I was coming over. And it's good to see 
you, Senator Frist.
    So look, let's talk about reality for a moment and then I'm 
going to have some follow-up questions. The reality is, as 
everybody's acknowledged, is we have global warming and anybody 
who looks at a simple chart over time will see that greenhouse 
gas emissions have grown substantially during the Industrial 
Age and that there's a direct correlation between that and the 
increases in climate change.
    In fact, it's hard on the one hand to say those emissions 
don't matter and then to say, well, they matter, but China is 
not going to stop doing them. Those are two different 
arguments. My view is that we need to work in a coordinated 
way, both here at home and with partners around the world and 
with others around the world to address these important issues. 
Because as we've seen the cost of climate change are rising by 
the day and because there's a great opportunity to invest in 
clean energy, as all of you have discussed.
    China is right now eating our lunch when it comes to the 
processing of critical minerals that are essential for EV 
batteries. So it simply makes sense from an economic point of 
view as the world moves more and more toward clean energy, 
energy efficiency in electric vehicles that we not get left 
behind.
    The Honorable Turnbull, I saw that Australia has the 
largest clean energy bank in the world called the Clean Energy 
Finance Corporation which, as Prime Minister you used to 
support renewable energy investment during your tenure. It was 
initially capitalized at $10 billion in 2012. It's invested 
over $37 billion for clean energy technologies and continues to 
leverage and recycle those funds. It's a sustainable fund that 
has substantially contributed to reduction in greenhouse gas 
emissions.
    This is something that I've worked on for a very long time 
here in the United States, starting during my time in the 
House. I'm pleased that we included a similar financing 
authority as part of the Inflation Reduction Act. Could you 
talk a little bit about the benefits Australia's seen and how 
you used that facility during your time as Prime Minister?
    Prime Minister Turnbull. Thank you. Well, there were 
basically two agencies established. It was actually by the 
Labor Government headed by The Honorable Rudd, who is now our 
Ambassador in Washington. The Clean Energy Finance Corporation 
and another agency called ARENA, Australian Renewable Energy 
Agency. ARENA was about grants. It made grants for cutting edge 
new, innovative projects, so it was absolutely a grant program.
    CFC deployed much larger sums of money, as you've 
described, and during the liberal coalitions time we've added 
capital to it. It earns a financial return. It's a very good 
business. People often say governments can't run businesses, 
but this is actually a very good financial business. They 
provided funding to wind and solar projects initially when the 
commercial sector were not comfortable with it and now they are 
moving to other projects that are perhaps a bit more risky. 
Their role is really to be a leader, a path leader in terms of 
financing clean energy and I think it's been very successful. 
Again, it wasn't an invention of our side of politics, but it's 
one that we adopted and really strongly support.
    Senator Van Hollen. I appreciate that. And Senator Frist, I 
understand that you've spoken in support in putting a price on 
carbon pollution, which I agree would be an important 
mechanism. As you probably know, we don't have the votes here 
to do it. I've been attending these hearings. I know Senator 
Romney had supported that idea, at least in concept. But it 
seems pretty clear from an economic point of view and a climate 
point of view that you put a price on pollution you get less 
pollution, but I will continue to support it. Glad to hear 
you're supporting that.
    And Ambassador Branstad, as I listened to your testimony I 
think you would agree that we should be making the kind of 
investments in clean energy that you made in Iowa and that we 
should be making that at the national level, am I right about 
that?
    Ambassador Branstad. Well, I think that states are the best 
place to do that because the governors are in the best position 
to know what makes the most sense in their individual states. 
The federal government is broke and has a huge deficit and I 
think your focus ought to be on addressing that and we're 
headed for a default by the end of this month and it's a 
disaster that you're talking about spending more money at the 
federal level. We in Iowa with a huge budget surplus are in a 
position to do something.
    Senator Van Hollen. Governor, with respect, we all want to 
avoid a default. That seems to be a no-brainer to me. You don't 
compete against the power of China just on a state-by-state 
basis in my view. And finally, when it comes to the deployment 
of clean energy, it seems to me taking away tax incentives from 
American businesses is a tax increase we don't want to support, 
so that's my view. We do need to avoid a default. Our 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle don't seem to want to 
close any tax breaks on very wealthy people in America in order 
to that, but we should find a way to achieve a deficit, not 
just threaten default while we're at it. Thank you, Mr. 
Chairman.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Senator Marshall.

                 STATEMENT OF SENATOR MARSHALL

    Senator Marshall. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I hope that 
everyone would agree with me that the greatest predictor of 
carbon production for the world, the number one indicator for 
carbon production for the world is a strong world economy. That 
when we have a strong world economy we're able to build the 
infrastructure, implement all these innovative ideas that we 
have.
    And to quote someone from years ago ``When America sneezes 
the world catches a cold.'' We sit in the Budget Room here and 
we should be talking about the budget and that this President 
will not negotiate on a balance budget to go along with raising 
the federal debt limit. That that's one conversation. But 
because of the White House's inflationary policies, we've 
destroyed our own American economy and now the rest of the 
world is suffering. So like the governor said, we should be 
prioritizing a strong economy.
    I think as we talk about energy policy, in particular, we 
need to remember that not only do we want clean energy, we want 
it to be affordable and reliable and that contributes. What 
would be the carbon impact of eliminating every coal plant in 
the world and converting them to natural gas? That's something 
that's achievable, something that's measurable.
    I'll turn my question, first one, to Senator, Dr. Frist, 
and with your relationship with the Nature Conservancy, an 
organization I've worked with for decades, not a more respected 
organization out there, focusing on building habitat. And I 
think a good example to discuss is wind energy and how the 
Nature Conservancy balances, uses a commonsense approach to 
wind energy. Iowa and Kansas is leading the world in wind 
energy. I've embraced it. Fifty percent of Kansas's electricity 
from wind energy, but at the same time Nature Conservancy has 
fought to protect my grassland, as well, my tall, prairie 
grasslands.
    Tell me what the Nature Conservancy's secret sauce is for 
this common-sense approach to, look, we want wind energy but we 
also want to preserve the habitat. And by the way, the happiest 
species out there are coyotes, who are just sitting at the 
bottom of these wind turbines in Kansas.
    Senator Frist. Thank you. And in my written testimony I 
talk a little bit about it, after 20 years of medicine as a 
clinical scientist, doctor, written--hundreds of papers, peer 
reviewed and the like, and then 20 years sitting--or 12 years 
sitting where all of you are sitting, I did come to the 
conclusion that we need a common-sense approach that can bring 
people together that is science-based.
    I know science right now is taking a beating after COVID, 
but that's why joining an organization like the Nature 
Conservancy that has 900 scientists from all 50 states and from 
around the world because we're in 79 countries, to come 
together----
    Senator Marshall. But you would agree with me, and I'm 
sorry to cut you off, because you know it's hard to be on this 
side. But you would agree that there's a place for wind energy 
and there's a place not for it.
    Senator Frist. Yes. And I think there's not any single-
point solution to any of this, but there is absolutely a place 
for wind energy that is there. We focus on wind. We focus on 
nature-based solutions. I want to just quickly go in--like one 
minute.
    Senator Marshall. I don't have a minute. I'm sorry.
    senator Frist. Go ahead. Go ahead.
    Senator Marshall. You've got me taking three minutes off.
    Senator Frist. The answer is, yes, there's definitely a 
place for wind.
    Senator Marshall. I take the conversation even further. 
We're concerned about water conservation. We're concerned about 
floods. So what are we doing in this country to mitigate those? 
All we do is build higher dikes around Kansas rather than 
trying to do something with the flood waters like building 
egresses for wetland habitats.
    Senator Frist. Absolutely.
    Senator Marshall. Why are my friends in California letting 
all this water melt, snow melt escape to the ocean when they're 
overreacting to a species issue rather than water conservation. 
It's the balance of it. With my one remaining minute, 
Ambassador Branstad, I'm going to turn to you.
    Everyday I get people from urban American giving me 
lectures on what agriculture should be doing for conservation. 
Your farmers and my farmers are out there doing incredible 
things and I turn around and ask them what is urban America 
doing for the environment? What are they doing when they 
produce 20 percent of the methane? Agriculture only produces 10 
percent of it. So what's urban America doing about their 
methane production? What are they doing to recycle water?
    I'm sure the people of Iowa are doing a great job. What are 
some ideas you would have for urban America to maybe look in 
the mirror and help themselves?
    Senator Frist. Well, I think they need to quit criticizing 
the productive people in agriculture. And I'm now with the 
World Food Price and we're honoring and recognizing laureates 
from throughout the world that have done things to help reduce 
poverty and to have sustainable food supply for people 
everywhere. And so agriculture is the leader in the world in 
helping reduce starvation and making it possible for people to 
have a better life and to have the food that sustains them. And 
we want to be able to continue that.
    And a lot of people in urban Iowa and urban America don't 
even know that the corn we're producing is field corn that's 
fed to livestock. It's not what feeds humans. The lack of 
knowledge about some of these issues. They don't know where 
their food comes from is a big problem. We need to get urban 
America out in the country to see what's going on there and how 
agriculture has changed so dramatically in my lifetime. We're 
using fewer people and fewer acres to produce more and more and 
we're always looking for better ways to do it.
    Senator Marshall. And we're using less fertilizer, less 
water, we're doing the right things, but again, I would love to 
ask some experts to come talk to us about what urban America is 
doing as well. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Senator Padilla of California is next 
followed by Senator Braun.

                  STATEMENT OF SENATOR PADILLA

    Senator Padilla. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I've got to 
say I'm inspired by the interest by colleague on the Committee 
to engage in the conversation of balancing water use, municipal 
water use, environmental protection, agriculture, and more.
    Prime Minister Turnbull, thank you for your participation 
today. In your written testimony, you caught my eye when I read 
your mentions of water availability as being particularly 
variable. California and the western United States, frankly, 
recently experienced the worse mega drought in more than 1200 
years. And despite recent winter storms that my colleague 
reference, the region will continue to face hard choices in the 
face of dwindling water supplies and increasing demand.
    Australia shares many of California's climate challenges, 
including water availability, wildfires, extreme heat, and 
population growth. Floods and drought continue to pose social 
and economic costs on growing populations across the globe. 
It's not just California and Australia.
    At the first High-Level Panel on Water convened by the U.N. 
in which you participated, water scarcity was identified as one 
of the greatest risks to poverty, eradication, and sustainable 
development.
    So with that being said, can you share briefly some of 
Australia's policies compared to those of the United States 
when it comes to ensuring water availability?
    Prime Minister Turnbull. Well, thank you. I mean most water 
is used in agriculture, as you know. We've got a very different 
approach to water than you have in the United States and it is 
water is licensed. That was really an initiative that began in 
the 19th Century actually inspired by an Australian politician 
called Alfred Deacon, who'd observed what he thought was some 
of the mistakes that were being made in the United States 
frankly. So we manage water very carefully.
    When John Howard was Prime Minister and I was his Water 
Minister, we instituted a new Federal Water Act, so the federal 
government took a role in all interstate water and we seek to 
create a balance between the demands of agriculture, cities, 
and the environment, but it's very hard, as you know, because 
as Mark Twain, I think, once said whiskey is for drinking and 
water is for fighting over.
    It is very difficult and the problem is that if you have 
diminishing water availability because of global warming and 
longer droughts, then you've got a smaller pie to share, so 
it's not easy. I mean there are no easy solutions, but I think 
you need to have a rigorous approach that ensure that water is 
not wasted. That agriculture uses water efficiently and make 
every drop count because there is nothing tougher nor more 
fundamental in the history of human government than the 
management of water.
    Senator Padilla. Couldn't agree more. And again, would 
welcome my colleague into a conversation and a tour of 
California's--I mean California has been both innovative and 
aggressive when it comes to all aspects of water, efficiency, 
conservation, reuse, recycling, and more. But another 
consequence of climate change, the scarcity of water being part 
of it, but couple that with extreme heat and we have 
experienced record wildfires in California over the last 
decade, but that one of the areas where we don't just have some 
common challenges, but we also have cooperation.
    The increasingly destructive wildfires has brought our two 
countries together in the form of mutual and formal technical 
and operational support for about 55 years now.
    Prime Minister Turnbull. Your firefighters help us and our 
firefighters help you and equipment is shared. Yes.
    Senator Padilla. And the agreement has been formulized 
since 2002. And 2019 was a remarkable year when the United 
States sent more than 170 firefighters to Australia. This is 
one year after--2018--when Australia sent 100 firefighters to 
California specifically. Can you just explain a little bit 
about the importance and necessity of this partnership as we 
see wildfire intensity increase due to the impacts of the 
climate crisis?
    Prime Minister Turnbull. The cooperation is absolutely 
critical. I mean our seasons alternate, so your fire seasons is 
about the other half of the year to ours, so I think there is 
an enormous amount to be learned and gained by cooperation in 
this area as in so many others. Our countries are very, very 
close friends and I think we're getting closer.
    Senator Padilla. Well, thank you very much. I'll just end 
on this. What used to be a roughly narrow and defined 
``wildfire season'' no longer applies. We see fires of 
significance size starting earlier in the calendar year and 
going into later in the calendar year, so we really need to be 
aware on the ready, close to year round nowadays. I'm not sure 
if that's the same dynamic happening in Australia, but that'll 
impact that mutual cooperation that you referenced.
    Prime Minister Turnbull. It absolutely is the same. And of 
course, heat impacts on water availability as well because it's 
one thing to give an amount of rainfall, but how much gets into 
the groundwater system, how much gets into the river, and that 
is going to be affected very directly by the heat in the 
environment which of course will cause it to evaporate before 
it gets into a stream or into a groundwater system, so runoff 
is being disproportionately affected by hotter temperatures.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Senator Braun followed by Senator 
Lujan and then Senator Merkley it looks like.

                   STATEMENT OF SENATOR BRAUN

    Senator Braun. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I got here a little 
over four years ago and my question is going to be for Dr. 
Frist and if we do another round if we're going to have 
additional questions I'll have a few more. A couple things. We 
share a lot in common, other than being close in age. Did you 
term limit yourself to this place to do it no more than two 
terms.
    Leader Frist. I did. I came in saying 12 years was the 
right amount of time.
    Senator Braun. Alleluia. This place needs that more than 
ever. I wanted to be what you were out of the gate, a doctor, 
and I chose to be an entrepreneur and I think I made the right 
decision there, by the way. But when I decided to come here it 
was out of concern for the broad array of issues and started 
Climate Caucus with Senator Coons after he tried to get every 
Republican to even think about it and he told me for two years 
didn't get anywhere. He almost turned away thinking the 
perfunctory answer was going to be, no, I'm not interested. I 
said sure I would.
    So for those out there that wonder about this discussion 
and where conservatives fit in, I can tell you that young 
conservatives are very, very interested. Faith-based 
organizations from Evangelicals to Catholics are and probably 
the business that most at the forefront that knows something is 
afoot would be farmers and I got involved in farming, both tree 
and row crop many, many years ago.
    So I'm a personal member and a corporate member, my company 
is that I used to run of the Nature Conservancy. I think you 
probably hit the sweet spot of practicality when it comes to 
how we need to look at it. You didn't have the inherent budget 
issues back I think it was 2000 when we started putting 
everything on the credit card here. You were here for a couple 
years. I'll cite that we were five trillion in debt in 2000 
after the Bush term, two terms.
    We went up to 10 trillion. I think the other side of the 
aisle said if you're going to do that, we're going to double 
down, had an issue with the economy. Well, they added another 
six trillion, structural trillion-dollar deficits since then. 
Now they're up to two trillion-dollar deficits. I love to quote 
on another issue that I think drives the dysfunction here. 
Admiral Mike Mullins said, ``I fear the red ink more than I do 
the Red Menace.'' And the sad interplay to how we've gotten 
here would be defense hawks on the other side of the aisle that 
have just put the budget process, everything that works 
everywhere else secondary to what they think is most important 
policy-wise.
    I see where you think climate is the single biggest health 
threat facing humanity. I'm going to say that I think climate 
is something that we need to be engaged in so we don't get 
walloped with bad policy and that we don't ignore an issue out 
there is important. How do you kind of put the weight between 
both issues when one's a bird in the hand going broke 
systematically to the tune of two trillion dollars a year and 
finance is what I ended up doing as an entrepreneur, terrible 
business plan for anyone.
    Where do you think the imminent threat of climate compares 
when it's modeled in a way that is it hard to see what that 
might be. I know it's of significance. How does that play 
against the systematic going broke as a country?
    Senator Frist. First of all, as you can tell, I'm never the 
alarmist or the conservationist that says we don't care about 
people. We're conserving just for conserving sake and that's 
why the Nature Conservancy, as you have said, basically says it 
about planetary health and human health and the human health 
can't be sustained if we don't get the planetary health right. 
And these long statistics over 500 years are really 
interesting, but from a scientist standpoint we live in a 
different world now.
    We're an industrial world. We know we're putting carbon in 
the air. We know it's wrapping a blanket around. The 
interesting thing about this Committee is we used to budget 
before most of your time here in five years and this isn't a 
five-year issue nor was HIV-AIDS, which we're in the 20th year 
of celebration--really the success. It's a 30, it's a 40, it's 
a 50-year history. Then we budget a 10-year period, which is 
what you're challenged to do now and it is true this is going 
to take longer than 10 years.
    It took longer than 10 years to get here. It's going to be 
innovation. It's going to be science. It's going to be 
something that's in my testimony, but didn't have time for you 
to hear, the nature-based solutions which don't cost a lot of 
money, that are easy to do to promote biodiversity that from 
the emissions standpoint can probably take care of 15 percent 
of the emissions by just sustainable foresting.
    I didn't to close the forest down, but we need to manage. 
We don't need to cut them all down because that creates disease 
itself. So this is a long-term problem. It's going to require 
not a carbon tax and not a loan and not all the wind or the 
solar.
    Senator Braun. I agree with all that. That question, 
though, was a relative significance in terms of imminence, the 
red ink or the climate concerns.
    Senator Frist. I think both are important. And to say it's 
an either or is a little about like saying you're alarmist or 
you're not an alarmist. It's absolutely both. If we don't start 
investing now, the payout will be beyond our 10-year window in 
terms of the cost to humanity for the climate.
    Senator Braun. We are out of time. I think we'll have 
another round. Before I do let you go, quickly, do you formally 
endorse federal term limits?
    Senator Frist. I would probably not only because real, real 
quickly, even as Majority Leader of the United States Senate 
coming here, I would occasionally and probably more than 
occasionally rely on somebody a little bit older with a little 
more experience and therefore I cannot in good conscience, in 
this body, the upper legislative body, basically say that 
everybody should be term limited. It was the right thing for 
me. If it's the right thing I think maybe for most people 
because the turnover is good, but I'd stop short of endorsing 
federal term limits for every federal official.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Senator Lujan.

                   STATEMENT OF SENATOR LUJAN

    Senator Lujan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Frist, your 
testimony--well, first off, thanks for being here, sir, as well 
as Governor and Prime Minister, it's really an honor to have 
you all here.
    And Dr. Frist, your testimony concludes with a reference to 
the Nature Conservancy's findings that our nation's recent 
investments in clean energy and climate initiatives will yield 
concrete economic returns over half a million jobs and 50 
billion every year for 10 years.
    Leader Frist. And that's the return of $1.42 on every 
dollar invested and that's independent research from the Nature 
Conservancy. Thank you.
    Senator Lujan. I appreciate that, sir. Now this is many 
times the value of the investment that was committed last year 
and so I appreciate the explanation supporting that as well.
    Dr. Frist, is the transition to clean energy not only 
feasible, but necessary to ensure the long-term wellbeing of 
vulnerable communities?
    Senator Frist. It's absolutely necessary and it's going to 
take the innovation and technology and in the meantime the 
mitigation through nature-based solutions and other solutions, 
including wind, solar, and others.
    Senator Lujan. Dr. Frist, do federal climate investments 
create the highly skilled jobs that communities need to prosper 
and that the United States needs to stay competitive in the 
global energy transition?
    Leader Frist. Independent research by the Nature 
Conservancy and our colleagues showed, as you said, this full 
suite of recent climate and clean energy investments if we stay 
on that path will support over 500,000--we came up with 537,000 
jobs, not over 10 years, annually for 10 years, so yes.
    Senator Lujan. I think you answered my next question, but 
I'm going to ask it anyway, Dr. Frist. Do federal climate 
investments benefit our economy?
    Senator Frist. Yes. There's no question about it, but it 
doesn't mean necessarily spend more money just to benefit the 
economy itself and that's why the balance of nature--I'm going 
to keep saying it, the nature-based solutions with the 
investment and innovation and technology and tax incentives to 
stimulate the private sector to become intimately involved I 
think is absolutely critical. So yes, federal investment is 
absolutely critical, but it's through what the Nature 
Conservancy, in particular, is all about in its collaboration 
bringing everybody to the table trying to exclude the things 
that are not science-based, going with the science-based and 
putting them on the table and that'll promote the economy and 
it's going to take a while to fix this coming on and the fix 
means we have to start now.
    Senator Lujan. I appreciate that, sir.
    The Honorable Turnbull, I particularly appreciated your 
observation that China is both the world's largest emitter of 
greenhouse gases and the largest producer of renewable energy 
technologies. China appears to recognize that the energy 
transitioning is happening and with it comes an opportunity for 
international leadership and economic security.
    I'm concerned that if the United States does not invest in 
the research and support the innovation needed to make the 
clean energy transition our nation will lose the international 
leadership. One of the assets we have in the United States is 
our Department of Energy National Labs, a scientific research 
network that is unmatched anywhere else in the world. These 
labs are global leaders in the development of cutting-edge 
technologies to reduce the climate impacts of energy 
generation, manufacturing, and other essential parts of our 
economy. My question, The Honorable Turnbull, is the United 
States and China are they both competing for international 
leadership in the development of clean energy technologies?
    Prime Minister Turnbull. Well, they are competing, but 
you'd have to say that China is way in the lead. China is 
producing, as I said earlier, about 85 percent of solar panels, 
about 75 percent of wind turbines and inverters and so forth, 
so they're dominating that sector.
    Now the technology is not all developed in China. I mean 
the core technology and the photovoltaic cell or the so-called 
PERC cell was developed at the University of New South Wales in 
Sydney, a team lead by Professor Martin Green. What has 
happened, and in so many other sectors, is that America--and 
we're all in the same boat, right? America and her friends and 
allies have just through an absence of mind, I think, an 
insouciance allowed China to take the lead in these areas and 
then you wake up one day and you say, gosh, there isn't much of 
an American industry in this particular area or indeed a 
Japanese one or a German one or a French one or an Australian 
one and that's wrong.
    So the answer is for all of us to get moving. We could do 
it. And if I could just make one final point and it's relative 
to what the Governor said earlier. You know one of the 
advantages of some old-fashioned forms of renewable energy like 
hydro and in particular pumped hydro, which has a great example 
in Virginia in the Bath County pump hydro system, is that most 
of its components are concrete and steel which you source 
locally. So we can achieve large levels--we already do achieve 
large levels of energy storage without using critical minerals 
or batteries or anything like that.
    So as I said, we do have the tools to catch up and become 
competitive with China in the clean energy technology space, 
but we need to do it. So that's why even though it has some 
competitive issues for us in Australia we do welcome the vision 
and the commitment of the Inflation Reduction Act despite its 
rather unusual title.
    Senator Lujan. Chairman, thank you. I have other questions, 
but I'll submit them to the record to be mindful of the time.
    Chairman Whitehouse. Perfect.
    Senator Lujan. Thank you.
    Chairman Whitehouse. So here is what is going to happen 
going forward. I'm going to recognize Senator Merkley for his 
questions. If another senator comes who has not yet had a 
chance to ask questions in the first round attends they will be 
recognized. In deference to the schedules of this distinguished 
panel, there will not be a second round. However, as a courtesy 
to Senator Braun, he will be able to ask one question, then I 
will make a closing statement and we will adjourn. Anybody with 
a question for the record has about 24 hours until noon 
tomorrow to get it in and we'd request all the witnesses to 
respond within a week if you do get questions for the record. 
So with that, let me turn to Senator Merkley.

                  STATEMENT OF SENATOR MERKLEY

    Senator Merkley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and thank to each 
of you bringing your very diverse political experiences and 
policy knowledge to bear on this challenge.
    The Honorable Turnbull, I saw in your testimony that you 
are Chair of the Green Hydrogen Association and we have a lot 
of different colors for a lot of different types of hydrogen, 
but could you just in a sentence or two explain what green 
hydrogen is?
    Prime Minister Turnbull. Green hydrogen is hydrogen made by 
electrolyzing water with renewable electricity, the electricity 
from renewable sources.
    Senator Merkley. So some have suggested many different uses 
for such hydrogen, however, it's also been pointed out that it 
makes more sense to use electricity directly than use 
electricity to make green hydrogen to make electricity. But 
some of the uses that have been pointed out have been the role 
of making fertilizer and high-temperature manufacturing, is 
that a fair summary of the purposes of green hydrogen?
    Prime Minister Turnbull. Well, there's a very wide range, 
but you're absolutely right. The energy loss in the roundtrip 
of going renewable electricity green hydrogen and then using 
that in a hydrogen fuel cell or a gas turbine to make 
electricity again is enormous, so that's not ideal. But 
anywhere where you need a molecule so to make ammonia which is 
NH3, you need hydrogen for that, green hydrogen for that. You 
can make green methanal. You can even make green methane if you 
want, but although then you've got the problem with what you do 
with the carbon dioxide, but for heavy transport hydrogen is 
going to be critical. Steel making you can use and green steel 
is where you use hydrogen to de-oxidize the iron ore. At the 
moment ferric oxide is burnt with coal in a blast furnace. The 
carbon attaches to the oxygen, goes up the chimney stack as 
CO2. If you use hydrogen as that flux, then your 
emission is steam, H2O.
    So yes, I think the uses for green hydrogen are enormous. 
There are debates about how enormous they are, but my own view 
as Chair of the Green Hydrogen Organization is to simply say 
this. Whether you have the demand frame at the high end or the 
low end, it is so far in excess of what we're currently 
producing. I think it's a question we don't really have to 
worry about for a while. We've really got to get cracking on 
the green hydrogen.
    Senator Merkley. Well, I really support the green hydrogen 
effort and the applications for its cost effectiveness. I'm 
very concerned about some of the other forms of hydrogen that 
derive from methane gas and the life cycle impact in which they 
can be more damaging to the climate than not.
    There's a big success in Australia of rooftop solar. 
Congratulations. One out of three households. That's 
remarkable. We have a lot of resistance from our local 
utilities for distributed solar because they're not making that 
energy and it reduces the demand. Did you have policies that 
kind of essentially helped families overcome the resistance of 
local utilities to a lot more rooftop solar?
    Prime Minister Turnbull. Well, the answer is yes. As part 
of the renewable energy target there is a small-scale renewable 
energy target which essentially subsidizes--it's not a huge 
subsidy, by the way, Senator, but it does subsidize, 
incentivize rooftop solar. It's become enormously popular and 
of course people do it because the solar panels have got 
cheaper and generating electricity behind the meter, 
particularly if allied with a battery makes for very big 
savings for householders.
    Yes, I mean, solar works. The reality is solar and wind are 
the cheapest forms of new generation in Australia and have been 
for quite a long time now and particularly the economics are 
very compelling if it's behind the meter, as it is on a home.
    Senator Merkley. I can tell you I love looking at my app 
every day to see how my rooftop solar is doing. Whether it's--a 
sunny or cloudy day makes a big difference, but on average, a 
little 300-square foot array of solar panels is producing the 
equivalent of about three gallons of gas a day through the 
year. And when I put it in those terms, it was incredible.
    One of the challenges we have in the United States is the 
amount of money that fossil fuel industry injects into our 
elections, an industry that makes profits of two and three 
hundred billion dollars a year and they put 1 percent of that 
into elections and it has a tremendous outcome on who's elected 
and therefore on the policies we pursue.
    Did Australia have some strategy that limited, if you will, 
campaign donations in a different way from the United States 
that kind of prevents the domination by a powerful industry of 
the election system?
    Prime Minister Turnbull. Look, we at the federal level we 
have a disclosure. You have to disclose donations. It's now 
about $15,000, so that's quite a high disclosure level by your 
standards. Foreigners can't make donations. That was a reform I 
introduced when I was PM, but apart from that there are no 
restrictions.
    So yes, the fossil fuel sector does make contributions. 
Yes, they have been very, very influential. There's no doubt 
about that, but I'd have to say that the business sector, 
overall, is well in advance of the political right in terms of 
their approach to climate. The opposition to taking action on 
climate is less influenced by the fossil fuel sector, which is 
sort of recognized this change is there and it has become more 
sort of a culture war issue, unfortunately. That was the 
massive wrong turning for the conservative or center right side 
of politics, I think.
    Senator Merkley. I'm over my time, but thank you very much 
for hosting this hearing and I really appreciate all of you and 
I had lots of questions for you, Dr. Frist, in your role and 
Governor Branstad. Very few governors have served 16 years, so 
congratulations on being very successful in that.
    Ambassador Branstad. 22 years and four months.
    Chairman Whitehouse. But who's counting? Senator Braun for 
one question. I know they're getting ready to close the vote, 
so I want to inform my colleagues we need to move.
    Senator Braun. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This question is 
for Ambassador Branstad. I've chosen to term limit myself after 
one term and it's because I'm an entrepreneur. I think most of 
the solutions that we wrestle with are going to be solved at 
the state level without borrowing the money from our kids and 
grandkids to do what we want to do here.
    Tell me what you think about where climate solutions, the 
broad array of issues, but especially climate, where do we best 
effect these and how do we pay for it in a way that's 
sustainable?
    Ambassador Branstad. Well, first of all, I don't agree with 
you on term limits, obviously.
    Senator Braun. Okay.
    Ambassador Branstad. No two thinking people are going to 
agree 100 percent of time.
    Senator Braun. I'd agree with that as well.
    Ambassador Branstad. In terms of addressing these issues, 
as I mentioned in my testimony, I signed this wind energy law 
my first year as governor and now we're the leader in the whole 
country in terms of wind energy and we have both affordable and 
reliable wind energy and it's made a real difference. So all of 
these major companies have chosen to put their data centers in 
Iowa and a lot of manufacturing has come to Iowa because it's 
both renewable and affordable, so you need to have both.
    The other thing is we've been a leader, even going back to 
when I was in the legislature with ethanol and biodiesel and I 
believe that higher and higher ethanol blends will make it 
possible for us to reduce pollution more than electric vehicles 
and we don't have the challenge of the rare earth minerals, the 
batteries from China, and all that stuff that frankly we can't 
compete with China on today. And of course, the changes, the 
innovations in agriculture, precision agriculture, minimum 
tillage, cover crops, all those kinds of things and now of 
course in my new position at the World Food Price we're looking 
worldwide what could we do to help bring into production some 
of these areas that have never been touched? They don't in 
Africa and many other places they could increase their yields 
dramatically and that's of course what Norman Borlaug did with 
wheat and prevented nearly a billion people from starvation.
    So I am excited about what agriculture can do to make a 
real difference in both addressing the climate issues as well 
as making us economically competitive.
    Senator Braun. Thank you for your comments. And as 
governor, I think you balanced your budget every year too, 
didn't you?
    Ambassador Branstad. We did. But I faced a projected 
deficit when I came to office both times and I did it once, not 
once, but twice. And the neat thing is I had a lieutenant 
governor who was elected with me. She's built on that and today 
Iowa is in the best economic position its ever been in history. 
We're reducing taxes and attracting more jobs.
    Senator Braun. That's a good business plan. Thank you.
    Ambassador Branstad. Governor Reynolds has improved on 
everything I taught her.
    Chairman Whitehouse. A good closing pitch for Iowa from the 
former governor. First, let me just say that I personally 
regret that Senator Braun has chosen to term limit himself 
because I really value him as a colleague. Second, let me say 
that I'm delighted that each one of you was able to come here 
today. I don't know that the Budget Committee has ever had a 
more distinguished panel of a former Prime Minister, a former 
Senate Majority Leader, and a former Governor, in addition to 
many other accomplishments in your distinguished careers, so 
thank you very, very much for being here.
    I think this has been very helpful and I hope sent a 
message that bipartisanship may actually emerge in this area. I 
certainly fervently hope it does. The question that I will ask 
to Senator Frist and to Prime Minister Turnbull comes out of 
your testimony. I'll make it a question for the record so you 
have time to reflect on it and get back to me.
    Prime Minister Turnbull talked in his testimony about the 
need for an orderly transition to clean energy and Senator 
Frist talked about the multiple predicted costs from climate 
harm and there's an additional factor out there which is the 
dangers of a disorderly transition and the dangers of 
unpredicted harms. And to give you a heads up on what we've 
seen in this Committee already, we've had witnesses who come in 
and testified that there are multiple what they call systemic 
risks, economic risks that will cascade out beyond the 
immediately affected sector of the economy and do damage 
economy wide and in some cases global economy wide and those 
have been coastal property values crash with testimony from 
Freddie Mac's chief economist, a wildfire risk collapse as 
uninsurability leads to unmortgage ability leads to values 
crash. A general threat to the insurance market as risks become 
unpredictable and therefore uninsurable and the carbon bubble 
bursting in a disorderly fossil fuel transition.
    Each one of those individually and separately has been cast 
as a very significant economic threat and nothing prevents all 
of them from coming to pass in cumulated, multiple economic 
massacre, if you will. And so I would ask each of you to 
reflect on that and add any thoughts to your testimony you may 
have about these predicted, but unspecifiable, if you will--
it's hard to exactly predict what the amount will be, but the 
systemic risk problem and the problem of unpredictable 
predicted crashes and catastrophes. And with that, I will call 
the hearing to its conclusion.
    Again, anybody else on the Committee with a question for 
the record has until noon tomorrow to file it. To the extent 
that you can respond to those within a week, I would urge you 
to do so, if you can. And again, with great gratitude to each 
one of you for your testimony. We'll close the hearing. Thank 
you.
    [Whereupon, at 12:13 p.m., Wednesday, May 10, 2023, the 
hearing was adjourned.]
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