[Senate Hearing 118-83]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 118-83
DOLLARS AND DEGREES: INVESTIGATING FOSSIL
FUEL DARK MONEY'S SYSTEMIC THREATS TO
CLIMATE AND THE FEDERAL BUDGET
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
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June 21, 2023
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Printed for the use of the Committee on the Budget
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
www.govinfo.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
53-230 WASHINGTON : 2023
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COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island, Chairman
PATTY MURRAY, Washington CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa
RON WYDEN, Oregon MIKE CRAPO, Idaho
DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina
BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin
MARK R. WARNER, Virginia MITT ROMNEY, Utah
JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon ROGER MARSHALL, Kansas
TIM KAINE, Virginia MIKE BRAUN, Indiana
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland JOHN KENNEDY, Louisiana
BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico RICK SCOTT, Florida
ALEX PADILLA, California MIKE LEE, Utah
Dan Dudis, Majority Staff Director
Kolan Davis, Republican Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Mallory B. Nersesian, Chief Clerk
Alexander C. Scioscia, Hearing Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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WEDNESDAY, JUNE 21, 2023
OPENING STATEMENTS BY COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Page
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Chairman............................. 1
Prepared Statement........................................... 30
Senator Charles E. Grassley, Ranking Member...................... 4
Prepared Statement........................................... 33
STATEMENTS BY COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Senator Debbie Stabenow.......................................... 17
Senator Ron Johnson.............................................. 19
Senator Jeff Merkley............................................. 22
Senator John Kennedy............................................. 23
Senator Tim Kaine................................................ 26
WITNESSES
Dr. Naomi Oreskes, Henry Charles Lea Professor of the History of
Science, Harvard University.................................... 6
Prepared Statement........................................... 35
Ms. Christine Arena, Founder and Producer, Generous Films........ 8
Prepared Statement........................................... 64
Mr. Richard Painter, S. Walter Richey Professor of Corporate Law,
University of Minnesota Law School............................. 9
Prepared Statement........................................... 96
Dr. Roger Pielke, Jr., Professor of Environmental Studies,
University of Colorado Boulder................................. 11
Prepared Statement........................................... 106
Mr. Scott Walter, President, Capital Research Center............. 12
Prepared Statement........................................... 115
APPENDIX
Responses to post-hearing questions for the Record
Dr. Pielke................................................... 124
Mr. Walter................................................... 129
Documents submitted to the Record by Chairman Sheldon Whitehouse. 140
Statement submitted to the Record by Senator Ron Johnson......... 1137
DOLLARS AND DEGREES: INVESTIGATING
FOSSIL FUEL DARK MONEY'S SYSTEMIC
THREATS TO CLIMATE AND THE
FEDERAL BUDGET
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WEDNESDAY, JUNE 21, 2023
Committee on the Budget,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
The hearing was convened, pursuant to notice, at 10:02
a.m., in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Sheldon
Whitehouse, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Whitehouse, Stabenow, Merkley, Kaine, Van
Hollen, Grassley, Johnson, Marshall, Braun, Kennedy, and R.
Scott.
Also present: Democratic staff: Dan Dudis, Majority Staff
Director; Jonathan Misk, Director of Oversight and Senior
Counsel; Dan Ruboss, Senior Tax and Economic Advisor and Member
Outreach Director; Aria Kovalovich, Researcher.
Republican staff: Chris Conlin, Deputy Staff Director;
Krisann Pearce, General Council; Jordan Pakula, Professional
Staff Member.
Witnesses:
Dr. Naomi Oreskes, Henry Charles Lea Professor of the
History of Science Harvard University
Ms. Christine Arena, Founder and Producer Generous Films
Mr. Richard Painter, S. Walter Richey Professor of
Corporate Law, University of Minnesota Law School
Dr. Roger Pielke, Jr., Professor of Environmental Studies
University of Colorado Boulder
Mr. Scott Walter, President, Capital Research Center
OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN WHITEHOUSE \1\
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\1\ Prepared statement of Senator Whitehouse appears in the
appendix on page 30.
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Chairman Whitehouse. Good morning everyone. Let me call
this hearing of the Budget Committee to order. Before we get to
our opening statements from me and from Ranking Member
Grassley, I'd like to take a moment to correct the record from
previous hearings regarding the International Monetary Fund's
2021 working paper showing trillions of dollars in global
fossil fuel subsidies.
At two previous hearings of this Committee, Minority
witnesses challenged that report and its estimate that fossil
fuel subsidy in the United States is over $600 billion per
year. One Republican witness called the report garbage and
challenged the legitimacy of including indirect subsidies. This
obviously suits the fossil fuel industry, but it is not correct
market theory.
Economist as conservative as Milton Freidman and Republican
witnesses in these hearings have recognized that negative
externalities should be in the price of a product and that to
shift that cost to the public is a subsidy.
A second witness claimed that the IMF paper, and I'm
quoting her here, ``Did not represent the view of the IMF.''
And she asserted that it had not been peer reviewed. She
perhaps did not know that we had a briefing scheduled with
Kristalina Georgieva, the head of the IMF. All members of the
Committee were invited to that briefing. No Republicans
attended, so I will report.
We asked Ms. Georgieva whether the report represented the
official view of the IMF, including with respect to its
inclusion of externalities in the subsidy figure. She said,
yes, of course it was. We asked about peer review. She told us
that the methodology of these reports out of the IMF, which
occur regularly, the methodology of these reports was peer
reviewed and that it made no sense to re-peer review each
regular report that was prepared using the peer reviewed
methodology.
So to be clear, the IMF report is considered official by
the IMF and was prepared using peer-reviewed methodology. I
will leave it to members to reach their own conclusions as to
the honesty of testimony that the IMF reports were unofficial
and not peer reviewed. With that cleared up, I turn to my
opening statement.
Ranking Member Grassley, members of the Committee, welcome
to the 14th hearing of the Senate Budget Committee. In previous
hearings we have addressed multiple, serious systematic risks
to our economy and to the federal budget caused by carbon
pollution. Many of our first 13 hearings made up a series on
the economic toll of a changing climate.
Today we explore the insidious role that secretive fossil
fuel money has played in exposing us to those forecast,
economic, and budgetary catastrophes. Decades of climate
disinformation and obstruction kept the fossil fuel industry
benefiting from its $600 billion plus annual subsidy and it
drove up climate-related costs to the federal budget and to the
broader economy. The dangers that responsible experts have to
come to this Committee to warn about are actually occurring.
Sea levels are rising and wildfires are intensifying as we saw
with the smoke a couple of weeks ago. Insurers are fleeing high
risk coastal and wildfire areas as predicted.
The fossil fuel industries disinformation campaign has
penetrated right into this Committee Room by witnesses from
organizations like the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation,
the American Enterprise Institute, and the Competitive
Institute, which through 2021, have collectively received over
half a billion dollars--half a billion dollars from fossil fuel
related interests and that's only the money that we know about.
We're here today because fossil fuel funded climate
disinformation and obstruction is directly causing systemic
financial risks to the economy and to the federal budget. Our
witnesses will help us better understand how the fossil fuel
industry has corrupted public and legislative understanding of
climate change and poisoned our ability to head off these
enumerated dangers. There is actually a scientific field of
study examining this climate denial phenomenon.
We will hear from a professor who has literally written the
book on it. From a former PR executive turned documentary film
producer who can speak directly to the tactics of
disinformation and from a Bush Administration ethics lawyer who
has first-hand experience with the effects of corporate money
on governance.
Fossil fuel disinformation is nothing new. The industry has
been at it for decades. Beginning as early as the 1950s,
industry scientists became aware of climate change, measuring
and predicting it decades before it became a public issue. They
knew their products were responsible for it. In 1977, Exxon
senior scientist, James Black, told Exxon's Management
Committee, and I quote, ``There is general scientific agreement
that the most likely manner in which mankind is influencing the
global climate is through carbon dioxide release from the
burning of fossil fuels.'' That's Exxon's senior scientist to
Exxon's management.
But industry management and CEOs spent decades promoting
climate misinformation. By the late 1980s and 1990s when the
general public first became aware of the looming climate
threat, Congress pursued bipartisan legislation that would've
addressed climate change. The late Senator John McCain ran for
president as a Republican on a strong climate platform. Big oil
and gas responded with billions of dollars in fossil fuel
funded disinformation lobbying and election spending.
I lived this. I worked on bipartisan climate legislation
from 2007 through 2009 until in January 2010 the Citizens
United Decision set loose unlimited political spending by the
fossil fuel industry. Worse, the decision allowed that spending
to be anonymous. The fossil fuel industry was ready, not only
with unlimited dark money, but also with the secret threats and
promises that unlimited dark money permits and it immediately
snuffed out bipartisanship on serious climate legislation.
It's been a big operation. Collectively, fossil fuel
aligned trade organizations and dark money groups have spent
tens of billions of dollars, again, just that we know of, on
ads, lobbying, campaign contributions, and dark money front
groups. The delay in action that those billions bought directly
caused the economic perils that our hearings have spotlighted.
Fossil fuel spending has done direct damage to our nation's
fiscal future, not just to our environment.
Lawsuits abound against major oil and gas corporations for
deceiving the public about the climate damages that they knew
their products would cause. The House Oversight Committee
started its own investigation into fossil fuel deception, an
investigation I intend to see through to hold accountable the
players in industry spreading the disinformation that will rock
the very foundations of our economic wellbeing. We will pay a
terrible economic and human price if the campaign is not
exposed and disabled.
With that, I'll turn this over to my distinguished Ranking
Member, Senator Grassley for his opening remarks. And I went a
minute over, so feel free to go a minute over, Senator
Grassley.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR GRASSLEY \2\
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\2\ Prepared statement of Senator Grassley appears in the appendix
on page 33.
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Senator Grassley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Today marks the
10th hearing on climate change at the Budget Committee and our
14th missed opportunity to work together on a responsible
budget all for the sake of the American people. We're once
again here to discuss an alleged scheme involving fossil fuel
overlords, from the banks to the insurance companies to those
they call friends on my side of the aisle.
Democrats accuse those they disagree with of wrongdoing.
They equate a simple difference of opinion to collusion and of
course to corruption. This is not the type of discussion that
encourages bipartisanship or promotes the development of
valuable legislation. It's a perfect example of why Congress
has deteriorated since I came here many years ago and it's
contributed to the extreme division within our society today.
Throughout these climate hearings Democrats have claimed
that climate change will cause catastrophic economic collapse
due to devastating natural disasters. They've also attributed a
Republican rejection of extreme climate policy to an alleged
fossil fuel disinformation conspiracy to defraud the pubic.
This premise either insults the integrity or the intelligence
of Republican legislators that diligently served their
constituents as well as our constituents.
Not only does it assume catastrophe without clear
scientific backing, but also it ignores the simple fact that
most Americans don't want expensive and burdensome climate
regulations, but Democrats think that you're too dumb to think
for yourselves. They somehow think that all knowledge resides
here in Washington, D.C., when, in fact, Washington is an
island surrounded by reality. Democrats argue that Americans
only despise top-down climate policy because of disinformation.
They think Americans have been easily fooled into rejecting the
Democrat narrative of climate destruction. I don't agree and
most American don't either.
Iowans can clearly see that President Biden's war on fossil
fuels has been disastrous for our economy and terrible for
consumers. Remember $5 gas last year. I've always said that
sunlight is the best disinfectant when it comes to the people's
business, but for sunlight to work it needs to shine more than
in just politically convenient places. We've heard apocalyptic
claims and alarming statistics in these climate hearings, but
we've yet to have a real conversation about the source of these
assertions because it doesn't help the Democrat agenda.
The Congress has had multiple hearings regarding so-called
dark money, but I've yet to hear a clear definition of what
dark money is since Democrats receive much more secret or dark
money than Republicans it's clearly a partisan definition.
So we get to today. I'm looking to forward to hearing Mr.
Walters' explanation of this Democratic disinformation
strategy. He's been the president of Capital Research Center
for seven years, an investigative think tank that connects the
dots between left-wing politicians, lobbying groups, labor
unions, foundations, and other nonprofits. If we're going to
discuss climate disinformation, it seems to me that we should
take a balanced and analytical approach. This means we must
first affirm the validity of information. What the science
actually says before making a claim of disinformation.
Objective climate scientists are best suited to do this,
which is why I'm excited to welcome Dr. Pielke, the only
climate scientist on the panel. Dr. Pielke is a professor of
environmental studies at the University of Colorado teaching
and writing on the intersection of climate and politics. Prior
to his 22 years at Colorado, he was a scientist at the National
Center for Atmospheric Research. I'm confident that he will
shed much needed science-driven light upon real climate
disinformation.
I would also like to welcome the Democratic witnesses who
come from a diverse array of non-climate science backgrounds to
testify on climate disinformation. One is a filmmaker, another
a historian, and the latter a Democratic-Farmer-Labor
politician. I look forward to listening to their testimonies
and hope that they'll be even-handed in their assessments and
forthright about their professional relationships with dark
money groups.
We've seen Democratic witnesses who've been receiving
funding from secret dark money groups. It would behoove all of
us to be honest about the prevalence of so-called dark money on
both sides of the aisle. I yield.
Chairman Whitehouse. We have five witnesses today. First,
we have Dr. Naomi Oreskes. She is the Henry Charles Lea
Professor of the History of Science and Affiliated Professor of
Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University. Dr. Oreskes
is the author or co-author of nine books and over 150 articles,
essays, and opinion pieces and her best-selling book Merchants
of Doubt studied how and to what extent large industries
manufacture doubt about the state of the science for their own
benefit. Dr. Oreskes, thank you for being here.
Our second witness is Christine Arena. She is the Founder
and Producer at Generous Films, an award-winning production
company that brings cinematic storytelling to the social impact
space. Before that, however, she was a 20-year veteran of the
Communications industry and served as Executive Vice President
at the public relations firm Edelman. Thank you, Ms. Arena, for
bringing that experience here to share today.
Next, we have Richard Painter, the S. Walter Richey
Professor of Corporate Law at the University of Minnesota Law
School and former associate counsel to the President in the
White House's Counsel's Office as the Chief Ethics lawyer to
President George W. Bush. He was previously a board member and
vice-chair of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in
Washington, as well as a founding board member of Take Back Our
Republic, a campaign finance reform organization. Mr. Painter,
we welcome you as well.
Our fourth witness is Dr. Roger Pielke. He's been on the
faculty of the University of Colorado Boulder since 2001 where
he teaches and writes on a diverse range of policy and
governance issues related to science, technology, environment,
innovation, and sports. He has served as a science and
economics advisor to Environmental Progress--that's a
capitalized, proper name--since 2019. Thank you for being here.
Finally, we have Scott Walter, the president of Capital
Research Center. He previously served in the George W. Bush
Administration as special assistant to the President for
Domestic Policy. I wonder if you guys ever ran into each other
in the Bush White House. He was a senior fellow at the Beckett
Fund for Religious Liberty and he was senior editor of the
American Enterprise Institute's flagship publication. Thank you
also for being here.
And Dr. Oreskes, if we may begin with your testimony, you
each have five minutes to make your statements and your
complete testimony will be made a part of the record of this
hearing.
STATEMENT OF DR. NAOMI ORESKES, PROFESSOR OF THE HISTORY OF
SCIENCE, HARVARD UNIVERSITY \3\
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\3\ Prepared statement of Dr. Oreskes appears in the appendix on
page 35.
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Dr. Oreskes. Thank you very much. Thank you, Senator and
thank you members. It's an honor to be with you here today.
In March 1969, the U.S. Senator from Washington State,
Henry Scoop Jackson, received a letter from an angry
constituent. The man had watched an episode of a popular
television show where the beat poet, Allen Ginsberg, told the
alarming story of planetary demise. Ginsberg claimed that ``the
current rate of air pollution brought about by automobiles
could cause a rapid buildup of heat on Earth which would melt
the polar icecaps causing a flooding of the greater part of the
globe.''
The constituent wanted the Senator the kooky poet from
spouting such irresponsible nonsense. After all, he wrote,
quite a few million people watch this show. Senator Jackson
forwarded the letter to Richard Nixon's Science Advisor, Lee
DuBridge, asking for clarification. DuBridge replied with a
long letter affirming that Ginsberg was basically correct. We
were indeed filling the atmosphere with a great many gases and
in very large quantities from the burning of fossil fuels, he
wrote, which could indeed warm the planet and melt the icecaps.
Were the scientists who raised this concern being
alarmists? DuBridge didn't think so. ``I don't like to be a
calamity howler he said, but sometimes it takes a few calamity
howlers to arouse people to the point where they are willing to
do something. I think we are at that point now.''
Over the next decade, scientists faced little resistance as
they published scores of scientific papers and reports on the
threat of manmade climate change. Things changed, however, in
the 1980s when a scientific consensus began to emerge that
anthropogenic climate change was no longer a prediction, but a
fact. When Vice President George H. W. Bush ran for President
in 1988, he promised that if elected president he would bring
the proper of the White House effect to fight the greenhouse
effect.
In 1992, world leaders, including President Bush convened
in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to sign the United Nations framework
convention on climate change, promising to prevent dangerous
anthropogenic interference with the climate system. We had a
scientific consensus. We had political will. The year was 1992,
so why didn't we act?
A major part of the answer is I have documented now in
numerous books, papers, and reports involves the role of Exxon
Mobile Corporation in disparaging climate science and the
border role of corporate America in denying market failure. I'd
like to bring your attention to this illustration. In the late
1980s, Exxon Mobile turned from information to disinformation.
In various venues the company claimed or insinuated that there
was no consensus among scientific experts and that the
underlying science was too uncertain to warrant action.
The graph shown here presents an analysis undertaken by
Exxon's own scientists in 1982 in which they forecast future
levels of atmospheric CO2 and the mean global temperature that
would ensue from that. The black lines are Exxon Mobile's
projections. The red and blue lines we have added to show what
actually happened in the real world. And you can see that the
Exxon projections were extremely accurate. In fact, they
actually thought it would be slightly worse than it's turned
out to be. Exxon knew what would happen.
But in public, starting in the 1990s and continuing for
decades, company executives disparaged climate science,
particularly climate models. In 2015, for example, CEO Rex
Tillerson said we do not really know what the climate effects
of 600 parts per million versus 400 parts per million would be.
But if we look at my second diagram here, we've added these
arrows to highlight what, in fact, Exxon Mobile's own
projections showed and we see that 600 parts per million
produces 1.3 degrees centigrade, so more than 2 degrees
Fahrenheit, more warming than 400 degrees and it pushes the
total warming well above the 2-degree threshold that climate
scientists had concluded would be dangerous interference.
Now Exxon Mobile's disparagement of climate science was
part of a larger corporate narrative which I don't have time to
discuss in detail today, but which are Eric Connelly and I have
documented in our new book The Big Myth that denied the reality
of market failure. The reality is that markets do fail and
climate change is a massive market failure.
As you heard from The Chair, the International Monetary
Fund estimates that the unpaid damages from using fossil fuels
are ``a staggering $5.2 trillion or 6.5 percent of global GDP
every year.'' Now these costs are not just measured in money.
They're measured in illness, in suffering, and above all, in
lives.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in 2021,
the heat dome that affected the U.S. Pacific Northwest caused
over 250 deaths in Oregon, in Idaho, in Washington, and in
Alaska. Scientists have concluded that the occurrence of the
heatwave of that severity in that region was ``virtually
impossible without human cause claim.''
54 years have passed since Presidential Science Advisor Lee
DuBridge explained the greenhouse effect to Senator Henry
Jackson. During that time the fossil fuel industry and its
allies have spent billions of dollars in false advertising,
misleading marketing, and lobbying designed to confuse the
American people about the scientific facts of climate change
and to prevent the adoption of meaningful solution. Their lies
have cost trillions of dollars in damages. Their lies have cost
lives. Thank you.
Chairman Whitehouse. Ms. Arena, please proceed with your
statement.
STATEMENT OF CHRISTINA ARENA, FOUNDER AND PRODUCER, GENEROUS
FILMS \4\
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\4\ Prepared statement of Ms. Arena appears in the appendix on page
64.
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Ms. Arena. Thank you. Chairman Whitehouse, Ranking Member
Grassley and members of the Committee it's an honor to be with
you today. As Chairman Whitehouse indicated, I have 20 years of
experience in the Communications industry and I'm also an
author and researcher on green washing, a tactic I will discuss
shortly.
Disinformation is not a matter of differing opinion. It is
the deliberate dissemination of false or misleading rhetoric
that is spread for profit or political gain. In the hands of
industries that make lethal products, including cigarettes,
opioids, and fossil fuels, disinformation strategies have lead
to decades of delay on important policy issues and resulted in
immense costs to society. Modern disinformation campaigns do
not merely seek to convince people that something true is false
or that something false is true. Their aim is to erode the very
basis for discerning between empirical fact, expert knowledge,
and industry propaganda. They seek to undermine people's
ability to calculate risks and make informed decisions leading
to mass confusion and a lack of political will.
In recent years we have witnessed a striking evolution of
the methods used to deceive people about the harmful effects of
fossil fuels. While climate disinformation rhetoric has become
more manipulative and divisive, it has also become more
pervasive thanks to the power of digital technology and the
billions of dollars that fossil fuel interests spend each year
to ensure that society remains hooked on oil and gas.
My written statement outlines a series of blatantly
deceptive and obstructive methods from the mass marketing of
false climate solutions and net zero commitments to the capture
of critical climate negotiations like the Conference of the
Parties (COP). It illustrates how fossil fuel money is linked
to the deployment of hundreds of front groups across the
country as well as sophisticated bot networks, fake social
media accounts and hacking operations targeting climate
activists.
It describes the tactics used by fossil fuel corporations
and trade associations to block climate action, including,
number one, green washing or the purposeful production of false
positive perceptions of a company or industry's environmental
performance. Number two, astroturfing. Those are activities
creating the illusion of community support for a corporate
position without concealing who is really paying for them.
Number three, flooding. That refers to the production of online
noise and concentrated ad placements to disorient people and
drown out opposing viewpoints. And number four, infiltration. A
strategy using financial influence to manipulate, among other
things, the climate research from renowned academic
institutions, including Harvard, Stanford, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT), among others.
Collectively, these tactics make it almost impossible for
legitimate climate scientists to be heard over industry voices,
for well-intentioned consumers to make informed choices, and
for concerned lawmakers, including members of this Committee,
to take the necessary steps to protect their constituents.
Fossil fuel companies and interests are not engaging in
disinformation solely in order to sell more products. They are
using these tactics in bad faith to interfere with matters of
policy. For this reason, more than any other, the American
public has a right to know the truth. Citizens deserve to know
who is organizing and funding astroturf campaigns. Investors
deserve to know their financial exposure to climate risk.
Consumers deserve to know the health-related consequences of
breathing fossil fuel polluted air as well as the economic and
environmental risks of prolonged fossil fuel reliance.
They deserve to know that in the absence of accountability
from the fossil fuel industry, they are the ones who pay for
climate havoc, whether through rising insurance costs, loss of
coverage, loss of property, or even loss of life. Without
complete, candid disclosure there is no freedom of choice. The
majority of my industry supports the principle outlined by the
Institute for Advertising Ethics that as professional
communicators we share a common objective of honesty,
transparency, and high ethical standards in serving the public.
In my view, the majority of current fossil fuel industry
communications do not comply with these standards.
I will end my testimony by noting that despite ample,
demonstrative evidence to the contrary, U.S. fossil fuel
executives maintain and have always maintained that they have
never deliberately mislead the public. What that tells us is
that they are not blameless, but that they will never alter
course without being legally compelled to do so.
Thank you.
Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you very much. Mr. Painter,
please proceed.
STATEMENT OF RICHARD PAINTER, S. WALTER RICHEY, PROFESSOR OF
CORPORATE LAW, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA LAW SCHOOL \5\
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\5\ Prepared statement of Mr. Painter appears in the appendix on
page 96.
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Mr. Painter. Thank you very much, Chairman Whitehouse and
Ranking Member Grassley for inviting me here today.
I've been in public law school teaching for 30 years, since
1993 at the University of Oregon, the University of Illinois,
and since 2007, the University of Minnesota. I was proud to
serve as the Chief White House Ethics lawyer for President
George W. Bush from 2005 to 2007.
I'm a political independent. In Minnesota, we are allowed
to vote in either Republican or Democratic primary. We do not
have to register for parties. We're allowed to run for office
in either party, regardless of our prior or current party
affiliation. I ran in the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party
primaries in 2018 and again for Congress in 2022 with a strong
environmental platform, with a strong support of the former
Republican Governor of Minnesota, Arnie Hedge Carlson. I've
worked a lot with Arnie Carlson and others of both political
parties and many independents, such as myself, on clean water
issues in Minnesota, protecting the environment. This is not a
partisan issue. This is not about being a Democrat or
Republican or an Independent. This is about caring and doing
something about a grave threat to the human race.
And I'm here to testify about the intersection between two
calamities. One, climate change which if we do not confront
will lead to catastrophe. And second, the role of money in
politics. I am not a climate scientist. I will defer to the
scientists on this panel and the scientists around the country
on the question of climate change, the role of fossil fuels and
CO2 emissions. But I will speak now about the role of money in
politics, which is very, very relevant to this conversation
that once again is not a partisan issue.
I've looked at the role of money in politics going back to
the time of the American Revolution when the East India company
corrupted parliament and Tea Party patriots threw the tea in
the Boston Harbor to let them know what we thought of corporate
money in politics and taxation without representation of the
people. I have studied the role of corporate money in politics
in the United States in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries.
I've looked at what happened during the Reagan, Clinton,
Bush years, through the Obama years, up through the Trump and
Biden Administrations. Money corrupts our government. This is
not a partisan issue. It was bad when I was in the Bush White
House. I saw the influence of campaign contributors in both
political parties.
President Bush signed into law the McCain-Feingold Act
which would try to restrict some of it, however, ineffectively.
I wrote a book in 2008 called ``Getting the Government America
Deserves'' on how the campaign money ultimately was undermine
government ethics across the board and that was before Citizens
United. When the United States Supreme Court open the
floodgates of dark money in politics by striking down critical
portions of the campaign finance reforms in the McCain-Feingold
Act on a fundamentally flawed assumption, a theory. And I will
emphasize that in the law nothing has been more pernicious in
law than abstract theories untethered from reality.
And the abstract theory underlining the Citizens United
case is that corporations are people just like the rest of us.
That transactions, flows of money from one bank account to
another into an electioneering communication organization,
whether it's Citizens United or any other and/or Super-
Political Action Committee (SuperPAC), that that's the same
thing as a citizen standing on a soapbox delivering a speech.
Completely untethered from reality and the flood of money into
both political parties is destroying our democracy and, yes, is
making it much harder for us to fight climate change. To come
together to come up with solutions to this problem instead of
calling each other names, instead of always pointing the finger
at someone else instead of saying what can I do about this
problem and that's why we're here today.
Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you very much, Mr. Painter. Dr.
Pielke.
STATEMENT OF DR. ROGER PIELKE, JR., PROFESSOR OF ENVIRONMENTAL
STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO BOULDER \6\
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\6\ Prepared statement of Dr. Pielke appears in the appendix on
page 106.
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Dr. Pielke. Thank you Senator Whitehouse, Senator Grassley.
It's a privilege to testify today. In 2015, following testimony
I delivered before the House and the Senate summarizing the
consensus conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change, or IPCC, a member of Congress demanded that I be
investigated by my university. He suggested that I may have
been receiving undisclosed funding from fossil fuel companies.
My university complied. The results of the Investigation
were, of course, not surprising to me. I was not the recipient
of any fossil fuel funding from any fossil fuel interest and
never had been. However, the very public accusation was enough
to derail my work and upend my career in ways that continue
today.
One important role of us experts is to call things as we
see them. Sometimes research results are inconvenient or
uncomfortable to certain interests and that includes political
interests. Please know that I call things like I see them. No
one is paying me to express certain views. My written testimony
discusses four take-home points, which I will briefly
summarize.
First, human-caused climate change is real. It poses
significant risks to society and the environment and both
mitigation and adaptation policies are necessary and make good
sense. Second, the best and likely the only antidote to
misinformation is accurate information. Successfully producing,
communicating, legitimizing, and trusting accurate information
to inform policy requires upholding standards of scientific
integrity.
Today there is general agreement that our current media
environment and political discourse are rife with
misinformation. In my areas of expertise this is certainly the
case. The U.S. Congress has long recognized the importance of
scientific integrity. On climate in 1990, Congress established
an advisory mechanism in the form of a national climate
assessment. However, locating the national climate assessment
within the Executive Office of the President has made it a
tempting target for political meddling under both Democratic
and Republic presidents. Third, in important areas of climate
science the self-correcting function of science has short-
circuited. The persistent misuse of climate scenarios, one area
where I research, is perhaps the most pervasive and
consequential example of climate misinformation today.
If there's just one sentence you take from my testimony
today is this. You are currently being misinformed. Scenarios
are inputs to projections of future changes in climate, its
impacts on society and the environment, and the consequences
and costs of alternative policy actions. However, the scenarios
that are currently prioritized in climate research assessment
and policy are badly outdated.
Carbon dioxide emissions in the real world are already at a
level far less than projected in the most commonly used climate
scenarios. And that gap between scenario assumptions and
reality is only getting wider. Specifically, the most commonly
used climate scenario is called Representative Concentration
Pathway 8.5 (RCP8.5), which according to the IPCC represents a
global temperature increase in 2100 of 4.8 degrees Celsius.
RCP8.5 projects that all global energy consumption will
come from coal. That is obviously wrong. The real world is
actually tracking below what is called an RCP4.5 scenario,
which represents a 2100 global temperature increase of 2.9
degrees Celsius. This matters because important policy guidance
relies on these outdated scenarios. For example, the 2022
Whitehouse Paper titled ``Climate Risk Exposure: An Assessment
of the Federal Government's Financial Risk to Climate Change''
used the RCP8.5 scenario to represent where we're heading, the
RCP4.5 scenario to represent successful climate policy, and the
difference between the two to represent the benefits of
mitigation. All of this is wrong. Eliminating misinformation is
difficult. For instance, a widely cited 2020 paper defending
the use of the most extreme RCP8.5 climate scenario is notable
because its authors failed to disclose a financial conflict of
interest. They were funded by a major global consultancy that
relies heavily on RCP8.5 in its business promotion and
services.
So far, in 2023, about dozen studies are published every
single day using the outdated RCP8.5 scenario according to
Google Scholar. Misinformation has powerful momentum.
Fourth and finally, concerns expressed about misinformation
are sometimes weaponized. One reason for this is that climate
change is now big business. That means it is essential that
everyone follow well-established standards of scientific
integrity and this includes those funded by fossil fuel
interests, renewable energy interests, and in fact, all
financial interests.
Partisans may believe that the rules apply only to their
opponents. They may argue over which side is worse. However,
bring accurate information into the policy process means that
principles of scientific integrity must be applied to everyone.
Congress has an important role to play in ensuring the
integrity of science. Effective policymaking depends on it.
Thank you and I look forward to your questions.
Chairman Whitehouse.. Thank you, Professor. We'll now turn
to Mr. Walter.
STATEMENT OF SCOTT WALTER, PRESIDENT, CAPITAL RESEARCH CENTER
\7\
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\7\ Prepared statement of Mr. Walter appears in the appendix on
page 115.
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Mr. Walter. Chairman Whitehouse, Ranking Member Grassley,
distinguished members of the Committee, thank you for the honor
of testifying. I'm president of the Capital Research Center and
we've studied political money debates for decades, including,
of course, Mr. Chairman, your speeches and writings.
Dark money isn't really mysterious, unless you count that
rumor that Leonard Leo invented dark money in a lab in Wuhan.
No, to say that a group uses dark money is like saying the
group uses telephones. It's a universal technology. Oddly, the
people who most often use the term never define it with legal
precision, even when they're speaking in a Judiciary Committee
Hearing or a Senate Finance Hearing where that would seem
necessary. But if you're trying to scare others with the boogey
man, it's best to keep the monster's outline shady.
Now if dark money be a monster, it's not a large one. The
biggest number I can find is OpenSecrets' $1 billion in 2020,
which sounds big until you see OpenSecrets' numbers for the
hard dollars disclosed to the Federal Election Commission
(FEC), which makes the dark money boogey money about 7 percent
of election spending. So dark money is universal in politics
and not a large part of politics, but dark money is not
equally--or if I were a man of the left, I would say fairly--
distributed. It tilts strongly toward the Democratic party. A
few simple stats. OpenSecrets' totals for dark money in the
2020 election show almost a 2.5 to 1 advantage for the
Democrats.
In just the presidential race, Mr. Biden enjoyed six times
the dark money of his opponent. The Democrats had a dark money
advantage in the 2022 cycle, 2020, 2018. Here's another
example. Chairman Whitehouse, the conservative judicial
activists you especially target received in 2021 a $1.65
billion donation to a 510(c)(4)(C4) dark money group. But just
weeks after that story broke, a left-wing billionaire gave
about twice that amount to a dark money group on the left.
A better comparison for that 1.65 billion is the money
raked in by the left's biggest nonprofit network, the Empire
run by Arabella Advisors. It raised almost exactly the same
amount the same year. The year before it raised $1.7 billion.
So what the Chairman's special target enjoyed as a once in a
lifetime windfall is just the yearly take for Arabella. Again,
I'm arguing C4 dark money is not a big deal in American
politics. But if anyone insists it pollutes our politics, then
the big polluter is the Democratic Party, and the strongest
drivers of big pollution are environmentalists.
For instance, the Arabella Network was founded by
environmentalist Eric Kessler, who's deeply tied as well to the
dark money League of Conservation Voters, which is both the
biggest source of campaign contributions to the Chairman and
also ``a dark money heavyweight'' says the Center for Public
Integrity. Another strong environmentalist tie at Arabella: the
Sierra Club helped launch Arabella's 1630 Fund, ``the
indisputable heavyweight of Democratic dark money,'' says the
Atlantic.
Arabella's environmentalist ties do have an unusual and
especially disturbing feature: foreign dark money. One of
Arabella's top donors for two decades is the environmentalist,
Hansjoerg Wyss, a foreign national who's admitted violating
bans on foreign money in American politics in the past and now
funds Arabella's network to influence our politics. Still, dark
money and all money in politics is simple. People who believe
in causes raise money for those causes, start groups for those
causes, collaborate with each other, buy ads to persuade the
public, support their champions, criticize their opponents.
When the Chairman takes money from the League of
Conservation Voters, that doesn't mean the League has captured
him. It means they agree with him. The people on the other side
of the issues operate the same way, using the same kind of, but
a lot less of, various types of political money. So to act
outraged that somebody is using dark money reveals the real
definition of dark money: Support for speech the left wants to
silence.
Trying to silence one's opponents is the opposite of
democracy, but it's understandable given how unpopular some of
the left's, especially environmentalists', agenda items are.
The Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG)
movement, for example, funded with millions from billionaires
like George Soros and millions from the Arabella network is
currently trying to have banks stop loans to any company
related to fossil fuels, which would mean Americans couldn't
buy gas for their cars and trucks and might have an effect on
the federal budget.
Trying to stifle speech with the boogey man of dark money
drives debate away from the substance of issues to issues of
money. I urge the Committee instead to focus on the substance
of issues like climate change. Thank you.
Chairman Whitehouse. Thanks very much. The Ranking Member
has stepped out for a second, but I'm going to go ahead and
proceed with my questions.
Ms. Oreskes, let me go back to the quote about the threat
of climate change that you used in your testimony. ``Sometimes
it takes a few calamity howlers to wake people up to the fact
that there are serious problems and to arouse people to the
point to where they're willing to do something about it. I
think we are at that point now.'' Again, who said that?
Ms. Oreskes. Lee DuBridge, the science advisor to President
Richard Nixon in 1969.
Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you. You are involved in the
study of the fossil fuel disinformation campaign and have been
for many years. You are not alone. Could you describe for us
the academic study of the fossil fuel disinformation operation,
how roughly many scientists are engaged in it, how robust the
science is on this subject, and--well, why don't you answer
that first and then I'll ask you another question.
Dr. Oreskes. Thank you and thank you for that question.
Thank you also for the opportunity to set the record straight
about my own qualifications. So I'm trained as an Earth
scientist. I have a Ph.D. from the School of Earth Sciences at
Stanford University. As you noted at the outset, I'm also an
Affiliate Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard
University and I've published numerous in peer-reviewed
scientific journals on climate science, particularly on the
statistics of temperature records because I have formal
training in statistics.
Today I am employed, like Roger, as a social scientist, but
I consider that to be a form of science and so I didn't start
out to work in this area. My work is the history of science.
I'm interested in the development of scientific knowledge and I
was studying the development of climate science knowledge as a
scientific question and I was doing that work in the early
2000s when there was not really a scientific field of studying
this question of disinformation.
It became clear to me from my historical research that the
scientific evidence for the reality and potential severity of
manmade climate change was very deep, that it went back----
Chairman Whitehouse. My question is more about the
disinformation.
Dr. Oreskes. Yes. Sure.
Chairman Whitehouse. So if you could focus on that in the
short time I have.
Dr. Oreskes. I'll try. Thank you. Sorry for that. So I
published a paper in 2004 called The Scientific Consensus on
Climate Change where I documented this consensus. As a result
of that paper I became a target of the disinformation campaign.
I started getting hate mail. I had people file complaints
against me at my university and went through some unpleasant
experiences as well.
Chairman Whitehouse. And you're not alone in that. People
like Michael Mann have also been the subject of----
Dr. Oreskes. Correct. What I learned as I started to
investigate was that I was not alone. And that, in fact, there
was a network of people who were attacking climate scientists
like Ben Santer, like Michael Mann, and like myself. And so
that experience of being attacked lead me to try to understand
what these attacks were, who was funding them, who was behind
them, and why they were doing it.
Chairman Whitehouse. As a scientist, how would you describe
the state of the science that looks at the climate
disinformation campaign as a phenomenon? Is it just in its
nascence stage, is it fairly robust, is there scientific
consensus, is it passing peer review? What are the markers of
how real it all is?
Dr. Oreskes. I would say the field was nature now. So it
was nascent in the early 2000s. It's been around for about 20
years now. We're academics. We mostly publish in peer reviewed
scientific literature, although we also publish books and
opinion pieces. I'd say it's a well-developed network now of
academics, both in the United States and elsewhere and there
are now many scores of academic researchers who study this as
an empirical problem, as a scientific problem.
Chairman Whitehouse. Let me shift to Ms. Arena for a
moment. Your testimony makes comparisons between the tobacco
industries' campaign of fraud and what the fossil fuel industry
is doing these days. Could you elaborate a little bit on that
comparison between the tobacco campaign to deny the dangers of
its product and the fossil fuel campaign to deny the dangers of
its product?
Ms. Arena. Sure. There are many parallels. First and
foremost, the denial that the products in question are
dangerous to people. The denial of the science. For the tobacco
industry, as Dr. Oreskes knows better than I, that was a 50-
year campaign. For fossil fuels it took a very long time before
corporations acknowledged the reality of climate change, let
alone acknowledged that it was human driven, let alone
acknowledged that it was burning fossil fuels that is primary
responsible for that climate change.
Second, tobacco companies really took advantage of the
opportunity to market filtered and light cigarettes, almost
seizing the lung cancer link as a business opportunity. And we
do see fossil fuel companies doing something very similar with
carbon capture technology, with other green solutions that they
tried to market in a sense defending their core business model.
Now I'm not saying carbon capture should not be scaled. It
absolutely should, but really we still----
Chairman Whitehouse. You're talking as an expert on
marketing and you're talking about the marketing campaign.
Ms. Arena. Exactly. And so we see a similar marketing
tactic and a similar denial approach, attacking science, then
questioning the science, then hiring their own experts, and
then really taking advantage of market opportunities.
Chairman Whitehouse. Ranking Member Grassley.
Senator Grassley. I have point of personal privilege before
I start my questioning. I want you to know that Senator Johnson
and I were accused of spreading Russian disinformation for two
and a half years and everybody now knows that we were not
spreading Russian disinformation on an investigation that we
were doing.
Dr. Pielke, you were fired from your position at 538.
WikiLeaks later revealed an explicit campaign against you. The
editor of Think Progress, a website that's part of the lobbying
arm of a far left-wing Center for American Progress wrote the
following in an email to billionaire dark money, Democrat donor
Tom Steyer, ``I think it's fair to say that without climate
progress the environmental arm of Think Progress Pielke would
still be writing on climate change for 538.'' Why do you
believe you were fired from 538 and smeared in the media?
Dr. Pielke. Yes. Thank you. I had written a piece--I was
hired by Nate Silver to write for 538 and since climate change
was so contested, I said, well, if you let me write something
about sports I'll also write about climate change. My first
piece was to summarize an IPCC report. In 2012, the IPCC
released a special report on extreme events and it was straight
up IPCC consensus science that I wrote about. What I said in
that piece was that disaster costs are increasing, but they're
increasing because we have more stuff, more property, more
buildings in harm's way. That's what the IPCC concluded.
There was an organized campaign released years later--you
never know where you'll find yourself. I was in the WikiLeaks
and it was organized by Center for American Progress, along
with a climate scientist named Michael Mann and they were very
explicit why they wanted me to be removed. My message, even
though it was consensus science was not politically comfortable
or acceptable. So it was very clear reason why I was attacked.
My only regret is that the editors at 538 didn't stand firm and
say we're going to support strong science.
Senator Grassley. Mr. Walter, witnesses called to testify
before this Committee this year by the Majority work for
organizations that have received dark money from Arabella
Advisors. The president of the Niskanen Center even admitted on
the record to receiving funding from anonymous donors in the
past. But in 10 climate hearings, Democrats have never asked a
single one of their witnesses about their receipts of dark
money, let along attempted to impugn their integrity or accuse
them of conspiracy. Why do you think that is and how does
Arabella Advisors influence Democratic legislators and why is
the Democratic dark money conveniently ignored by the left?
Mr. Walter. Thanks for the question, Senator. I can't
explain exactly why your colleagues aren't willing to look at
the dark money ties of their own witnesses because of course
they're very extensive and Influence Watch.org, our website,
would provide lots of information on that.
Arabella is stunningly powerful. It affects the Executive
Branch. It affects regulations. It affects legislation with, as
I said, billions of dollars a year. Some of it from foreign
donors. Now one of my favorite examples of this would be that
almost the entire Biden regulatory agenda has been shaped by an
especially dark bit of Arabella called Governing for Impact.
And interestingly that has ties to a witness that appeared at
the last hearing where I had the honor of testifying to
Chairman Whitehouse.
Senator Grassley. Are any Democratic witnesses on this
panel liked to a web of liberal dark money donations?
Mr. Walter. Yes. Just today you have a witness, for
instance, who spent years at the group called Citizens for
Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), which is tied
to the dark money of empire of David Brock and other dark
money. You have a witness who's connected to a nonprofit that
receives money from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund which is one
of the donors tied into the Arabella network.
Senator Grassley. Dr. Oreskes, the environmental law firm
Sher Edling receives funding by way of the Resource Legal Fund
and Arabella Advisors New Adventure Fund from foreign and
domestic elites to promote progressive climate policies.
Democratic dark money giant George Soros and Leonardo DiCaprio
are among their donors. Are you currently or have you ever been
retained by the Environmental Law Firm Sher Edling?
Dr. Oreskes. Yes, I have I welcome the opportunity to talk
about the case that I consulted on, San Mateo vs. Chevron where
the people of San Mateo County have sued for redress because of
the damages that that county and the State of California is
experiencing from sea level rise caused by climate change
caused by their product, oil and gas.
Chairman Whitehouse. Senator Stabenow.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR STABENOW
Senator Stabenow. Well, thank you. Good morning and thank
you very much for this really important hearing. I'd like to
just do a little history lesson, Mr. Chairman and take you back
over a hundred years ago when Henry Ford and Thomas Edison were
building the first automobile and they wanted to build an
affordable electric car. And in 1914, there was an article in
the New York Times where they were lamenting the fact that they
had challenges developing a battery with enough range. That
sounds familiar.
Unfortunately, at the same time in Texas they were
developing oil fields and we saw just two years after this
article Congress passed a change in the tax law to, in effect,
provide oil companies interest-free loans. It was the first
fossil fuel subsidy. Our colleagues on the other side of the
aisle for those of us that work on battery and solar and wind
and other clean energies, say we shouldn't pick winners and
losers, Mr. Chairman, over a hundred years ago we picked a
winner and they won for a hundred years.
And so now we move and we look at the fact that it's no
surprise that Henry Ford chose to focus on the technology of
the time and developed the internal combustion engine. Now it
true that my home city of Michigan has been benefited from
these choices. We put the world on wheels. We are extremely
proud of our place in history as we move now to cleaner
technologies as well. But I would also say wouldn't it have
been better we had understood the issues of carbon pollution at
the very beginning and had built that into what was happening.
Imagine the difference. Just imagine if we had incentives at
the very beginning for battery technology instead of the first
fossil fuel subsidy and imagine if the oil and gas industry had
not used their profits and basically every resource to stop
efforts to recognize and end carbon pollution or even
acknowledge it. Imagine if all of this, Mr. Chairman, had gone
into technologies to stop carbon pollution, methane pollution,
other greenhouse gases. Imagine what a different world we would
have today if all this dark money had gone into a cleaner
environment and supporting the realities of science? So the
reality is that the climate is changing. We have a climate
crisis hitting us over the head every day. I chair the
Agriculture Committee. You can't talk to a farmer now that does
not acknowledge what is happening and their longtime efforts
and overwhelming financial influence using dark money has cost
us precious, precious time.
Just last week we had hail the size of golf balls
destroying farms and homes in the small town of Howell,
Michigan and there's story after story of wildfire smoke coming
at us, droughts and floods and everything else and you can
tally the total costs in terms of dollars or you can tally it
in terms of lives.
Both are at historic levels in terms of loss. 2022 saw 18
separate billion-dollar weather and climate disasters
inflicting $175 million dollars in damages and costing 475
people their lives.
So Dr. Oreskes, in your testimony, you talk about these
real costs. Can you talk a little bit more about the price
everyday folks have to pay for this inaction. I would argue a
hundred years inaction on the climate crisis and can you talk a
little bit more about the tactics big oil has been using that
has created this situation?
Dr. Oreskes. Well, thank you for that question. I'm not an
economist, but I do follow the work of my economic colleagues
and we have numerous studies now. This is an area where the
science really has advanced and changed dramatically in the
last 20 years. Most of the basic signs of climate change really
hasn't changed that much in the 20 years I've been working on
this issue, but the economic analyses and the detection and
attribution studies have. So detection and attributions
sometimes called D&A, not DNA, but D&A refers to analyses that
try to answer the question would this have happened, but for
climate change or would it have been as bad? And there have
been major advances in that and we now have scores and scores
of scientific studies that prove beyond any reasonable doubt
that numerous extreme weather events--floods, wildfires,
hurricanes, droughts, hailstorms they're harder, they're
trickier, but almost certainly hailstorms as well, maybe
tornadoes. Those are scientifically tricky, but that many, many
of these events have become worse and in some cases so much
worse that scientists could say, as they did about the heat
dome, that this would not have happened, but for climate
change. And as you know, billions of dollars in losses from
hurricanes, floods, extreme precipitation events the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) tracks these
data. I don't have them with me, but I could easily find them.
We've seen huge increases. And with all due respect to my
colleague, Roger, who I've known for many years, Roger's point
about people moving to coastal areas is not wrong, but it's
incomplete. Because, yes, there is more damage in coastal areas
because more people live there, but in addition sea level is
rising because of climate change. Storm surge has become worse
because of climate change. Hurricanes and extreme precipitation
and these cost billions of dollars to the American people, to
insurers, to re-insurers, and to the federal government because
of federal disaster relief. So yes, this is extremely costly
and, yes, it is caused by climate change. And the point of my
testimony was to say we have known this science for a long,
long time. And so if we ask the question why haven't we acted
on this very robust body of rich, deep, sophisticated
scientific knowledge, a big part of the answer--it's not the
only--but a big part of the answer is because the way the
fossil fuel industry and its allies have deliberately set out
to undermine our confidence in the science and to make us think
that the science wasn't strong enough to warrant action.
Senator Stabenow. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Whitehouse. Thanks Senator Stabenow. And to your
urge that we imagine, there's a very specific thing we could
imagine, which is if the Republican Chafee-Snyder climate
legislation of 1988 had passed we would be at 282 parts per
million carbon dioxide as of 2005. Instead we're at 418 parts
per million today. Senator Johnson.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOHNSON
Senator Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Painter
pointed out that money corrupts politics. Mr. Pielke, you
talked about climate change as big business. Do you believe
also that money can corrupt research?
Dr. Pielke. Yes, absolutely. I study science and technology
policy and matters of financial conflict of interest are a big
deal in the medical sciences, in energy, across the board and
it's important to have standards apply to make sure that
conflicts of interest don't warp science one way or another.
Senator Johnson. Now I think we've seen certainly with the
pandemic the fact that big pharma funds these studies. They
don't release the data. Our federal health agencies aren't
transparent, so again, I think this hearing shows that there's
big money on both sides of the equation. There's mass use on
both sides and it's hard to discern the truth. Mr. Walter, did
you ever read the book The New Leviathan, David Horwitz 2012.
Mr. Walter. I certainly did.
Senator Johnson. So in that book he lays out just talking
about progressive environmental groups versus conservative
environmental groups. On the progressive side there's--and this
is 2012. There are 553 groups that he identified on the
progressive side, 32 conservative groups. The net assets of the
progressive groups was $9.53 billion. The net assets of the
conservative environmental groups was $38.2 million dollars. So
that's a 249 to 1 advantage in terms of annual grants and this
was really the main part of his book. The progressive groups,
whether it's environmental or whatever progressive group they
utilize their financial wherewithal to impact government to get
government to spend its money on their causes. Whereas
conservative groups basically just try to spend money on their
causes. But the annual grants from progressive groups $554
million per year spent on progressive--granted to progressive
environmental groups, $1.2 million for conservative groups.
That's a 462 to 1 advantage. Is that kind of what you're
talking about with Arabella and the whole issue of dark money?
It's really dark money on the left that overwhelms the dark
money on the right. Correct?
Mr. Walter. That's absolutely right, Senator. And we did
our own studies on this at ClimateDollars.org, and you can see
the enormous left-wing advantage on this. If left-wing policies
are not succeeding, it is not because there is big money on the
other side.
Senator Johnson. And Mr. Chairman, I'd like to enter those
facts from 2012 into the record if I could and I'll provide
that information to you.\8\ It is interesting----
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\8\ Statement submitted by Senator Johnson appears in the appendix
on page 1137.
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Chairman Whitehouse. The record will remain open for a
week.
Senator Johnson. Okay. Great. Thank you.
Chairman Whitehouse. You're welcome to add whatever you
wish.
Senator Johnson. Yes, it's interesting we have these budget
hearings and as Ranking Member Grassley points out, we're
really not talking about the budget. We're talking about
climate change, which is fine. I'm enjoying them. I've got an
open mind. I've never denied climate change. I'm just not a
climate change alarmist because climate has always changed. I
find it interesting on the majority witnesses there really
aren't very many scientists. We're bringing a few more
environmental scientists on the minority side. You can't really
get into the discussion on climate change. But I think it's
interesting that Dr. Oreskes, you say you actually are an Earth
scientist or something, so here's the questions I have that
remain unanswered.
Are you familiar with the Vostok Ice Core Sample?
Dr. Oreskes. Yes. Absolutely.
Senator Johnson. That's 400 and something--the most famous
ice core about 400 and some thousand years of climate history
showing temperatures. You know average global temperatures at
that spot. CO2 concentration methane. Do you realize
we're in about our fifth cycle, temperature variation of 22.7
degrees? Also if you take a look at the sea level rise in the
Bay of San Francisco, 390 feet over the last 10-20,000 years.
What caused that?
Dr. Oreskes. Well, the claim that climate has always
changed is a claim that we hear all the time from people who
are skeptical about climate change.
Senator Johnson. Do you----
Dr. Oreskes. So let me answer the question. So yes, of
course, the climate has always changed. And Earth scientists
have studied this for literally centuries, but the key point
about anthropogenic climate change is that it's different from
natural variability. And Lee DuBridge even said that in 1969.
How do we know it's different? Because scientists have studied
things like the ice cores and we know----
Senator Johnson. You're not answering. What caused----
Dr. Oreskes. Oh, what caused the natural variability?
Senator Johnson. What caused the 32.7 degree--you know
those five cycles.
Dr. Oreskes. The natural variability of most----
Senator Johnson. A sea level rise of 390 feet in the Bay of
San Francisco, what caused that?
Dr. Oreskes. Natural variability is mostly caused by
changes in the Earths' orbit. These have been well documented
scientifically.
Senator Johnson. Did that change?
Dr. Oreskes. Yes. It changed because----
Senator Johnson. Has that stopped?
Dr. Oreskes. Yes. It has changed----
Senator Johnson. I mean have those--have those phenomena
stopped?
Dr. Oreskes. It has changed because the human contribution
has been added on top of it. Think about it this way.
Senator Johnson. Do you realize the CO2
concentration is a lagging indicator in the Vostok ice core
samples?
Dr. Oreskes. Right. Because we didn't have people putting
CO2 into the atmosphere until the last 100 or 150 years.
Senator Johnson. CO2----
Dr. Oreskes. Think of it this way----
Senator Johnson. CO2 rise actually lagged
temperature rise----
Dr. Oreskes. I'm trying to answer your question, Mr.
Johnson. Natural variability is like a sine curve. It's like a
radio wave. It goes up and down. The human forcing function is
a linear curve that goes up, up, and up. So if you impose one
on the other what you get is something that looks like this. So
the natural variability still exists. The Earth continues to
have orbital variations, but in addition we have added another
component and that component is the human forcing from
greenhouse gases mostly produced by a burning of fossil fuels
and deforestation and this has been documented in chapter in
verse in numerous peer-reviewed science----
Senator Johnson. So is India and China going to stop using
fossil fuels?
Dr. Oreskes. I'm sorry. What?
Senator Johnson. Will India and China stop using fossil
fuels, quite honestly will the U.S.
Dr. Oreskes. Well, now you've changed the subject, but
that----
Senator Johnson. The answer is they won't and there's
nothing we can do about this.
Dr. Oreskes. They would have if we had followed the UN
Framework Convention that President Bush signed in 1992. The
whole point of that Convention was to bring all the countries
in the world onboard, but that got derailed because the United
States refused----
Senator Johnson. According to testimony in this committee,
we spent over $6 trillion combating climate change, probably
haven't made a dent in it. We won't make a dent in it. This is
a fool's errand we're on and we're destroying our ability to
have the resources to adapt to the climate change that's going
to happen whether we do anything or not.
Dr. Oreskes. Well, I'm sorry you feel that way because I
think it's a fool's errand to think you can ignore what has
happened and not see serious consequences for the American
people and the American taxpayer.
Chairman Whitehouse. Senator Merkley.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR MERKLEY
Senator Merkley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
We've had this discussion about dark money and my
colleagues have pointed out there's a lot more dark money on
the left than the right. What I find interesting that if you
take the assumption that disclosure is--and I think the
Chairman used the sunlight is the best disinfectant, then we
should simply have all political money be disclosed, where it
comes from and the citizens can decide on what impact that has.
And we have legislation like that. The Chairman has sponsored.
We voted on it three times and I would invite my colleagues
across the aisle to join us in ending dark money on both sides.
It's quite interesting that if, in fact, there's more dark
money on the left that it's only one side of the aisle that
wants to end dark money. That sounds like a pretty principled
position to me in betterment of the integrity of our campaign
system.
Now Dr. Oreskes, my understanding is that Exxon worked with
public relations firms to have strategies like saying it's
committed to the depth and breadth of climate solutions. That
it wanted to reframe itself as an energy company rather than a
gasoline or fossil fuel company. That that increased its
favorability by 10 percent, that it put forward that it
strongly aligned with Paris, all of which is a way of saying,
hey folks, don't pay attention to our massive fossil fuel
undertaking. We're somehow a good guy. Is this the basic
strategy of Exxon and other major fossil fuel companies?
Dr. Oreskes. Yes, it is. And it's what we've sometimes
referred to as misdirection to try to distract attention away
from the basic facts into some distracting issue. So it is true
that Exxon, Mobile, Chevron, and other companies--other oil and
gas companies have sometimes spent small amounts of money on
renewable energy. Most estimates show that it's less than 2
percent, but in their advertisements, for example, they're
often very much focused on renewable energy, even though 98
percent of their commitment is to continue development of oil
and gas. And we know that the work that's been done by the IPCC
and others--the IPCC and scientists have introduced the notion
of a carbon budget. It's the idea that there's a certain amount
of oil and gas that we can use without essentially derailing
the planetary climate. But nearly all of these groups,
including the IMF, by the way, have said--and the International
Energy Agency that this would require not developing new
resources of oil and gas. We can use a fair amount of what's
still existing, but not searching for new oil and gas. And yet,
Exxon, Mobile, Chevron, and all of the major oil and gas
companies are continuing to explore for and develop new oil and
gas reserves that will commit us to burning fossil fuels for 50
more years.
Senator Merkley. I want to turn that carbon budget idea.
The idea is this is how much we can burn before we hit 1.5
degrees and we're already here, pretty close to it, but there
is some space left. But the last analysis I saw said that the
amount of carbon already in kind of the affirmed assets of
petroleum companies is 200 percent more than what will take us
from here to 1.5 degrees and it's 40 percent more than what
would take us to 2 degrees. In other words, if we bring out of
the ground everything that has already been identified in the
reserves, we shoot past 1.4, we shoot past 2 degrees, is that
fairly accurate presentation?
Dr. Oreskes. Yes, that's correct. That's correct.
Senator Merkley. And if we keep developing new sources then
essentially what we're doing is we're committing ourselves to a
path of warming that goes on for the generations to come to be
much more than 1.5 or 2 or even 3 degrees. You know I come from
a state that's burning up with forest fires. We've lost our
average snowpack by 20 feet over 90 years and it's kind of a
striking decade-by-decade drop analysis.
Our farmers are really hurting as a result of loss of
groundwater, which isn't recharged as fast, less spring melt
off, so there's less water, less rain, severe drought. And so I
know that for many of my colleagues who say, well, you know
these are speculative studies about what will happen 50 years
from now or something, but the farming, the fishing, and the
forestry are being severely impacted in my state right now just
within my lifetime, really within the last 20 years. How urgent
is it that we really have to get pass the kind of the
greenwashing or the political messages and act now?
Dr. Oreskes. Well, I think it's absolutely urgent. And as I
think we've already said today, we've lost 30 years. I mean
President Bush signed the UN Frame Convention on climate change
in 1992 and that's a long time. If we had started working
seriously on this problem at that time, we would have developed
many of the large-scale energy infrastructures for solar, for
wind, for storage, for demand response pricing, many of these
solutions that we know work.
Senator Merkley. And if the U.S. keeps doing new fossil
projects doesn't that essentially give the rest of the world a
free pass to say, hey, you're already burned must of the carbon
budget that has been burned already. Why should we stop our
coal or our fossil methane gas or our oil if the U.S. is still
doing new infrastructure.
Dr. Oreskes. Well, exactly. And that's exactly what China
and India are saying.
Senator Merkley. Thank you.
Chairman Whitehouse. Senator Kennedy is next.
Senator Kennedy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and thanks----
Chairman Whitehouse. Then Senator Kaine.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR KENNEDY
Senator Kennedy. Okay. Thanks Mr. Chairman and thank to all
of our witnesses here today. Professor Painter, on May 5th of
this year you put out a tweet. You said--I'm gonna quote.
``There are some things money can't buy. For everything else
there is the Supreme Court.'' Would you tell me which members
of the Supreme Court you believe are bought?
Mr. Painter. I was particularly concerned at that point
when I posted that tweet about----
Senator Kennedy. I understand, but if you could--I've
gotten really limited time and I apologize for interrupting.
Just tell me which members of the Court you are----
Mr. Painter. I did not think that Justice Clarence Thomas
should be failing to disclose his trips on a billionaire's
yacht.
Senator Kennedy. Do you think he's bought?
Mr. Painter. I believe that there is grave risk that----
Senator Kennedy. Do you think he's bought?
Mr. Painter. I said there's grave risk----
Senator Kennedy. Do you think he's bought?
Mr. Painter [continuing]. To the confidence of the American
people in our Supreme Court----
Senator Kennedy. Well, if you don't think he's bought, why
did you say it?
Mr. Painter. I said that there is----
Senator Kennedy. You said members of the Supreme Court are
bought. You're here testifying as an expert for my Democratic
friends and you're saying the members of the Supreme Court are
bought.
Mr. Painter. I said the American people feel that way when
we have Supreme Court Justices on----
Senator Kennedy. Do you feel that way?
Mr. Painter [continuing]. Yachts and in planes of
billionaires and not being disclosed.
Senator Kennedy. Anybody besides Justice Thomas you think
is bought on the Supreme Court.
Mr. Painter. I believe that the Court needs to clean up its
act.
Senator Kennedy. Anybody besides Justice Thomas?
Mr. Painter. I'm not going to go through each Justice.
Senator Kennedy. I mean you tweeted it.
Mr. Painter. I tweeted the way the American people feel.
Senator Kennedy. Did you mean it when you tweeted it?
Mr. Painter. And I stand by that tweet. This Supreme Court
of the United States needs to clean up its act.
Senator Kennedy. Let me ask you a couple others here
because you've--on September 17, 2020, you tweeted ``it looks
like Putin's favorite senator could lose,'' referring to
Senator Lindsey Graham. Could you tell me your evidence for
saying that Senator Graham is President Putin's favorite
senator.
Mr. Painter. I don't recall that tweet and the story----
Senator Kennedy. I've got it. It's right here.
Mr. Painter. I'm happy to look at the tweet and I'm happy
to write you to explain that. I don't know what that has to do
with climate change or what it has to do with this hearing.
Senator Kennedy. Well, it has to do with your credibility.
Did you say--what is your basis for saying that Senator Graham
is President Putin's--have you ever talked to President Putin?
Mr. Painter. I have not talked to President Putin and I
would be happy to go look at the tweet and look at the story
that I tweeted out and what Senator Graham had said in that
context. You know this is something I----
Senator Kennedy. You say all this stuff. For example, in--
you're here as an expert for my Democratic friends and you say
all this stuff. You called on September 16, 2023, a professor
at the University of Chicago, a very distinguished professor,
Brian Lighter. You called him a racist. Can you explain to me
why you think he's a racist?
Mr. Painter. I remember a series of tweets with him. He's a
Marxist who put out a number of statements attacking African
Americans and women and he was also raising money for someone
who had called the police on a Black student for sleeping in
the common room and now he has a Woke KKK.com website attacking
me.
Senator Kennedy. That's fair enough.
Mr. Painter. I will just say one thing. I learned in high
school debate that when you have no argument you simply change
the subject.
Senator Kennedy. All right. On October 15, 2020, you said
``Lindsey Graham is soliciting cash payments in return for
voting on a Supreme Court nomination.'' What evidence--that's a
pretty bold statement, Professor. What evidence do you have for
alleging that Senator Graham was taking cash in return for one
of his votes?
Mr. Painter. I don't recall that specific tweet, but I----
Senator Kennedy. Here it is right here.
Mr. Painter [continuing]. But I do.
Senator Kennedy. Here it is.
Mr. Painter. I do recall and I----
Senator Kennedy. Do you think he was taking cash for one of
his votes?
Mr. Painter. I have received campaign----
Senator Kennedy. Do you think he was taking cash for one of
his votes?
Mr. Painter. I'm answering your question, Senator. I have
received solicitations from both political parties.
Senator Kennedy. Do you think Lindsey Graham----
Mr. Painter [continuing]. Confirmation hearings for
Justice----
Senator Kennedy [continuing]. For one of his votes. It's a
simple question, Professor.
Mr. Painter. I have received solicitations for cash on my
email and yes, from both political parties in connection with
Supreme Court confirmation votes.
Senator Kennedy. I'm out of time, but let me just say for
the record.
Mr. Painter. It's wrong.
Senator Kennedy. My aunt's Facebook page has more
credibility than you do. I could spend the rest of the day
reading your quotes where you make allegations against people
and you can't defend them.
Mr. Painter. You've said nothing about climate change.
You quoted everybody from a Marxist to all sorts of other
people.
Chairman Whitehouse. Senator Kaine.
Mr. Painter. This has absolutely nothing to do with the
topic of the hearing, Senator.
Chairman Whitehouse. Senator Kaine is recognized.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR KAINE
Senator Kaine. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Two items that I want
to talk about. One, some good news. Mr. Painter, you challenged
us at the end of your opening testimony. Hey, don't just be
fingering pointing at each other. Get something done. And I do
think we have to say this hearing is within the still recent
aftermath of two really powerful pieces of legislation that
Congress has passed to help us battle climate change, to help
the United States become leaders in the battle against climate
change. The bipartisan infrastructure bill a number of my
colleagues worked hard on this bill, makes significant
investments in all kinds of infrastructure. The nation needs
it, but including clean energy infrastructure. And then the
Inflation Reduction Act, which was partisan. It passed by one
vote in the Senate also really rockets the United States ahead
in climate leadership by promoting investments in clean energy.
We've seen the effect of this in Virginia. Virginia was one of
the worst states in the country in terms of any embrace of wind
or solar, low carbon energy at the same time we were one of the
state's most vulnerable to sea level rise. But now in both wind
deployment offshore Virginia is becoming a leader, not only in
deploying wind offshore, but also in becoming a hub of
manufacturing offshore wind components. It's good for economy.
But also in the solar space Virginia is moving from sort of
bottom 10 deployment to top 10. So the efforts of
disinformation is notwithstanding. It's not like Congress has
just basically accepted the disinformation and gridlocked.
We've taken action and we can debate too hot, too cold, just
right, more steps to take. I believe we do need to take more
steps, but I do think Congress is acting on this and we're
acting on it in a way that is rocketing ahead great American
innovation, creating jobs, putting us in a position where we
can encourage others to do the same, a global leadership
position and I think that's important.
And then the other point I wanted to make was with respect
to something that Mr. Walter said in his testimony because I
don't want anybody watching this to be confused or disinformed.
You used a phrase that said the left wants to silence speech it
doesn't like. We're talking about disclosure. We're not talking
about silencing anyone.
Dr. Pielke said it's important to know resources can
pervert research and those resources could come from the left
or the right or from anywhere or from foreign sources. It could
pervert research. And you said it's really important that on
research you be able to figure out if there's a conflict of
interest. Resources can pervert campaigns.
Mr. Painter, you talked about watching it from the George
W. Bush Administration through and seeing the effect of
campaign contributions and dark money perverting campaigns.
Research can pervert the reputation of the Supreme Court when
people appearing before the Court are hosting members of the
Court on luxury vacations who then chose not to disclosure it
there is a possibility that worries Americans that justice is
being perverted.
So who would argue that we shouldn't route out conflicts of
interests? And if we can't eliminate them all, at least we can
make them transparent so that voters and citizens and
legislators and journalists can figure out what's going on.
That's why the American public overwhelming supports the
Disclose Act. If you look at polling Republican, Independent,
Democratic, everybody believes they should have the right to
know who's funding campaigns. Even a person who may never go
look at the website to determine who's doing it still thinks
they have the right to it and should they want to that
information should be there for them. And that's why I'll go
back to what my colleague, Senator Merkley, was saying. I don't
believe for an instant that if you added up the total of dark
money it's a more significant problem on the Democratic side
than the Republican side because all Democrats are very wanting
to get rid of dark money because all Democrats support the
Disclose Act and since Mike Castle was defeated in a Republican
primary for Senate in Delaware in 2010, I don't think we've had
a single Republican member of either the House or the Senate
who's been willing to support the Disclose Act.
Those who are willing to say let it all be transparent are
not trying to silence anyone. They're trying to actually
provide the best information to everyone while those who insist
upon opacity, insist upon secrecy, resist transparency they got
something to hide. They got something to hide. And so my hope
is--I just resonate with what Dr. Pielke said. We ought to be
able to determine wherever we are--everyday people,
journalists, elected official, expert, whether there's a
conflict of interest that could threaten the credibility of
information that we receive. Everybody ought to be able to
determine that and we get there by doing things like the
Disclose Act. And it would be my hope that at some point we
would be able to get some Republican votes to back that up.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you very much and we thank the
witnesses for a very helpful hearing. I'll make a brief closing
statement, if I may, to follow up on what Senator Kaine has
said. Senator Kaine is a very able lawyer and one of the key
features or subtopics, if you will, of this hearing has been
the problem of conflicts of interests and how to explore
conflicts of interests. Exploring conflicts of interest is how
you distinguish, in part, between a simple difference of
opinion and motivated opinion, opinion that is paid for and is
perhaps not even sincerely held. And I think it's important to
recognize the importance of bias and conflict of interest when
you're dealing with testimony whether it's in Congress or
whether it's in courtrooms.
As Senator Kennedy just said, it has to do with your
creditability and it's important that that be disclosed because
the difference between paid for opinion and real research is a
very important thing. Mr. Pielke has been very good about this,
if I may quote from a sub-stack.``Experts monetizing their
expert is one important reason why people become experts, but
where expertise and financial interest intersect things can get
complicated.'' That is why there are robust mechanisms in place
for the disclosure and mitigation of financial conflicts of
interests. All of this is just common sense here. A doctor
can't prescribe you drugs from a company that pays him fees.
You wouldn't think much of a report on smoking and health from
a researcher supported by the tobacco industry,'' and because
we're both lawyers, we also have spent some time in courtrooms.
And one thing I can tell my colleagues about a courtroom is
that when you have a witness, particularly when you have an
expert witness one of the things you explore in your cross-
examination of that witness is their bias, is their conflicts
of interest. It is so normal in courtrooms to challenge
witnesses on how they're paid and who's paying them that it
would be error for a court to refuse to allow the lawyer to
conduct that examination. It is as established a principle of
trial practice as exists.
So let's appreciate that if it's essential in a courtroom
for a jury and a judge to be able to test the credibility of a
witness by having their conflicts of interest made a matter of
record for the judge and jury to see, it is also appropriate
for other hearings as well.
Thank you, Mr. Pielke. I see you nodding.
Senator Grassley. Can you give one minute for me?
Chairman Whitehouse. Of course.
Senator Grassley. Okay. Thank you.
Chairman Whitehouse. Of course. Five minutes for a closing
statement.
Senator Grassley. I've been listening to this back and
forth at this hearing. I've come to the following three
conclusions. Despite attempts to observe the obvious, Democrats
receive more dark money than Republicans and don't want the
public to know it. Secondly, the problem of climate change is
worthy of consideration, but these hearings go past
consideration. Democrats don't even bring in climate scientists
to hearings to have conversation about extreme, unrealistic
modelings. Democrats want Americans to think that you're, as
Americans, too stupid to think for themselves. Our time would
clearly be better spent doing budgetary works in this
Committee, which I'm fully prepared to do.
Chairman Whitehouse. Senator Johnson is recognized for--
unusually, but I'll give him the courtesy of a one-minute
closing statement.
Senator Johnson. Just a real quick point. Listen, I
certainly want disclosure as well, but I think it should be
toward candidates and certainly when it comes to scientific
research, you know, conflicts of interest the issue with the
disclosure of donors to groups really was settled by the
Supreme Court in the 50s with Alabama v. the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) where
Alabama wanted to disclose the donors to the NAACP and we know
why. That same concern exists today because we've seen
individuals being doxed. We've seen people being attacked for
supporting a group that maybe the other side doesn't
particularly like. So there is a rationale for donors being
able to donate to a cause that they feel strongly about without
their donation being disclosed. Okay. So there's a legitimate
argument on the other side. I would be pleased with unlimited
campaign contributions, full disclosure within 24 hours, that's
an appropriate use. Okay. But again, there's funding so many
different ways, different organizations, union--it's just not.
Again, I know it's a good sounding bill, but it's misguided.
Senator Kaine. Mr. Chair, 30 seconds.
Chairman Whitehouse. Yes, Senator Kaine. Have your minute
too.
Senator Kaine. I'll take 30 seconds. I don't think you can
analogize NAACP members in the Alabama of the 1950s and their
need for protection from criminal prosecution to wealthy
individuals who want to support often untrue political ads
without their name being associated with those untruths. I just
challenge that analogy.
Chairman Whitehouse. As do I. And with that, the hearing is
concluded. The members will have a week to add any questions
for the record. I would invite Ms. Arena to provide a response
to Senator Merkley because I thought his questioning was much
directed to you if you would care to do that. And if Dr.
Oreskes would like to--I saw you making some comments during
the testimony of some of the other witnesses. If you'd like to
elaborate a little bit on that through a question for the
record, I will invite that as well. Anyone else seeking to put
question for the record in you've got a week to do it. We'll
try to turn that around and get them to you as quickly as
possible so we can get answers back to our members. This has
been a very helpful and instructive hearing and I thank you all
for your participation.
[Whereupon, at 11:36 a.m., Wednesday, June 21, 2023, the
hearing was adjourned.]
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