[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 131 (Tuesday, November 16, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H9713-H9720]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) is
recognized for 60 minutes.
Mr. INSLEE. Madam Speaker, I come to address the House this evening
on an issue that has some similarities to the issue my colleagues, my
Democratic colleagues, just addressed on the Federal deficit. The
Federal deficit is this long-term, rather insidious challenge to our
Nation that sort of is something that can sneak up on us and over the
long term can cause us great grief. And the issue that I am compelled
to address the House on tonight is a similar issue with even larger
global concerns that has the capability of causing major changes to the
way we live and our kids live and our grandchildren live, and that is
the issue of global climate change, which is being precipitated by our
enormous contributions of carbon dioxide and methane into our
atmosphere.
And as I come here tonight, this is the first night we have been in
session since the election, and a couple things have changed relatively
dramatically actually since the election. And one of the things that
has changed when it comes to the atmosphere we are going to leave to
our kids and our grandkids is that there was a major scientific
announcement made last week that basically should send off red lights,
alarm bells, and whistles in the United States Congress which indicated
that the problem of global warming is much more acute and is happening
much more quickly than many of us anticipated. So tonight I would like
to address the science that has now become available to this body in
the House of Representatives, which I hope that we would act on fairly
shortly.
Unfortunately, the U.S. House has been somnambulant when it comes to
global warming to date. This Chamber, for all its virtues, basically
has not acted at all in the face of what has been very rapidly
accumulating scientific evidence about this problem. But after the
report came out last week, which I am going to address, there really is
no longer any excuse for inaction by the House; and that is why this
evening I would like to address the scientific report that became
available to us.
Last week, eight nations that have been working for 4 years now to
try to get a handle on the scientific information that is now available
to us issued a report called the ``Impacts of a Warming Arctic,'' and
this was a report issued by the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment. This
is a group that has been working of the best scientists in the United
States, nonpartisan, no ax to grind. These people, a diverse group from
the National Oceanographic Administration, from the University of
Fairbanks have been working in conjunction with seven other nations on
this report. Those other countries are Denmark, Finland, Iceland,
Norway, Russia, Sweden, Canada, and six indigenous groups in Canada.
[[Page H9714]]
And this group basically for the last several years has been taking a
very acute and sensitive look as to what is going on in the Arctic to
determine whether or not there is evidence that can guide us
policymakers and whether we should or should not treat global warming
as a serious issue. And I have to say that when I read this report, I
was blown away. And I was blown away because it is the most concrete,
cemented, and alarming report that I have read about an environmental
issue in the last 10 years. And this report, which is about 120 pages,
one can get online. If I can get the site here, they can read it on
line at acia.uaf.edu. That is acia.uaf.edu. They can also get it
through the Cambridge University Press at cambridge.org.
Basically what this report concluded is that global warming is,
number one, a fact; number two, likely caused by significant human
activity; and, third, that the rate of global warming in the Arctic
regions surpasses anything that we really would have assessed or
predicted even 2 years ago and that that rate has the capacity to cause
significant changes not only in the Arctic but where we live in our
homes and towns where we expect our grandchildren to have a life like
we do.
And what I would like to do is go through this report. And basically
this report synthesized scores of scientific assessments that have been
done on the Arctic. For reasons that are quite complex, what we have
found is that the changes that are happening in global warming are even
faster in the Arctic than other places. So I would like to go through
some of the findings of this scientific report.
First, the report found that Arctic climate is now warming rapidly
and much larger changes are projected. The annual average Arctic
temperatures have increased at almost twice the rate of the rest of the
world and over the past few decades with some variation. And additional
evidence comes from widespread melting of glaciers and sea ice and a
shortening of the snow season. We are seeing actual changes in our
climactic systems now due to global warming.
{time} 2115
This is not a hypothetical. This is not a ``Chicken Little.'' This is
not a bunch of theoreticians. What the science has shown is that we are
seeing significant changes already. The Arctic is where science looked.
There are other changes as well, but they are occurring.
The numbers that this report came up with are really quite startling.
They are not talking about one-tenth of a degree or half a degree in
changes, changes that we may not notice in our daily lives. What this
report concluded was that because of increasing concentrations of
carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses due to human activities,
primarily fossil fuel burning, Arctic warming is expected to be 4 to 7
degrees centigrade over the next 100 years. That is at least 8 or 9 to
14 or 15 degrees Fahrenheit during our grandchildren's lifetime.
Think about the significant changes in a region of the world where
you have 8, 9, 10 to 15 to 17 degree temperature increases. You are
talking about major changes in the planet that God created. And
whatever our political stripe in this Chamber, I dare say that none of
us would believe that there is a moral value to change 8 to 9 to 14 to
15 degree changes in the climatic system designed by the Creator.
That is a moral value that is violated. We now have evidence that is
occurring, and we need to act on it, and we need to act on it now. This
is the most alarming evidence that we have in humans that I am aware of
to date of about how significant this problem is.
So we know we have seen changes in the Arctic, and we now have
compelling scientific evidence. And I want to make sure people
understand this is not evidence from some pointy-headed group that just
has an ax to grind. This is the best scientists in our Federal
Government on a nonpartisan basis in alliance with scientists from
around the world who are associated with the Arctic.
Now, what this is also showing in the Arctic is that we have had
shorter and warmer winters, which perhaps is not rocket science but is
true, with substantial decreases in snow and ice cover, and these are
expected to continue. We can look forward to unexpected and even larger
shifts and fluctuations in climate. The reason for that is we do not
fully understand all of the climatic systems to date.
So what we have is finding number one, which is that the Arctic is
changing rapidly, and that it is likely over our grandchildren's
lifetimes to have increases in the 8 to 16 to 17 degree Fahrenheit
realm, huge changes in the biosphere in the Arctic, and we are already
seeing changes.
The second finding that this group has found relates perhaps to our
lives as we live them here. I live just north of Seattle, and I kind of
like it. A lot of people do not like some of the rain in Seattle, but I
think it is a great place to live. I have become accustomed to having a
spring, when we get it, and having the glaciers and having snow to ski
on and having salmon in the rivers.
All of those things are now put into question because of the
existence of global warming. That has been suggested by finding number
two of this group, that basically found in their conclusion, and I will
read from it, ``Arctic warming and its consequences have worldwide
implications. Melting of highly reflective Arctic snow and ice reveals
darker land and ocean surfaces. It increases the absorption of the
sun's heat, further warming the planet.''
Now, maybe this is intuitive, but it bears thinking about it.
One of the things scientists are concerned about is that we are
dramatically increasing the percentage of carbon dioxide in our
atmosphere. As you may know, carbon dioxide traps infrared radiation.
The way this works is just like a greenhouse. Light can come through
the atmosphere, because when light comes from the sun it comes through
an ultraviolet wavelength. But when it bounces back, it bounces back at
a different wavelength, at infrared spectrum in the wavelengths.
Carbon dioxide, methane, a few other gasses, are impermeable to
infrared radiation. So it traps that radiation in the Earth. That is a
really, really good thing. If we did not have some carbon dioxide, we
would be a frozen ball in space. It is important to have that as a
blanket to a certain degree to keep us warm.
But, unfortunately, those rates of carbon dioxide are up 20 to 30
percent in the industrial period of time and are expected to double,
double, the highest carbon dioxide rate in our atmosphere in several
millions years in the planet Earth's history, if we do not act.
So the science is compelling that this material traps heat in the
Earth.
But the thing that is disturbing to a lot of scientists is that there
are also what are called feedback effects. Feedback effects means that
when you change the atmosphere you warm the planet due to this trapping
mechanism like greenhouse panes in a greenhouse, but you also set up a
phenomena called feedback effects.
One of those is, if you melt more ice, you effectively warm the
planet through a doubling effect or an increased effect, because ice is
more reflective. It reflects back more energy than dark ground or the
oceans. So you have this kind of reflective barrier up there in the
north and in the Antarctic and the Greenland ice cap, and if you lose
that reflective barrier, you absorb more heat and increase the rate of
increase in temperature.
That is what we are seeing right now. This report concluded that is
likely to happen, and it will have implications not only in the Arctic
but where we live down in the 50 States.
It also says that increases in glacial melt and river runoff add more
fresh water to the ocean, which will raise the global sea level,
possibly slowing the ocean's circulation that brings heat from the
tropics to the poles, affecting global and regional climate.
If you go on-line and look at this map, you will see there are
significant areas in the United States which could be affected during
our grandchildren's lifetime of raising sea levels due to global
warming.
I am familiar with a lot of beaches. We like the breaches. Frankly, I
do not like them being underwater. But that is the circumstance our
kids have to look forward to if we do not act.
It works in two ways: One, warming sea water expands simply because
it is a warmer temperature. But we also
[[Page H9715]]
have additional volume from additional melt. So we have that phenomena.
But the report also had this disturbing line, and you can read about
this in detail, which says that this could possibly slow the ocean's
circulation that brings heat from the tropics to the poles. This is
something when I went on a tour of some of the regions that could be
affected by global warming, some of the countries in Northern Europe
are very concerned that because we have more fresh water melt off of
the Greenland cap and Arctic, we can reduce the salinity of the North
Atlantic, reducing the action of the current which drives the Gulf
Stream which really warms Northern Europe. This has the capacity of
altering or shutting down that Gulf Stream, because, paradoxically, you
could end up with a little ice age in northern Europe due to global
warming. It is an interesting phenomena you would not think of
intuitively. But this report indicated that is something we need to be
concerned about.
The third conclusion, Arctic vegetation zones are very likely to
shift, causing wide-ranging impact. What they are finding is that the
tree line is moving northward into higher elevations, with the forest
replacing an existing fraction of tundra and tundra vegetation moving
into polar deserts.
Now, this may sound a little esoteric, but it has meaning to us in
the 50 States as we start to see northern movement of these biospheres,
if you will, as well. You can basically, this is a little simplistic,
but look to the south of you and assume that is what is going to
happen. Frankly, that may look okay to me and from Northern California,
moving north, but to folks in the south, having a Mexican climate
moving north into California and Oregon may not be a prospect folks
really look forward to.
The fourth conclusion, animal species diversity and ranges and
distribution will change. This is one that those who are fond of polar
bears and seals, and I think a lot of folks are, they are threatened.
They are threatened because reductions in sea ice will drastically
shrink marine habitat for polar bears, ice-inhabiting seals and some
sea birds, pushing some species towards extinction.
Whatever you think, I believe that we have an obligation to our
grandkids not to leave a planet barren of some of the animals and
critters we grew up with. I do not think that is too outrageous a
statement.
There was an instruction by the Creator to Noah to bring two of every
animal and to keep them alive, and ``to keep them alive'' was the
operative word. If that was the instruction to Noah, perhaps we ought
to have an instruction to the U.S. Congress to pull our heads out of
the sand and do something that does not result in huge extinctions on
this planet, which unfortunately is the scientific fact that is now
occurring.
This report is just one more factor that ought to lead us to conclude
that we need to act to avoid significant extinction so that we cannot
say that we are the generation that took away polar bears, seals,
Orcas, you name it, from our grandkids, to enjoy in their lifetime.
According to this report, that is a risk we should be concerned about.
The fifth conclusion, many coastal communities and facilities face
increasing exposure to storms. We are already seeing some of our
communities in northern Alaska are having to actually move their
villages that have been there for centuries away from the encroaching
wave action that is occurring. It is predicted that will occur in part
because thawing permafrost weakens coastal lands, adding to the
vulnerability.
This is a real kind of interesting thing that is going on. If you
look at this report, you will see the pictures of the buildings that
are collapsing in the Arctic because the permafrost is melting. The
permafrost, as the name would suggest, is permanently frozen ground,
and people build their buildings on it, they build their roads on it.
But that is melting now because of the increasing temperatures. You
will see pictures of these cracks running through buildings, cracked
roads.
It is interesting, because you know folks who want to drill in the
Arctic, in the Wildlife Refuge, something I vigorously oppose, ought to
take into consideration that, because of global warming, it is going to
be more difficult if that were to happen. Because the days in which you
can drive over frozen tundra and not sink up to your hubcaps are being
reduced by about 10 days to 2 weeks in the last several decades, and
that has created havoc up there in the oil drilling fields, even in
Prudo Bay. So we have melting permafrost, something that has been there
for eons, now occurring.
In fact, it is interesting, up in the villages up in the northern
Alaska area, you have birds that are appearing that the folks up there
do not even have words for. They do not have language for them, because
they have never seen these birds before, as they are moving north
because of this melting that is occurring.
Sixth, reducing the ice is very likely to increase marine transport
and access to resources. This is an interesting phenomena. If you want
to look at this on the plus side you can say, well, we will be able to
have shipping through the Arctic during the summer.
There are some changes that might be useful to our economy, but I
question whether we want to radically change the climatic system which
we have grown accustomed to during the entire period of human evolution
in the hopes that we might have a couple of upsides in that regard. I
would suggest that we not.
I have been joined by a great visionary on this issue and others, the
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind). I yield to him.
Mr. KIND. Madam Speaker, I thank my good friend, the gentleman from
Washington State, for yielding me a little bit of time for this very
important discussion.
First of all, I commend him for it, his leadership throughout
Congress and the Nation, in trying to draw attention to and highlight
an incredibly important issue not only for the current generation but
future generations. That is, how are we going to, as the world's most
powerful Nation, economically, militarily, culturally, our influence
throughout the world is going to address one of the seminal issues of
our generation, and that is global climate change and warming, what we
can do policy-wise to try to effectuate the needed changes in order to
stem the terrible results that might occur if we do not start acting
today on it.
The science is in. My colleague from Washington has cited the
scientific studies. In fact, even the current administration now is
releasing recent reports indicating that climate change is real, that
global warming is occurring, that it is heavily influenced by man-made
objects and that it is something we cannot ignore any longer.
The problem we have, however, with the administration is lack of
leadership and a lack of ideas and a solution on how to address it.
They have the science before them. The President during an initial
report that said, hey, this stuff is real, it is happening, we have got
to take corrective action, excused the record as the work of
bureaucrats within the EPA and various agencies that was putting the
science together. But a more recent study that just came out in August
highlighted the very real effects and the tracking data of climate
change and the fact that it is heavily influenced by man's action on
this globe.
{time} 2130
The question is now what are we going to do with the science. It was
interesting to note and see that Russia has been the latest signatory
to the Kyoto treaty which now puts the treaties into effect because
they had to have a certain number of nations that produced a certain
amount of these greenhouse gasses to first sign the treaty before it
would be implemented. Russia now puts them over the top. Granted there
are some problems with Kyoto, issues that need to be addressed and
cleaned up and further corrected; and that is why there was an
overwhelming vote against the Kyoto ratification in the Senate about a
year ago. But what has been lacking in this debate on a global basis is
U.S. leadership and what are we going to do about it.
I know the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) has been one of the
champions of a new Apollo energy program, one that makes sense for us
not only addressing the global climate changes that is occurring now
but makes sense for us economically in regards to our long term energy
needs as
[[Page H9716]]
a Nation. If we do not get our energy policy right, we will not be very
successful in growing the economy and creating jobs.
We have seen what the dependence and addiction to foreign oil has
done to us economically. We have been looking at $2 a gallon for gas
prices for too long. It is a hidden tax on working families that are
paying more out of their pocket at the pump in order to pay for these
increased energy costs. Gas prices this winter will be 30 to sometimes
40 percent more in the upper Midwest and in the northern regions that
will be relying on heating bills to get through the winter season. And
we see the implications foreign policy-wise of our addiction to oil in
the Middle East and why we are so heavily involved there right now.
There is something we can do about it.
I guess what is so frustrating, serving on the Committee on
Resources, as my friend from Washington and I do, is there are certain
steps that we can be taking in order to wean ourselves off from this
dependence on foreign oil in order to move to a new energy policy that
emphasizes alternative and renewable energy sources: the wind, the
solar, the geothermal, the biofuels, the ethanol. And also a major
investment in the energy source of the future, fuel cell development,
so we become a hydrogen-based energy society as opposed to a carbon
fossil fuel base that we are currently dependent upon and that is
creating these greenhouse gases.
So the question now becomes what are we going to do about the science
that is staring us in the face. Are we going to continue to ignore it,
claim we cannot do both, grow the economy and address global climate
change at the same time? I believe we can. And I believe there is job
creation involved if we do start bringing these new technologies
online, creating new businesses and new industries to deal with the new
Apollo energy program for this country.
We should see the leadership from the White House setting dates
certain for certain goals of achieving greater alliance on alternative
and renewable energy sources, but we are not. In fact, the energy bill
that is currently pending before Congress is better suited for the
1950s as opposed to the 21st century. There is a lot of new technology
that can be developed that will spur economic growth and jobs if we
have the political will to do it. And I believe at the end of the day
this can be a win-win scenario, not only for job creation in this
country but in addressing the root causes of global climate change,
something that the rest of the world is waking up and realizing and
starting to take action on their own.
But if the world's largest economy and the world's greatest consumer
of fossil fuels remains on the sidelines, as this administration has
decided to do, we will not see tremendous progress being made on this
front regardless of what other countries throughout the globe are
trying to do right now. That is why I commend my good friend from
Washington State for getting up here on a late evening here, Tuesday
night, to continue talking about this very important issue. And it is
an issue that the younger generation gets. I do not know if it is
intuitive or if they have just gotten enough information themselves,
but they know the problems we are facing ecologically and
environmentally.
They also believe in this whole global warming science that is out
there right now. I believe they also believe that it is their
generation that will pay the highest price if action is not taken today
with the policymakers we have right now. I believe it was one of the
more important issues in the last Presidential campaign that did not
receive the attention that it deserved. I pledge tonight to continue
working with my friend from Washington State to continue to draw
attention on this important issue, to see what we can do working in a
bipartisan fashion, because this is going to be an issue that we will
have to lock arms together and jump into the icy waters on if we will
have significant progress on it.
And there can be a lot of different areas of the sensible center that
we can pursue in this Congress in the upcoming session, and hopefully
being able to work with the administration even though they are doing
new personnel changes right now, to address one of the more pressing
and important issues changes of our day, that is, global warming. And
what this generation is going to leave as a legacy for the next
generation to inherit.
Unfortunately, there has been too much dithering. There has been
study after study and scientific report after scientific report, all
pointing in the same direction; but it is falling on deaf ears right
now. And we do not have the luxury of time on our side. The longer we
delay in taking affirmative action on this, the harder it will be to
address this at the end of the day. So the clock is ticking.
We will continue speaking out on this. We will continue working
amongst ourselves trying to form these bipartisan coalitions, trying to
develop a greater consensus in our country to address this. I think the
American people are there as well. I think given the option, they want
to see us moving to a more sustainable energy policy that is more
ecologically and environmentally friendly for their children and
grandchildren as well. Lord knows the rest of the world is waking up to
the possibilities that exist out there. And there is so much potential
with the creativity and the innovation that this country has, that the
American workers and with the science that we are developing in this
country.
What is lacking and what the missing ingredient I believe is is the
political leadership and the will to get it done. That is really what
is at stake. And I thank my colleague for having this Special Order
this evening talking about this issue and for his leadership on it as
well.
Mr. INSLEE. I really appreciate two messages the gentleman had. One
was why this needs to be a bipartisan effort. This should be a totally
bipartisan effort. Now we have a start on that. Senator McCain, if I am
allowed to use that name, and another, Senator Lieberman, in the Senate
have a bill that will help us put a modest cap on the amount of
CO2 we put in the atmosphere. We have a similar bill with
some of our Republican colleagues that we have co-sponsored here in the
House.
When our grandchildren look back at us when polar bears are extinct
and there is no summer ice cap, and Western Nile Virus and malaria have
moved south up into the Midwest, and we have lost some of the birds we
are used to having around our houses, and your air conditioning billing
goes through the roof in Seattle, Washington, and Wisconsin in March or
April, they will not look back and say oh those pesky Republicans or
pesky Democrats. They will curse us all for being so shortsighted.
So we need to be bipartisan on this.
Second message that I appreciate is one of optimism that we can deal
with this problem. That is a fundamental thing that we need to have
confidence in ourselves to do that. I think you have to ask yourself,
why when the science is so overwhelming, why when the science is just
absolutely certain that carbon dioxide has increased by 30 percent in
the atmosphere, there is absolutely no doubt whatsoever of that and
there is no doubt that it acts as a greenhouse gas, and why when you
see the summer ice in the Arctic already being decreased by 15 percent
by area and almost 40 percent, almost half as thick, we have almost
lost half the thickness already in the polar ice cap, when you already
see the changes in animal life? We had these squid off the coast of
Washington. We have never seen these squid off the coast of Washington.
For a hundred years nobody had ever caught a squid. Now they are up
there because we have warmer water temperatures.
So after all of these efforts, why do some people sort of want to
blind themselves to do this? I think the answer is human nature. If you
do not think you can deal with it, you just do not think about it. If
you put it in that little box of things, maybe like our own mortality
that we cannot do anything about it, you just do not think about it. We
need to spread the gospel that we can handle this problem and the
reason we can handle this problem is we are the most creative people on
Earth. We went to the Moon in 10 years when John F. Kennedy challenged
us to do it. We can do the same thing now with the Apollo energy
project that we are working on here in the House which will unleash the
technological can-do spirit of Americans.
There is no reason the Danish have to be ahead of us. We went
together to
[[Page H9717]]
Denmark and saw the wind turbines. Denmark will have 50 percent of
their energy produced by wind turbines in the next 10 years. There is
no reason we cannot do that. There is no reason we cannot be competing
with the Germans on solar technology, which has now come down in price
20 percent, every time you increase it by a factor of ten.
We need to make a buck off of global warming and this is one of the
great economic opportunities for America because we are the smartest,
greatest tinkerers the world has ever seen if we have that challenge.
Mr. KIND. Madam Speaker, I think the gentleman is right. I think this
really comes down to two different visions, two different camps of what
we can and cannot do. The optimist versus the pessimist. The optimist
which we are members of happily really do believe we have the
innovation, the creativity, technological know-how to lead the rest of
the world in developing the changes that have to be made in regards to
energy use and new energy technologies coming on line.
Conservation could be a big part of what we are talking about as
well. It is something that unfortunately the Vice President poo-poos
every time someone tries to bring it up, is the things we could be
doing to develop more energy-efficient machines that we rely on for our
quality of life.
It was interesting that when California just a couple of years ago
was going through their energy crisis, energy consumption dropped 11
percent within the first month through increased energy conservation
practices. So conservation can also be a part of this. What does this
mean for the average person back home in western Wisconsin, the
district that I represent?
We have a very good manufacturing company called the Trane Company.
It is one of the largest employers in western Wisconsin, over 2,000
workers. They manufacture high-efficiency commercial heating and
cooling units to be sold. They are so efficient and so good at what
they do that those machines are already in full compliance of what the
Kyoto treaty calls for. If we unleash this potential, that means
creating more jobs in districts like the third congressional in western
Wisconsin, with new companies being able to expand by developing a
market share with these new machines, these new technologies that are
crying out to be developed.
But again it is a question of political leadership and whether or not
we have enough visionary people to see where we can take it and what
steps we have to do and what each of our roles is going to be as
consumers, as manufacturers, as producers, as policymakers because
there is going to be a role for all of us to play, but it will require
a buy-in.
The gentleman mentioned the Apollo program of the 1960s. When
President Kennedy first announced the goal to put a man on the Moon by
the end of the decade, most of the scientific experts did not think it
was possible. We were experimenting with Saturn and Jupiter II missiles
that if they were not exploding on the launch pad at the time, quickly
exploded after launch or dovetailed into the oceans off the launch pad.
And for the President at the time to conceive of putting a live human
being on top of these flying bombs that were blowing up typically on
the launch pad, and safely launching them out into outerspace and then
landing them softly on the Moon, and then relaunching them from the
Moon and landing them softly on the Earth's surface so that we do not
lose anyone, was a vision that very few people in the scientific
community in the early 1960s thought could be achieved by the end of
the decade.
But it was that political leadership and vision and marshaling the
resources and the best and the brightest that our Nation had to offer
that enabled us to achieve that dynamic mission by 1969.
It was an incredible technological achievement, and it was spurred by
a vision that President Kennedy had for our Nation at the time.
Mr. INSLEE. Many of us think that is simply what we need again is
that same type of vision.
We can only do so much with even our existing technology. A report by
the U.S. Department of Energy concluded that we could basically reduce
our fossil fuel use and have the same economic productivity by 20
percent with existing technology if we just made the right policy
decisions. But there is so much excitement for job creation out in the
State of Washington right now about the prospects of creating jobs.
Let me give you an example. We just built the largest wind turbine
farm in the southeastern corner of the State of Washington; 10,000
homes essentially get their energy from wind turbines. These are jobs,
and for rural America I might add. It is not bad getting a lease
payment just sitting there putting your feet up on the couch and
getting a lease payment from the power company to lease a couple of
acres of your farm. That works pretty well.
In southwestern Washington we have one of the largest manufacturers
of solar cell panels for North America. It had been previously owned by
a German company. We are employing American workers to make solar
panels, and those numbers are going up significantly. The reason is
that there is a tremendous trend, we can report to Americans, when it
comes to new energy sources, and that is they get cheaper every year.
And the reason they get cheaper every year is when we make more of them
there is a scale of production.
{time} 2145
On solar, every time we make 10 times the solar panels that we made
before, the price comes down 20 percent. It is a curve. I actually have
a graph somewhere that has been a straight line curve for the last 20
years. They used to have the potential to be market-based in a very,
very short period of time.
Mr. KIND. Madam Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, we are seeing
a very exciting development. In Wisconsin, people think the Dairy
State, a lot of farms. There are still a lot of family farms in that.
The operations are getting better. The livestock herds are getting
larger.
One of the grant programs that I and others were able to include in
the last farm bill was a methane digester grant program going to these
family farmers to start developing methane digesters. That is using the
waste that these livestock herds are producing and converting it into
energy.
Again, it is another small piece of the energy puzzle that we need to
be looking at in further developing as this Nation, because there is
not going to be a silver bullet that is going to provide the cure-all
for all of this, but it is finding out where the pieces need to fit in,
whether it is solar, whether it is the wind turbine farms, whether it
is methane digesters, whether it is the further development of hydrogen
fuels in this society.
Thomas Friedman of the New York Times wrote a really interesting
article just a couple of months ago in regards to the weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq, and he said that that is not our only intelligence
failure in Iraq, not being able to find these weapons of mass
destruction. If we do not learn from this, that our dependence on their
oil in that region is a large cause of what is happening over there
right now, and that, too, will be another intelligence failure on our
part if we do not derive the lessons of our dependence on the oil in
the Middle East and start converting to a new energy policy for a new
century and wean ourselves off from that dependence, which would then
start forcing those regimes in the Middle East instead of basing their
whole economic model on the natural resources that are being extracted
from their soil and instead forcing them to diversify their economic
base, and have them start drilling their human capital more than their
natural resources, that is going to lead to the type of transformations
and reforms that we desperately need throughout the Muslim and the Arab
world right now.
But so long as we, the largest consumer of these fossil fuels, remain
the supply line for those regimes and their economic base, as long as
we remain addicted to what they have got, we are not going to see the
type of economic and political and the cultural reforms that that
region of the world desperately needs right now.
That, too, is something that we have got to wake up and realize, in
light of what is happening in the Middle East today, that a lot of this
stems from our dependence on their energy that they
[[Page H9718]]
are producing and our inability to start pivoting now and seeing the
long-term ramifications that this has and the national security
implications that I believe it holds for our Nation in future years.
Mr. INSLEE. Madam Speaker, the gentleman's pointed out something that
is very important.
When you go to the horse races, you want to hit the trifecta. You
want to win all three races. It is a big thing, and this certainly is a
trifecta of an energy policy because it solves three problems we have.
Number 1, it helps us reduce our addiction to Middle Eastern oil;
number 2, it helps us reduce global warming; and number 3, it grows
jobs in this country. It does not get much better than that, you can
solve three problems with one program, which we intend to introduce
during the next Congress, early in January or February, we hope on a
bipartisan basis.
So we intend to have real concrete legislation. We have the cap on
carbon dioxide which is now pending in the Senate. There was a hearing
today in the Senate on that. We have a similar bill in the house, and
we have a comprehensive energy bill, or the new Apollo energy bill,
which will encourage the adoption of these new technologies.
Both of these are important. One, we have to stop treating the
atmosphere just like a global junkyard where we can just dump our junk
into it willy-nilly. We have got to stop that. We just cannot do that
anymore when we have got the arctic ice cap disappearing on us.
Two, we need to inspire these new technological systems that we
intend to do, and unfortunately, we are going to give a report card
here in a few minutes for Congress. It is kind of an F minus, because
at the moment that the arctic ice is melting, at the moment that
salinity is changing at the oceans, the moment you have these huge
global changes going on, this chamber incredibly has not passed a
single energy bill in the last 2 years, and here we are coming down to
the last 72 hours of this Congress, with an abject failure to pass an
energy bill.
Now, that is something I do not think any of us should be proud of in
light particularly of this new scientific report that came out that
ought to ring alarm bells. There ought to be like fire bells going off
in this building about what is going out there in the globe, and there
are a lot of environmental challenges we have.
Mercury in the air. Of course, the administration wanted to allow
more mercury in the air or water. We thought that was a bad idea. Soot
in the air. The administration wanted to allow more soot in the air. We
thought that was a bad idea. Issues about cutting down and clear
cutting our national forests, we thought that was a bad idea and the
roadless area policy.
There are a lot of things that are contentious about the environment,
but this issue I think Americans of all political stripe ought to
understand, when you fool with the whole basic climactic system of the
globe, which is the only one we have got right now, you are messing
around with something, number one, we do not fully understand, and two,
we have got nowhere else to go. If the climate system goes south, we
just cannot hop off earth to another lifeboat, and that is indeed what
is happening right now before our eyes if we will open our eyes and
look at this and look at this report. I encourage people to look at
this report. It is about 120 pages long but it is pretty interesting.
Mr. KIND. Madam Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, it is one of
the fascinating conversations I like to have with our astronauts. We
are very proud of Mark Lee who is an astronaut who grew up in Viroqua,
Wisconsin, Western Wisconsin. Of course, Deke Slayton was from the
Sparta area in Western Wisconsin. I had a meeting with one of the
Shuttle astronauts down at Cape Canaveral about a year-and-a-half ago,
and I asked them all, what is the one thing that really leaves an
impression upon you when you are out in space and looking back. They
all say it is the greater respect for our environment and our ecosystem
on this planet because, from their perspective, out in space looking
back, I think they see intuitively how fragile our environment really
is and the atmosphere and this planet that we all share together, and I
think they all understand that much more work needs to be done on this
front.
The fact that we have had an energy bill now pending for the last
couple of years I think speaks more to the dysfunctional nature of this
Congress recently that has become so polarizing, so partisan, and there
is not enough outreach, not enough effort to find that sensible center
on policy, to try to come together and work in crafting truly
bipartisan bills where we understand it is going to be a process of
give and take and that compromise should not be a four letter word in
trying to make our democracy function.
But unfortunately, there is this 218 strategy where the leadership on
the other side just wants the minimum number of votes, and more
Republicans, the better, in order to get anything passed around here
that it makes great achievements virtually impossible today.
On issues like the environment and energy policy, it is something
that is going to require the Nation coming together if we are going to
be make significant strides.
It is going to be interesting that later this week we are going to be
dealing with another vastly important issue, and it is not one that is
really short term, but it has long-term implications, raising the
national debt ceiling limit. This is not something that we are going to
see tangible results tomorrow if we start addressing it, but it does
have future long-term implications about economic growth, and it is the
same thing in regards to global warming. It is something people are
hearing about now, and they are starting to see the science come in,
but it is not something that is going to a direct and immediate impact
on their lives tomorrow.
What we are talking about is what this means for the next generation
and the generation after that and why it is incumbent upon us to start
worrying about this today rather than punting it for future
generations. I am concerned that the same attitude is being taken with
the huge accumulation of debt in this country today, that all we have
to do this week is jam another $900 billion increase in the debt
ceiling in a bill that has to pass in order to keep the government
functioning, and there is very little thought about the long-term
implications of what these decisions mean in the future.
Again, this is a classic issue, and I have enjoyed working with my
colleague from Washington State and look forward to working with him on
this in the future because it is an issue that obviously is not going
to go away anytime soon, and it is going to require a lot of hard work.
Mr. INSLEE. Madam Speaker, the good news is that our kids' generation
gets this. I have got three boys, 27 through 18, and they get this. I
think they understand a little bit of the science, but they also see
the world changing right in front of them.
This is again not an esoteric issue. The glaciers in Glacier National
Park are disappearing. In 75 to 100 years there will not be any
glaciers in Glacier National Park. The Committee on Resources will have
to change the name to the park formerly known as Glacier because there
will not be any glaciers in Glacier National Park. Now, it is just
something we kind of grew up with, and we will not all die because the
glaciers disappear, but it will be something that is different than
what we grew up with. When you take your kids to Glacier National Park,
they will have a little sign there, and it will say this used to be
called Glacier National Park and it used to have glaciers on it until
the Congress in 2004 stuck their heads in the sand and their tail
feathers in the air and refused to do anything about global warming.
That is what the sign is going to say. Maybe we should put our names on
it just so we will be sort of appropriately chastised about doing
nothing on this.
But you look at the other things that are going on, these are not
just a ascetic issues. There are things important to life.
One of the conclusions of this report is that climate warming would
increase forest fires and insect-caused tree death, further reducing
this valuable habitat which is already declining due to other human
activities. Well, we have seen some of the worst fire years in the last
several years due in part to
[[Page H9719]]
the horrendous drought we have had in the Western United States,
changes that are consistent with global warming. We have had this huge
outbreak of insect devastation in our forests in the West and in
Alaska, systems that are consistent with trees that are stressed due to
change in climate. Now, you cannot pinpoint any single one fire or any
single one's day's precipitation pattern to global warming, but these
changes are consistent, the scientists are telling us, with what global
warming would occur.
You know what, people die fighting forest fires, and I know a family
who lost a young man fighting a fire up in north Washington. Those are
not esoteric changes to me when I fly over the Cascade Mountains and
the Rockies and see these burn patches and insect devastation.
Fortunately, it is not that terrible at the moment on the route I fly,
but I know how bad it is up in Alaska.
These are real changes that are happening in our lifetime, and I just
question whether we are acting as good a stewards from the creators of
the earth as we should be given the mind that we are given. Maybe the
highest creation in the universe is the human mind. So maybe we ought
to use it.
We are suggesting that the U.S. Congress needs to open its eyes and
read the science a little bit because right now we are sort of just got
the hands over our eyes and we refuse to recognize this report. Now let
me give you some other bad news here.
November 24, these eight Nations will meet in Reykjavik, Iceland, and
the reason for this meeting is to conclude the formal national report
for this arctic assessment. This was done under the auspices of eight
national governments that wring the arctic, and the scientists want to
include a report that says something that is not rocket science.
They want to put a conclusion on the report that we need to do
something about global warming; that we need to reduce or at least put
some limit on the carbon dioxide and the gases that are causing the
arctic ice to disappear; causing polar bears to possibly go extinct;
causing the lack of habitat for a bunch of critters that we like;
causing potentially shutting down the gulf stream that warms northern
Europe and a little bit New York city I suppose; causing the Greenland
ice sheet to be melting now 15 percent. There has been a huge increase
in the melt, 15 percent, in the last several years of the Greenland ice
cap.
The science says all of those things are happening so they want to
take the radical step of putting in this report, we need to cap or
limit the amount of carbon dioxide we put in the atmosphere.
So what did this administration do, the President of the United
States, in the face of this overwhelming science that is absolutely
consensus? There was not a single scientist in this group, anybody from
any country, including the United States of America who contested these
conclusions. So what does the President of the United States want to do
and what has he instructed his negotiators to do I am told? He has
instructed them to not allow this report to suggest that we put some
limit on carbon dioxide.
{time} 2200
Now, if you consider the President of the United States the world's
potentially most effective steward of God's creation, does it make
sense for him, in the face of science that says God's creation is at
risk, to shut his eyes and do absolutely nothing about this problem? I
believe that is not consistent with the moral values that this country
of any faith shares, and this President has dropped the ball when it
comes to this major effort. He has dropped the ball considering one of
the greatest risks really that we have had in global environmental
history.
He has told, I am told this, and if anyone can show I am wrong I
would be happy to be disabused of this notion, but we read that he has
told his negotiators not to allow anything in this report that say that
humans need to act as good stewards to reduce CO2 and limit
CO2. Now, I think that is very, very disturbing,
particularly given the fact we have the technology to deal with this
issue today, and that we can make a buck on. It is very, very
shortsighted, and I hope my colleagues, anyone who might be listening
tonight, will chime in with this administration and urge them to take a
more responsible pattern.
Now, maybe the President could get away with this 10 years ago, 6
years ago, 3 years ago, or 2 years ago, when science was not so sure;
but the verdict is in. The guilt is there. The glove fits. The DNA
evidence is there. There is no doubt about this. And once the verdict
is in, we need to act.
Mr. KIND. Madam Speaker, if the gentleman will yield for one final
point, this has been a consistent pattern with this administration.
Even with their own agencies producing reports on global warming, the
President on down has kind of pooh-poohed the findings. And in fact at
one time the President commented on one of the global warming studies
that came out of the EPA that it was just the work of a bunch of career
bureaucrats, as if to discount the findings of that report. But the
most recent one, just released in August, was signed off on by the
agency heads of those departments, so it is a little more difficult
then for the President, with these political appointees, to claim they
are just a bunch of bureaucrats doing what bureaucrats supposedly do,
in his eyes, and that is producing a bunch of invalid, nonscientific-
based reports, when in fact the information out there is just to the
contrary.
This administration has tended to base policy more on faith-based
initiatives rather than science-based findings and studies, and that is
very disturbing. Because if your instinct is wrong on something as
important as this, it could lead this Nation down a disastrous course
that could take decades to try to reverse and change, if it is not too
late already.
That is why during the course of the election there were so many
scientists around the Nation writing letters and indicating their
concerns and displeasure in regards to the administration's practice of
discounting scientific research and findings on the important topics of
the day, and that pattern has been consistent from day one.
Now we have a second term that is about to begin. We have new
political appointees that will be made. Many of the Secretaries have
submitted their resignations, so there will be a turnover in
leadership, and what will be very interesting and I think very
important in the days and weeks to come is who the President is
deciding to head up these very agencies that will have so much
influence and so much say in the future course of the policy that this
Nation will follow which will have implications not only for us here at
home but on a global basis. So these appointments are going to be very
important in the days to come.
When my colleague and I were in Norway, studying their alternatives
and renewable energy plan, we received a briefing on the global
circulatory system and how that could be impacted from global warming.
I do not know if too many people watching tonight realize our oceans
have this circulatory pattern to it with the water flow.
The gentleman from Washington mentioned the gulf stream a little
earlier that warms in the southern climates and goes up north and keeps
the Northern Hemisphere warm and the shoreline free of ice
accumulation. The fear with global warming is that as the water goes to
the north, it will not cool. And if it does not cool, it will not drop.
And if it does not drop, it will not continue the circulatory pattern
in the other oceans throughout the world and so the whole system could
shut down. Like the blood that rushes through our body, if it stops
pumping and stops circulating through our body, you can imagine the
disastrous consequences.
The Earth's environment and ecosystem is based on that ocean
circulatory system that would be adversely affected if global warming
continues at the pace that it currently is. It could potentially shut
down, creating an environmental havoc that perhaps is only realized in
the imagination of Hollywood producers right now in the movies they are
starting to produce but which may not be that far off from reality.
This too I think is a huge implication that we have to start studying
more and taking seriously in the policy decisions that we face in the
upcoming session of Congress.
Again, Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his leadership on the
[[Page H9720]]
issue and for garnering some time this evening.
Mr. INSLEE. Well, Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for joining me
this evening, and I want to make some concluding remarks basically to
summarize what the science shows. And I will not be judgmental; I will
just conclude with what the science is tonight as we stand here in
2004, in the concluding days of this Congress.
In those concluding days we now know, according to the best science
the country has to offer, that temperatures have increased 3 to 4
degrees Centigrade, which is 6 to 7\1/2\ or 8 degrees already. In the
Arctic, they will probably increase in the next century another 8 to 15
degrees Fahrenheit. Very dramatic global warming.
The glaciers are melting at an increasing rate, contributing fresh
water to the North Atlantic. That has the capacity to perhaps shut down
the currents that our current climactic situation depends on. There is
diminishing lake and river ice. There is retreating and disappearing
summer ice, with a 15 to 20 percent decline over the last 30 years. And
the actual elimination of the summer ice cap that we have had since
humans crawled out of their caves will disappear in this century.
There are rising sea levels that could raise half a meter in this
century. There are ocean salinity changes which have already occurred,
and those ocean salinity changes have the capacity of shutting down the
halcine cycle, which drives the currents we all depend on.
There has been increasing ultraviolet ray exposure to our children,
particularly in the Arctic, for at least several decades as a result of
this. Exposing them to this ultraviolet radiation can cause an increase
in cancer by as much as 30 percent as a result of this phenomena. There
is old-growth forest loss, and there are long-term carbon cycle changes
which are too esoteric to get into.
But the bottom line is this: the Arctic climactic assessment that our
government represents is the best scientific information we can
possibly get has given us a wake-up call. It comes late in this
congressional session, but it is a wake-up call and should be to the
administration and to this Congress, to act, and to act in a way that
America historically has acted when we are challenged.
In World War II, when we were challenged, we responded with the
greatest burst of technological achievement perhaps in human history in
the armament sector. When we were challenged in the space race,
President Kennedy challenged us to go to the Moon in 10 years and bring
a man home safely, and we did it. That was the second great
technological innovation burst. And now we are poised for a third
revolutionary burst of new technologies that can lead us out of this
potentially very, very, if disastrous is too strong a word, it may be
one that our grandchildren will use when they have to deal with a
climactic system that is changing before their eyes, the beginning of
which we are going to see now.
We are optimistic in the belief we can deal with this problem if
people here in Washington, D.C. will accept the science, read it, and
act. That is the American way.
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