Congressional Record, Volume 153 Issue 91 (Thursday, June 7, 2007)

[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 91 (Thursday, June 7, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H6169-H6175]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

GLOBAL WARMING

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 18, 2007, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I have come to the floor this evening with
Mr. Cleaver of Missouri, and perhaps others will join us, with a
message of optimism in the face of a great challenge that our country
faces. And we have faced many challenges, but one of the more pressing
for ourselves and our grandchildren is the issue of global warming,
this concern that our increased carbon dioxide and other gasses is
going to result in significant climactic shifts. And the science, of
course, has been very disturbing recently about this threat.
But we have come to talk about a message of optimism that our country
ought to have in our ability to solve this problem. And it is a large
problem. It is perhaps certainly more global than we have ever had
outside of war. But we today want to talk about why we believe America
is ready to face that challenge, why we believe America is capable of
succeeding in beating global warming, and why we believe the effort to
defeat global warming will ultimately benefit the United States economy
by allowing us to lead the world in new clean energy technologies.
And I would like to, in preface to our comments today, just set the
stage about what the challenge is and why we believe the solution is
one that Americans are fully capable of obtaining.
First, the challenge. The challenge, of course, is that we have
created a condition where we may double the concentration of carbon
dioxide in our atmosphere by about 2050, twice as high as carbon
dioxide has ever been since before pre-industrial times. And, of
course, all of the scientists in the

[[Page H6170]]

world agree that carbon dioxide is a global warming gas, and it does
stand to reason that if you double the amount of this global warming
gas, you could have problems in your climate. And, unfortunately, the
evidence has become more and more disturbing.
Just last week, the Goddard Space Science Department at NASA came out
with a new report authored by lead author James Hansen that said, ``If
global emissions of carbon dioxide continue to rise at the rate of the
past decade, this research shows that there will be disastrous effects,
including the increasingly rapid sea level rise, increased frequency of
droughts and floods, and increased stress on wildlife and plants due to
rapidly shifting climate zones.''
This is not a quote from some fellow living in a tepee. This is NASA.
The agency that sent an American to the moon has been looking at what
is happening right here at home on Earth and has concluded that,
indeed, we have trouble; and what is very disturbing is that the most
recent science has been more disturbing.
We were briefed by Dr. John Schellenhuller, who is the lead scientist
in Europe on this subject, last week, who told us about the increasing
melt in the Arctic that has increased in severity, about the melting
tundra. The rate of the melt of the tundra is melting much more rapidly
than was anticipated even a year ago; and, of course, that can release
methane gas, which is even 16 times worse for global warming than even
carbon dioxide. My local scientists at the University of Washington in
Seattle have confirmed these findings.
So, basically, we have got an issue that we have got to deal with.
And right now there really is a race going on in the world of tipping
points. These scientists have told us that we are approaching tipping
points where the climate can tip into regimes where we would have
uncontrollable global warming and that that could happen in as short as
shortly after the next decade.
But we have another tipping point which we believe we are about to
cross over here in Congress, and that is a tipping point where the U.S.
Congress will tip from sort of an approach of the ostrich, where we had
our head in the sand, to tip over to the approach of the American
eagle, where we will have a new vision about a new clean energy
technological future for this country.
So we are here tonight to say that that new approach of optimism is
one that will prevail starting next Wednesday when the Energy
Subcommittee in the U.S. Congress will start discussions about a new
clean energy future for this country.
I will be introducing a bill in about a week called the New Apollo
Energy Act, which will come forth with a whole suite of ideas about how
to adopt new clean energy solutions. And, of course, we call it the New
Apollo Energy Act because we think what Kennedy believed about America,
which was that we were the greatest innovation country in the world, is
something that we have got going for us. So we should use our
technological genius just like we did when we went to the moon.
So before I yield to Mr. Cleaver, I want to talk about why I have
optimism about our ability to skin this cat, why I believe we can
dramatically reduce our carbon dioxide emissions and dramatically tell
our grandchildren that we are going to use our know-how to solve this
problem. And the reason I am confident about this is that in the last
year I have been doing a rather intensive review of the technology that
we hope to bring to bear on this subject and I have been getting to
know the Americans really across the country who tonight are inventing
new technological solutions so we can move forward on clean energy. I
just want to mention a few of them.
First, there is a company in Massachusetts called the A123 Battery
Company. I love the number. A123 Battery Company. And they have
developed a lithium ion battery which is so powerful that basically in
the size of about two or three shoe boxes you could put it in your car,
which they are prepared to do this fall, and turn your hybrid car into
a plug-in hybrid car. And I drove one actually, a converted plug-in
hybrid that I drove around the capital a few weeks ago. This battery is
so powerful that you will be able to plug in your car, drive it for 20
to 40 miles just on electricity, no gasoline. Then after 40 miles you
use gasoline and you will get over 150 miles a gallon on either your
ethanol, eventually, once it is a flex-fuel, plug-in hybrid, or your
gasoline. Now, that is a heck of a deal for Americans for your first 40
miles to have zero carbon dioxide coming out your tailpipe. A123
Battery Company.
The second company called Nanosolar. Nanosolar is a new company in
California that has developed a photovoltaic cell, a solar cell, which
uses nanotechnology to dramatically decrease the manufacturing costs
and the costs of solar energy. And they are going to make a solar cell
that is 1/50 as thick as the current silicone-based solar cells. It is
called thin cell technology.
A third company, Ausra Company, a former Australian company that has
been moved to the United States that has breakthrough technology on
solar thermal where you use parabolic mirrors to concentrate the sun's
rays to heat gas to 1,100 degrees and turn a turbine, again,
dramatically potentially reducing the cost of solar energy.
So I wanted to first start our discussion with the context of great
Americans doing great things in energy, and here are three companies
moving forward. And to continue this discussion, I want to yield to Mr.
Cleaver, who has been a great leader on these energy issues fresh in
Congress. I would like to yield to him for his perspective on our
ability to move forward in global warming and clean energy.
Mr. CLEAVER. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the gentleman from
Washington for all the work that he has done on this very important
issue.
I agree with Mr. Inslee that this problem we face is not
irreversible. However, time is not on our side. Almost exactly 7 days
ago, I was in Greenland, and on the front page of today's Washington
Post is a picture of a harbor at Illulissat, Greenland. This is about
170 miles north of the Arctic circle. And for those who might want to
go to the Washington Post Web site or if you have a Washington Post,
you will see blue waters.
Now, on the surface, pardon the pun, it would appear that this is
normal. However, the Greenlanders explained to our delegation, which
was led by Speaker Pelosi, that under normal circumstances at this time
of the year this area is completely frozen. In fact, they say that
their ancestors at this time of the year would get on the water, which
was, of course, frozen solid, and go to Canada to get lumber to bring
back to build houses. And they would travel on the water that is frozen
with their dogs pulling their sleighs.
Now, I went out in a boat out to an iceberg which was melting. There
are 53,000 people who live in Greenland. I did not have the opportunity
to speak with 53,000, but I can tell you with no fear of contradiction
that every person we spoke with from Greenland spoke to us about their
fear of what is happening to their native land. These are not
politicians. These are not scientists. These are not college
professors. All they know is that never during their lifetime have they
seen the kinds of things that they are witnessing now.
For example, they speak now of the fact that their animals can
actually graze longer. Now, I never saw a tree in the entire country of
Greenland, but at a very short period of time during the summer grass
does grow. Greenery does appear on the landscape. And what the natives
are telling us, the Greenlanders, is that their animals can graze much
longer today than their ancestors and the ancestors before them had
ever reported. So this means that something dramatic has happened to
the climate.
I was told that just 15 or 20 years ago at this time of the year
people who had automobiles could drive out into the harbor and drive
around to other villages along the coast of Greenland. Today, it is
blue water. This is blue water.
Well, maybe to people who are watching they are saying, well, so the
water is blue around Greenland. Well, the danger, of course, is that
the fact that we are seeing a melting down of the Greenland ice sheet
means that the sea levels would inevitably, unavoidably,

[[Page H6171]]

predictably rise; and when that happens, it means that coastal areas,
including the United States, are jeopardized.
Now, to the Greenlanders, it means a lot of other things, all of them
bad. For example, they are noticing fish coming into the waters around
Greenland that are not native there. In fact, many of the people who
have never left Greenland, they were born there, they fished there,
they killed whales. They also, by the way, wanted to make sure that
they told us that they never killed whales or caught fish for sport,
that when they killed whales they did it in order to eat and survive.

{time} 1830

But they say that now they are noticing large numbers of cod coming
into the waters. What does that mean? It means that they are running
away from the area, fish that are native to that area, because of
course they are also predators. So we are finding that the entire
environment is now being altered because of global warming.
As I mentioned earlier, they know nothing about the debate that's
going on in the United States. They know nothing about the charges that
this is some kind of hoax. All they know is that it's getting warmer.
One of the most amazing things I saw in Greenland was a fly. Now,
remember that the temperature where we were was in the 20s. This is
Greenland. And my wife and I go to the window and look out, and there
is a fly trying to get outside. Now, as I reported that to others, they
certainly shrugged their shoulders and said, yeah, that's another
example of what is happening. Twenty degree weather, which means it's
warmer than usual, and flies are coming around.
And so, Mr. Inslee, I am very pleased that you brought this matter to
the floor because of its significance. And if we experience any kind of
jolt to the Gulf Stream, it can alter weather throughout the Northern
Hemisphere.
I think that all Americans should be concerned. Because it is clear
from what I saw that people all over the world are concerned, perhaps
much more so than we are here. People in Greenland are concerned. The
27 Nations of the EU are very concerned.
I was in Brussels, and they were having a presidential legislation.
And as I was asking questions about the election, I was told, Mr.
Speaker, that the person who won the election would be the one who
convinced the public that he was greener because of the significance of
this issue. If you are running for president, you've got to convince
the voting public that you are aware of the climate change and that you
are willing to do something about it. Unfortunately and tragically and
embarrassingly, we can't say that here at home.
Mr. INSLEE. Will the gentleman yield for a moment?
Mr. CLEAVER. I will yield.
Mr. INSLEE. We are hopeful. I actually gave a speech in response to
Prime Minister Tony Blair last week in Berlin. I was asked to present
sort of an American response to the Prime Minister's ideas about global
warming. One of the things he talked about is what the Europeans have
learned is that we need some action, some policies to drive investment
into these clean energy technologies that can produce the clean energy
to avoid the kind of problems you are describing in Greenland. And of
course the President is right now in Germany today at the G8 Summit.
We are hopeful, although probably not that optimistic, that the
President would propound some ideas where we will guarantee our
grandchildren that we are going to reduce our CO2 emissions.
Now, one way or another, Congress needs to do that, because we've got
an obligation to American grandkids to do it.
I want to just note a couple of things. It's not just Greenland that
is experiencing it. It's the good ole U.S. of A.
I got to know some people in Alaska in a little town called
Shishmaref that sits on the Arctic Ocean. That is the first city in
America that is having to be relocated due to global warming because
they live right on the coastline, and the tundra that supports their
houses is melting, and the seas are encroaching, and it has actually
eaten some of their houses already. They are actually going to have to
move their entire city. They've already voted to do it. They are going
to move it 13 miles inland to a little place called Fish Camp.
It will be the first American city to have to relocate its first
victim of global warming. That's a sad day when you think Americans
already have to relocate their cities. So this is not something that's
50 years in the future. It's here today.
Now, we have experienced off the coast of Washington and Oregon the
same issues you've talked about, about new species of fish coming in.
And our ranchers down in the western United States are having
unprecedented drought they are having to deal with. This is something
Americans are suffering today. And that is why, starting next
Wednesday, we hope to have an aggressive congressional response to help
these clean air technologies move forward. So I appreciate your
observations of Greenland.
I wonder if I could maybe yield to Mr. Udall, who has joined us here
this evening, who has been a leader and certainly has a long tradition
in his particular family in leading environmental issues.
Mr. Udall.
Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. Thank you very much. And I very much
appreciate the gentleman yielding.
Let me say, first of all, to Congressman Cleaver, you told a story
that I think we hear over and over again about the effects around the
world. You told it for Greenland. You took a trip up there that I think
is going to go down in history as a turning point.
The Speaker of the House, you were with the Speaker, Nancy Pelosi.
She takes this trip to Greenland, she sees this ice cap, sees what's
going on and has said to the United States House of Representatives
that she is going to do something about this, put it on the schedule
and move it forward. So all of us, I think, Representative Inslee, are
very gratified by that because we feel that there has been a sea change
here in the House. We have gone from just a few short years ago
ignoring this issue to now where the Speaker says we are going to do
something about this, and that is very gratifying.
I would like to point out, too, I think that ice cap is in some
places two miles thick. And so people should realize when we are
talking about a two-mile thick ice cap, if that thing melts, it raises
the oceans, and many of our costal areas in America would be under
water.
But, Jay Inslee, I agree with you very much. We don't want to paint
doom and gloom. This is about optimism. And you have been an incredible
leader on energy. I hope you will a little bit later explain to
everybody your new Apollo Energy Act, because that is one of the areas
that you have led out in particular. I know you are writing a book on
energy. You have done so many things here in the Congress in terms of
leading on this issue.
The one point I wanted to jump off on, you mentioned new technology.
I don't have any doubt that we are going to be able to unleash
unbelievable new technological solutions to energy. I also believe that
there are a lot of things that we can do right now that we could, as a
Congress, and I think you are going to see this in the energy package
that the Speaker puts forward in July and calls up, things that we can
do right now to make a real difference on CO2, on pollution,
and on energy efficiency. And let me just tick off a list here.
Fuel efficiency of automobiles. I think easily today we could end up
doubling, it is technologically feasible, doubling the fuel efficiency
of the fleet, going from about 24 miles per gallon now up to close to
50, and we could do that very easily.
On wind energy. New Mexico is one of the places in the United States
of America which has the benefit of having a constant wind, and we have
already ramped up from zero to 10 percent in the last 5 years. So 10
percent of our last electrical base is wind. There are many other
places in the Nation that can do that.
And people are now starting to purchase, as Representative Inslee
knows, people are starting to purchase, on their electric bills they
can sign up and say I want clean energy, and many times that is hydro,
which Jay has up in the Northwest, solar, which many of us have in the
Southwest, or wind or some other form.

[[Page H6172]]

Conservation. There is an awful lot we can do there. We know that in
the European countries they use half what we do. And so there is a lot
of waste going on out there.
The one little simple thing I marvel out in European countries, and
all of us who travel, is that when you go to a European country and you
stay in a hotel, when you go out of the room, they have a button at the
door that shuts off all the lights. You just punch one button and all
the lights are shut off. As you know, in almost every American hotel or
motel, you have to go around individually and shut out every light. And
they have done that technological thing, Jay, to try to look for ways
to do savings and make it easier for people to do it.
Energy efficient bill. Once again, I think that we can do a lot
there. This is a huge contributor in terms of CO2, energy
efficient, more efficient appliances, air conditioners, things like
that, and a new energy portfolio for our power companies, where we take
a mandate and say to power companies you will produce by 2020 20
percent of your power from renewable sources.
So I think those are some things we can do now, and I hope we will
talk in a little bit about some of the things specifically we would do
on carbon dioxide emissions.
I would like to yield back to the gentleman from Washington.
Mr. INSLEE. I really appreciate Mr. Udall talking about efficiency,
because I think we need to look at it as the first fuel. Before you
start generating excess energy, if we could figure out how to use it
more efficiently and not waste it, that's what I look at as like
finding money in the street, it's the first fuel. And Europe has had
tremendous success. England has increased their gross domestic product
by 70 percent in the last 20 years, but their use of electricity has
remained flat. That is a tremendous improvement of efficiency. You
don't waste it.
But it is not just the English. We have something to brag about here,
too. California has increased their gross economic activity by 50
percent in the last 10 years, and their per capita use of electricity
has remained flat. They have done it through measures such decoupling
utilities with the rate of growth of electricity so utilities now can
make money by selling less energy by selling efficiency. And it has
been effective.
In my city of Seattle, in my neck of the woods, the same thing has
happened by doing some of the commonsense things we have talked about.
There are some amazing technologies coming in in efficiency. I went
and talked to an organization called SIPs, Structural Integrated
Panels, last week. They had their national convention. These are panels
that are sort of a foam core with a wood fiber sandwich on both sides
that are a structural panel you can build a house with so you don't
need studs. You build these things, and you can get 20 to 30 percent
less heating cost for your home. This is an invention of folks in
America, and we can build part of the construction industry by doing
that. So I really appreciate your focus on efficiency.
I want you to know, you mentioned wind. I remember talking to, in the
course of writing this book Mr. Udall referred to, I fell across a
story out of Missouri, Mr. Cleaver's State. And there was a quote by
this farmer that said something to the effect like, Man, there is
nothing better than sitting there watching that turbine go around, and
I just count the money every time the blade goes around. Because they
get paid by the utility to put the turbine in the field. That's a good
way to do it.
So I would like to yield to Mr. Cleaver for his observations.
Mr. CLEAVER. There is a great deal of movement toward wind energy in
Missouri and in the State of Kansas. In fact, one of our colleagues who
is serving here with distinction, Mr. Carnahan, has a brother, Tom
Carnahan, who does this full time. He actually has a windmill farm not
far outside of Kansas City, Missouri.
One of the things I think is extremely worth noting, particularly as
the three of us speak about this subject, is that some people are
nervous about discussions that we are having with regards to the
changes that need to be made in this country. They falsely believe that
we are going to reduce the quality of life, that we are going to damage
industry. And what I have said is that if we will unleash this
incredibly creative American creativity and ingenuity, that we will be
able to transform our energy use in a way that we would create new
jobs.
For example, there is a plant in China that produces most of the
highly efficient light bulbs. They don't use them in China. We buy them
here. And there is not a single plant in the United States that
manufactures this particular light bulb. So I think we have the
capacity to make alterations without damaging our economy, by not even
causing a dent.
Let me just say that, in having had the opportunity to meet with some
of the MPs in London, I found out that a bill was introduced March 13,
2007, to the Parliament.

{time} 1845

Members from three of the parties were in the dialogue. They said,
without any reservations, the bill is going to pass. There is no
question. It is going to pass. Now, these are people who don't agree
about much else. They agree on one thing, that we are in the midst of
climate change, and, number two, they have to do something about it.
So the bill that was introduced is aimed at moving the United Kingdom
to a low carbon economy. It would require a mandatory 60 percent cut in
the UK's carbon emissions by 2050 compared to the base level, which was
1990, with an intermediate target of 26 to 32 percent by the year 2020.
The EU has also agreed to cut by 20 percent emissions by the year
2020 and by 30 percent if it is a part of an overall agreement that
will include the United States. I will just say what we heard over and
over again was, what is the United States going to do? The United
States is the leader.
In Parliament, as we were talking about the need for us to work
together, one of the members of Parliament became quite agitated and
said to us, well, it is good you guys are coming over here talking to
us about this, but we had a meeting with a Member of Congress. I am not
going to call the Member's name. It is not that important. But he said,
we had a meeting with a Member of the United States Congress who told
us that this was a hoax. Of course, we sat there, and Speaker Pelosi,
as she did throughout the trip, made sure that they understood that we
were a delegation, it was a bipartisan delegation, that we were not
there to cast aspersions on any of our colleagues, that we do have a
deliberative body, that there are some people who have not quite caught
on yet to what the rest of the world seems to have caught on to. But it
is my hope, it is my prayer, that this body will realize what the rest
of the world already realizes, that there is climate change and that
there is no need to debate the science, only what we are going to do as
a result of it.
Mr. INSLEE. That is an important point. I think the good news we can
share with Americans is that there are a lot less people in this
Congress than there used to be who believe it is a hoax, and that is,
in part, because they have read the science. People are seeing it with
their own eyes. Now they are hearing from their constituents, frankly,
and they are hearing from their own scientists.
I just want to read this NASA report that just came out last week,
and it talked about the urgency. Mr. Cleaver, you said, we don't have a
lot of time to deal with this; we don't have 50 years to deal with
this.
This report said that basically there are two ways we can go. We can
go the business as usual approach, or we can have a second approach, an
alternative approach to reduce our CO2. Basically this
report said that with another decade of business as usual, it becomes
impractical to achieve the alternative scenario because of the energy
infrastructure that would be in place. This was a quote from Mr. Hansen
of NASA, basically meaning we have about 10 years to change course here
a little bit to have more essential efficiencies, to have more clean
energy, to put our minds together to figure out how to have a cleaner
energy future. So we don't have the luxury of a lot of time.
But again I want to come back to this idea of optimism, why I am
optimistic about it. Mr. Cleaver mentioned Mr. Carnahan started a wind

[[Page H6173]]

turbine farm that is doing great. They are earning farmers a lot of
money. They are earning construction crews a lot of money to build
these things. They are generating revenues in Missouri. This is
happening all over the country, that tremendous growth, 15, 20 percent
growth a year in this wind turbine wind energy.
I want to tell one little story that I think is typical of what we
are going to see in America. A fellow in Seattle, Washington, named
John Plaza who is an airline pilot. He was a good airline pilot, but he
sort of got tired of reading books while he was flying back and forth.
That is what they do in the cockpits, a dirty little secret we can
share.
He decided he wanted to do something entrepreneurial. He started
looking around for an idea that he could advance to create a new,
value-added business, and he started to think about energy. He started
thinking, is there a way that I could sort of develop a clean energy
resource and make some money as well? He started to focus on biodiesel.
So this fellow, who was not an engineer, not a chemical engineer, not
a mechanical engineer, didn't have an MBA, he literally went home and
started to tinker in his home about how to make biodiesel out of
various vegetable products. He hit on a way to make biodiesel that he
thought was as good or better than anybody else.
He went out and raised a few dollars, rented a little tiny room in an
old warehouse and bought the old beer vats from the Rainier brewery in
Seattle, Washington. The Rainier brewery used to be the iconic beer in
Seattle, Washington. He bought the old vats they used to brew beer in
and he started to brew up biodiesel.
John Plaza is now CEO or CFO of a company in Grace Harbor,
Washington, that is going to be the largest biodiesel plant probably in
the world, or at least in the Western Hemisphere. They are under
construction. They are going to be open for business some time next
year, over a million gallons a year.
This is a product that reduces carbon dioxide, uses products we make,
either canola seed or perhaps palm oilseed or perhaps soybean oilseed
they are starting to bring in.
But the point is, here is an American success story of a fellow with
an idea who wanted to find a way to maximize clean energy. We just need
a way in Congress to help drive investment to those new clean energy
sources.
I want to mention one thing about how Congress can help people like
John Plaza to develop these new businesses.
One of the things we can do is next Wednesday we will be hopefully
passing what is called a low carbon fuel standard. A low carbon fuel
standard will basically say that the fuels we burn in America every 5
years will get 3 percent cleaner when it comes to carbon dioxide. And
when we pass that low carbon fuel standard, it will create an incentive
for investment to go to these businesses to develop these new higher,
cleaner forms of biofuels.
You know we are using corn ethanol right now, but it is really just
sort of the first generation. I liken it to the Wright brothers Flyer
of aviation. It is just the first craft we can get in the air. But we
need cellulosic ethanol and advanced forms of biodiesel that will
produce a lot more product per acre and a lot more CO2
savings, and we believe we can do this.
So here is one thing Congress can do, and I know there are many
others.
I yield to the gentleman from New Mexico.
Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. Representative Inslee, your optimism and
Representative Cleaver's optimism is what should imbue this entire
debate because there are many, many things we can do.
Just to give you another example, in New Mexico, when I was back
going to town hall meetings several months ago, I visited an area
outside Taos, New Mexico, and this small, little operation was set up
to collect all of the fast-food oils in town. They would go to the
various hamburger joints and others and collect these excess oils that
were basically being thrown away. They were having to pay companies for
somebody to come and take them.
These individuals were taking them, and they said, we will just take
them off your hands. You don't need to pay us. And they went out and
they set up an operation with just a couple of tanks. They put the oils
in there. They put a little bit of lye in. They mixed it up. They had a
chemical process. And I rode around that day in a diesel truck where
they pumped the fuel right from these tanks, and that was biodiesel.
They told me that from their testing and everything that they had
understood, is that this was completely clean fuel. In fact, it took
them a while to convince the City of Taos to run the city bus on this
fuel, because the mechanic was very worried. He said, this is new. And
this is going to cause a problem.
Well, it ended up they said, we will do it for a trial period. They
did it for 6 months in the city bus. The mechanic took the engine apart
to retool it, and he said it looked like the engine hadn't even been
operating over that 6 months. It was so clean.
So there are wonderful things that we can do. There are great success
stories out there. We need to get out that word, and we need to move in
a clean energy future. I mean that is the real key to things.
I would like to talk just a minute about how do we get there? Because
the people are probably asking, they are watching us and they are
saying, why is it that the American people, by 70 and 80 percent say we
should move to clean energy, we should do all the things we have been
talking about this evening. Why aren't we doing that?
Well, the reason is because the rules of the game right now are set
up to favor the established industries that are there. The laws, the
regulations, the subsidies, the tax credits, for the most part, are
emphasized and pushing us towards fossil fuels as we know.
All these laws and regulations and subsidies kind of shape the energy
market. As many of us know, this energy bill we recently passed, I
think in 2005, most of the subsidies in that bill went to major, mature
industries; oil, gas, nuclear, coal.
So one of the things we have to do, and I know Representative Inslee
has been working on this, he is going to be doing this in his committee
come this summer, is how do we change the rules of the game? How do we
put a price on carbon dioxide emissions to change the whole
marketplace? I think that is what we are going to be doing this year
when we start getting into energy.
I have a bill, Congressman Waxman has a bill, Representative Inslee
is on a variety of bills, Senator McCain over in the Senate has a bill.
But the basic theme of these bills is, put a price on carbon dioxide
and start moving us in a new direction.
Mr. INSLEE. The gentleman is entirely correct. Later this year the
House will consider what is called a cap-and-trade system. Americans
are probably going to hear that term a lot. A cap-and-trade system
basically means that we will set a cap, a limit, a total ceiling on the
amount of carbon dioxide that will be a pollutant going into the air a
year in the United States of America. That is not too much to ask for
our grandkids to say we are going to have a total amount of pollution
that we put into the air.
Now we have done it for sulfur dioxide. We have done it for nitrogen
oxide. We have done it for particulates. But there is this giant
loophole you can drive a Sherman tank through for carbon dioxide.
So it is interesting. We have all these laws that set ceilings for
the amount of pollutants that go into the air, but the granddaddy of
all, the most dangerous pollutant there is in the world right now,
carbon dioxide, there is no limit whatsoever. So Congress owes to
ourselves and our grandkids to set some limit, a cap, on the total
amount of CO2 that is going into the air.
So then the question comes down, how do you allocate who is going to
put the pollution in the air? Well, there are a couple of ways to do
it. Congress can just hand permits out and we decide. But there is a
better way, which is basically a trading system where these permits
originally are allocated, but then businesses are allowed to trade them
amongst themselves and establish a market for carbon.
Europe has done this. I have spent a week looking at how that system
worked last week, and I can report that it has been successful to the
extent that it has established a cap and a price on carbon. And once
you establish a price on carbon, well, what do businesses do? They
start figuring out

[[Page H6174]]

ways to not waste energy and how not to put more pollution into the
air.
Importantly, this cap-and-trade system is the most economically
efficient way to distribute this resource. I got brainwashed by
economics when I went to school at the University of Washington.
Basically what we learned is that having a trading system, you end up
having the most efficient way to find out how to drive economies and
efficiencies in your system.
So later this year we will be considering a cap-and-trade system. We
will set a limit, and it will be the first step in this road to really
a clean energy economy.
Now I want to note something about a cap-and-trade system, and this
is one thing I learned in Europe last week, it is not enough. It is
only one tool in the toolbox. This is really important, because next
week we will have before us in the Energy Committee a host of issues of
ways to drive this clean energy future forward not waiting for this
cap-and-trade system, issues like this renewable portfolio standard,
where we tell people 15 percent of our electricity comes from clean
standards, a green building standard, so that we require new building
codes to have energy efficient buildings, a low carbon fuel standard so
we use low carbon fuels, a whole host of measures like that. Those are
very important. A cap-and-trade system is not enough.
In fact, it is interesting, in England, we met with a minister who
basically they told us they might have had 15 million tons of savings
in carbon dioxide from their cap-and-trade system, but they had 100
million tons savings in carbon dioxide by this combination of measures
to have more efficiency in their industries.
So next week we will be taking some first steps in the road to a
clean energy future that are very, very important, that are going to
help these businesses grow.

{time} 1900

Mr. CLEAVER. Well, I am wondering whether or not either of you, and I
don't know if you are into horror movies, and there is enough horror
going on without having to watch it on television, but there is a movie
starring Kurt Russell, and I imagine the movie is 15 years old, maybe
older. The movie is called ``The Thing.'' It is a movie about a group
of scientists and military people out in Greenland at a facility. At
the end, of course, they kill this thing that has been frozen under the
ice for perhaps a millennium, and the movie ends with all is well.
The movie was actually based on the Swiss camp which is a real camp
that is out in the middle of Greenland where scientists stay out all
year long measuring temperatures, measuring the melting snow. They have
concluded that the temperature has risen 11 degrees over the last 10
years.
What happens is many of the natives who used to make money by taking
tourists out on 12-day excursions on the ice can no longer do that
because the ice is melting. You might go somewhere you have routinely
gone, and now the ice is cracking and your dogs fall into the water, so
that doesn't happen.
I always believe there is a solution, and I think there are a number
of things, as Mr. Inslee has mentioned, with regard to capping trade,
which I think is, as he said, a part of the solution. There are
probably going to be a potpourri of things that we change and implement
in order to bring the CO2 level down.
But it occurred to me, because I am a United Methodist pastor in my
real life, that if people believe it is the government prodding them,
pushing them, maybe even beating them into changing, there will be some
resistance. But if, on the other hand, they understand that one of the
responsibilities of the human race is to be good stewards of the world
that God made for them, then it is easier for them to look at their
activities, their actions, and make modifications.
In the book of Genesis, we are told that the Earth is the Lord's and
the fullness thereof, and then God says to mankind, humankind, go out
and subdue it. Now he did not say go out and undo it, but rather subdue
it.
If you look at the word ``subdue,'' break it down, it actually means
taking care of. So we have to take care of it. The good news is on this
Thursday evening there is a growing phalanx of legislators in this
House who believe that a change is not only necessary but that it is
going to come.
One final thing on this, although it is not really all that related.
I have a mobile Fifth District office that we use in my district in
and around Kansas City, Missouri. It runs on grease, and the technology
is probably not as good as it will be because sometimes, if you stay in
it all day, you do smell like a Big Mac. However, it is demonstrating
that we can make changes and that the Congress must show the way. As
opposed to having one of those big gas guzzlers, we, with great
intentionality, had a van designed to use grease.
I have a bill which will require, if approved, that all Members of
Congress who lease automobiles with taxpayer money must lease an energy
efficient car. I think, as Ghandi said, we must be the changes we
preach. I think Congress can show the way; and, in fact, I think
Congress is showing the way.
Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Cleaver, I appreciate your comments, especially
sharing the idea that I think all faiths share about this idea of
responsibility to the creation and to our grandkids. I appreciate you
bringing us back to that fundamental truth.
I want to address the issue of Greenland. Greenland is changing
dramatically. I have had some people ask me isn't it true that
Greenland has changed in the past as far as their weather and why is
this a problem now. It is true during Erik the Red's time, Greenland
did have more green involved in it. They had some agriculture in
Greenland when you had this little warm period during the time of Erik
the Red.
But what the scientists tell us is there is a huge difference between
that situation because now we are going to drive carbon dioxide levels
by 2050 twice what they have ever been for tens and hundreds of
thousands of years and that those carbon dioxide layers trap energy and
heat. It is going to make the days of Erik the Red look like the Ice
Age.
So even though there have been wide fluctuations in the Earth's
climate before, what the scientists tell us is the rate of change is
unprecedented ever in the historical record and that we will go into a
period that really is unprecedented as far as we know pretty much in
global history. So the things you are seeing in Greenland are very much
of concern, and I hope we are going to start working to move that
forward.
I yield to the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Udall).
Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. Mr. Inslee, one of the things that you
mentioned early on, and I think we are being held back. You were in
England and you talked to Tony Blair and Tony Blair's minister. The G8
countries are meeting. There is no doubt in these G8 countries, the
meeting going on right now, they want to set for these industrialized
countries a specific cut in CO2 emissions. They want to
commit to a specific cut. They came into the G8 meeting saying let's
have a specific cut on CO2 emissions; and our President went
over and sidetracked that and derailed that and basically said, no, we
don't want to commit to that.
I think the big debate here is are we going to have voluntary
measures or are we going to move towards some mandates and a cap in
trade system and a regulatory system so we can get ahold of this.
Mr. INSLEE. I think you have put your finger right on the nub of the
issue. The President says he now, finally, and I suppose this is a
small ray of happiness, he now finally recognizes there is a problem of
global warming. But he expects volunteerism to solve this problem.
Well, I can tell you one thing we all know, you can run a bake sale
on volunteerism, and maybe you can run a boy scout troop on
volunteerism, but you cannot run a war on global warming on
volunteerism. Think about this for a second. Here is what the President
proposes. He thinks that he can just send a letter, nicely handwritten,
to the CEOs of the oil and gas companies, would you kindly think about
not polluting anymore.
Well, that would be just about as effective, if he simply tries to
run that on a volunteer basis, to just rely on the good graces, and I
have nothing against the executives of these companies, they

[[Page H6175]]

are fine people, but just relying on them to volunteer would be just as
effective as relying on consumers to volunteer whether you are going to
pay at the pump when you pump gas.
Now you can just see the executives with their tin cup and their
tithing cup out there trying to collect money from the pump. It doesn't
work that way. You have to have some requirement that we both pay for
gasoline and you have some measure to require these companies to reduce
their pollution. That is a fair statement. It is required. It is the
only way we are going to solve this problem.
Most importantly, it is the only way we are going to drive investment
to companies like A123 Battery and Finavera Renewables which is going
to have the first wave-powered buoy off the coast of Oregon in this
next year to produce electricity from waves bobbing up and down.
So, Mr. Udall, you are correct. We have a responsibility in Congress
to create these limits on CO2 pollution. We are going to do
that; and, when we do that, we are going to unleash the innovative
power that Americans have. The same genius that got us to the moon is
going to get us to a clean energy future, and our grandkids will not
have to deal with global warming.
I would like to yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Baca) on
an unrelated subject.

Immigration Legislation Pending in the Senate

Mr. BACA. Thank you, Mr. Inslee, for allowing me this time to speak
on the comprehensive immigration legislation that is pending on the
Senate side.
I appeal to the Members of the Senate on a bipartisan basis to vote
on allowing for the cloture of the legislation to move forward on
behalf of the 12 million and some undocumented here in the United
States. Undocumented means there are people, not only Hispanics, Irish,
Italians, Asians, African American. It impacts a variety of different
individuals.
Without allowing cloture, we will not be allowed an opportunity to
fix the immigration legislation as it stands right now and will allow
the continued abuse that exists. We need to protect American families
and working families. We need to make sure that we allow this
legislation to move forward.
On behalf of democracy, I appeal to all of the Members on a
bipartisan basis to allow this legislation, to allow the debate to
continue. It is important that all of the Senators tonight, those
individuals that can, and I would like to commend Senator Reid, Senator
Salazar, Senator Menendez, Senator Kennedy, Senator Feinstein, Senator
Graham and some of the other individuals who have taken a stand in
support of a comprehensive legislation. We need you to allow this
process to continue.
If this process does not continue, America will lose. The taxpayers
will lose. It is our responsibility.
When we talk about national security, we need this legislation to
allow the process to continue. When we talk about protecting, and I
know some of us don't like the legislation. There are individuals that
say I don't like provisions of the guest worker program or the border
aspects or the enforcements. I think we will be able to fine-tune it
and work on it to allow the process to where we can fix the
legislation.
On behalf of working families and on behalf of protecting the
American people, we need this process. We need this legislation on
behalf of humanitarian issues. We should not have people living in
fear, not knowing whether they are going to be here for the next couple
of years or what is going to happen to the 12 million and some. It is
important.
Senators on your side of the aisle, please allow this process to
continue to happen. Vote for the cloture. Then you can vote on
provisions, whether you like or dislike other portions of the bill. But
allow us to continue to have the debate in order to make sure that we
continue to protect the American people and we continue to protect
working families and we end illegal immigration as it is right now and
fix it. It is important.

____________________