[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 92 (Thursday, June 5, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5152-S5173]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CONSUMER-FIRST ENERGY ACT OF 2008--MOTION TO PROCEED
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will
resume consideration of the motion to proceed to S. 3044, which the
clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
Motion to proceed to S. 3044, to provide energy price
relief and hold oil companies and other entities accountable
for their actions with regard to high energy prices, and for
other purposes.
Mr. INHOFE. I suggest the absence of a quorum and ask this time be
charged to both sides.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. McCaskill). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator
Klobuchar be given 15 minutes to open the debate on our side.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The
Senator from Minnesota is recognized for 15 minutes.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, the issue we are addressing this
week, global climate change, is a challenge with so many dimensions.
Some are moral, some are economic, and some are scientific. I want to
spend my first few minutes today talking about the science because we
cannot get the policy right unless we get the science right.
I come from a State that believes in science. Minnesota is home to
the Mayo Clinic and other great medical institutions. It helped launch
the green revolution in agriculture half a century ago. Today it is
home to a great research university in the University of Minnesota and
high-tech companies such as 3M and Medtronic.
We have brought the world everything from the pacemaker to the Post-
it notes. My State believes in science. Over the last few days, we have
heard a great deal of debate about the science of climate change. I
believe the debate should be over. The facts are in and the science is
clear.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has concluded that the
evidence of global warming is now unequivocal and apparent on every
continent of our planet. It is plain in erratic weather patterns, in
shrinking wildlife habitat, and the melting of the permafrost.
Just last week, a new report commissioned by the U.S. Department of
Agriculture and written by some of our top environmental researchers
reached the same conclusion. They wrote:
There is robust scientific consensus that human-induced
climate change is occurring. Observations show that climate
change is impacting the nation's ecosystems in significant
ways, and those alterations are very likely to accelerate in
the future.
The result? Ocean levels are rising, glaciers are melting, and
violent weather events are increasing--we have seen some recent ones in
my State--and soon entire species will be threatened.
This is not just an environmental danger, it is also an economic
danger.
First, we can see what we would predict as we see increases in
temperatures in this world. The estimates are that temperatures will go
up somewhere from 3 to 8 degrees in the next 100 years. To put it in
perspective, it went up 1 degree in the last 100 years. We have already
started seeing changes. That doesn't sound like a lot. It has only gone
up 5 degrees since the height of the ice age. And the prediction from
our EPA is 3 to 8 degrees.
Here we go when we look at the increasing of temperature: A 1-degree
increase means increasing mortality from heat waves, floods, and
droughts. This is predicted by 2020; a 2-degree increase, millions of
people face flooding risk every year; a 3-degree increase, global food
production decreases, and so on.
I can tell you in my State people are already seeing these changes.
They have seen the economic impacts of these changes. Lake Superior is
near its lowest level in the last 80 years, and that is an average. It
goes up and down a little. It went up a little, fortunately, this year.
But overall, we have seen decreasing levels so that overall it is at
its lowest level in 80 years. That has impacted our barges, it has
impacted the economy because we need more barges because they are
sinking lower.
Why is that happening? The ice is melting quicker and so the water
evaporates and we see lower levels in places such as Lake Superior.
We also have seen changes for our ski resorts. Overall, when we look
at the trends, we have seen decreasing snow which means less money for
them. Those are just some small examples of the economic costs of
climate change.
We can see that the insured and uninsured costs of weather-related
climate change events are going up and up, and we are all paying the
price. A problem so serious demands a serious response.
This is a chart showing the weather-related economic losses and how
they have increased. Look at the decades from 1960 to 1969, 1970 to
1979, 1980 to 1989, and then look at the last 10 years. These are
economic losses. These are the amounts that are insured, and then this
is the total of economic losses due to weather-related issues.
A problem so serious as this demands a serious response. I believe
that as a Nation, we are up to it. Look at a little history. In the
1970s, after the first OPEC oil embargo caused world oil prices to
quadruple, Congress passed the first CAFE standards, fuel economy
standards for the Nation's cars and trucks. At first, the skeptics said
Congress had overreached and the CAFE standards were unrealistic. Then
business put its mind to the challenge. Auto companies developed more
efficient engines and lighter automotive components, and they competed
to meet customer demand for fuel-efficient cars.
Recently, the National Academy of Sciences estimated that those CAFE
standards have now saved our country
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2.8 million barrels of oil a day and cut oil consumption by 14 percent
annually. With the higher fuel economy standards we adopted last year
after many years of inaction to build on that initial CAFE standard,
estimates are for an average family, depending on the price of gas,
they could save $1,000 a year. We will continue to save, but we must
set those standards so we have an example where when those standards
were set, business went to the challenge, and we actually saved money.
That is not the only example. In 1987 and 1992, the Government
adopted new energy-efficient standards for household appliances. Again,
the American business community responded, competing to develop new
technologies and energy-efficient products. I call it building a fridge
to the next century. Soon you could walk into any appliance store and
find efficient ENERGY STAR air-conditioners that give consumers even
higher quality but at much lower energy consumption.
Look at this chart on light bulbs. We can see, if every American home
replaced just one light bulb with an ENERGY STAR qualified bulb, we
could save more than $600 million in annual energy costs and prevent
greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of more than 800,000 cars.
Now we are starting to develop all kinds of technologies to save
money for consumers and make big reductions in carbon emissions. The
American Council for Energy Efficient Economy estimates these higher
energy-efficient standards saved consumers $50 billion from 1990 to
2000 and will cut U.S. electricity consumption by 6.5 percent within
this decade.
What did all of these examples have in common? The public sector and
the private sector worked together in a partnership in which each
performed at its best. The Government took leadership, set high
standards, and provided a nationwide mandatory framework so everyone
played by the same rules. Then the private sector responded to that
signal using a classic American combination of technological innovation
and market competition.
The challenge of climate change presents us with the same
opportunity--an opportunity for technology with wind, with solar, with
energy efficiency, with the potential of nuclear, and with the
potential of clean coal technology. It is a long list with great
potential. We must meet this challenge, and we can. If we set standards
for the country, the investment, technology, and innovation will
follow.
On the Environment and Public Works Committee, my colleagues, Senator
Boxer, Senator Warner, and Senator Lieberman have written landmark
legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and I am proud to be a
cosponsor. This measure establishes mandatory economy-wide, science-
based limits on carbon dioxide and other global warming gases so we can
cut emissions 20 percent by the year 2020 and nearly 70 percent by the
year 2050.
To achieve those goals without disrupting our economy, it would
establish a market-driven cap-and-trade system that provides economic
incentives for reducing emissions. Now, we did the same thing with acid
rain years ago and it worked well.
To make this system work, however, we need to have full and accurate
information about the sources and amounts of greenhouse gas pollution.
That is what I want to take a few minutes to talk about today, because
of the fact that this was in the first title of the bill, and one that
I authored, along with Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine.
The famous British scientist, Lord Kelvin, felt the same way about
having to measure things before you do anything. He once observed:
When you can measure what you are speaking about, and
express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when
you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers,
your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind.
Believe it or not, we don't have full, accurate information on
greenhouse gas emissions right now. In fact, I was contacted a few
months ago by a National Public Radio reporter who was trying to figure
out who was the biggest greenhouse gas emitter in the United States.
You would think that would be something that would be easy to find out,
but in fact it is not because we don't have the kind of accurate
information we need.
The EPA collects a lot of data on energy production and consumption,
but the quantity and quality of those data varies greatly across
different fuels and different sectors. For example, data on crude oil
and petroleum product stocks is collected weekly for selected oil
companies, while data on energy use in the industrial sector are
collected only once every 3 years through surveys. In some cases, the
EPA itself collects the data, while in other cases the data are
collected through State and other Federal agencies. Some industries
report to the EPA and others report to the Energy Department. Some are
reporting every year and some are reporting every 3 years. In short, it
is a mishmash.
Last week, the Brookings Institution here in Washington issued its
own report on carbon emissions in different cities around the country.
They too tried to make a comprehensive study, but they admitted they
could only estimate emissions from homes to vehicles, not factories or
planes or railroads or government buildings.
Then there are State efforts. Thirty-one States, representing 70
percent of the country's population, have formed a carbon registration
system of their own. It is a bipartisan project with support from
Governors such as Janet Napolitano of Arizona and Governor
Schwarzenegger of California. Together, they recently issued a
statement saying,
The State climate registries are another example of how
States are taking the lead in the absence of Federal action
to address greenhouse gas emissions in this country.
While these State projects are very well intentioned, they are a poor
replacement for a national standard. Remember years ago how Justice
Brandeis, in that famous decision, talked about how the States could be
``laboratories of democracy''? He talked about how one State could have
the courage to move ahead, but I don't think, when he said that, he
ever meant inaction by the Federal Government. But that is what we have
had in the area of climate change, and that is certainly what we have
had in the area of trying to measure what is going on here.
We are never going to make progress against global climate change
unless we can answer the question of how much people are emitting with
greenhouse gases, where they are emitting them, and until we can give
an answer with accurate, complete information.
This problem plagued the European Union 2 or 3 years ago. They
actually beat us in establishing a comprehensive cap-and-trade system
to cut greenhouse gas pollution. But because they didn't start with a
good comprehensive registry of the sources and quantities of greenhouse
gas emissions, they miscalculated their initial caps and permits and
wound up wasting a lot of money and time before they got their cap-and-
trade system right.
That is why Senator Snowe and I worked together last year to write
this legislation, which is the first title of the bill, establishing a
greenhouse gas registry. You can see what this means. It is accurate,
comprehensive data on carbon emissions. It requires reporting of
greenhouse gas emissions to the EPA, it requires third-party
verification, it does have exemptions for small businesses--because we
don't want to do anything that is too burdensome--and it also makes the
data publicly available on the Internet. I think we know how much
people are interested in this issue, and they have a right to know
about it.
In addition to setting the stage for cap-and-trade solutions to
global climate change, one comprehensive national registry, instead of
all the States doing their own, would help the States by streamlining
administration costs. It would also help business. Before long, they
are going to have to start cutting their own greenhouse gas emissions,
and they can't make the right investments or adopt the right
technologies without having good data on their own carbon emissions. In
fact, some of the Nation's leading corporations have endorsed the
national carbon registry. They include: Alcoa, Boston Scientific
Corporation, General Electric, NRG Energy, Caterpillar, Johnson &
Johnson, Pacific Gas and Electric, and many more. These executives have
now teamed up with some of the country's leading environmental groups,
including the Nature Conservancy, the National Wildlife Federation, and
the National Defense Council,
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to form the U.S. Climate Action Partnership. They recently issued a
statement calling on the Federal Government to quickly enact strong
national legislation to require significant reductions of greenhouse
gas emissions. They took this historic step because they understood the
threat of climate change and they recognized the need for Federal
action. These leaders are right. The time has come for us to act.
As I close, I think about the complexities of this historic
challenge, and I like to recall a prayer from the Ojibway people of
Minnesota. Their philosophy told them that the decisions of great
leaders are not made for today, not made for this generation, but for
those who are seven generations from now.
That is part of our burden and part of our challenge as we approach
this climate change issue. That is why today I urge my colleagues to
support cloture on this bill, to not only start measuring what the
problem is, but to actually give this country and this world a
solution.
Madam President, I yield the floor.
Mr. REED addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. MENENDEZ. Would the Senator yield for a moment?
Mr. REED. I will be happy to yield.
Mr. MENENDEZ. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that after the
Senator from Rhode Island concludes his remarks I be recognized next.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. REED. Madam President, reclaiming my time, I am informed that we
are attempting to alternate between the Republican and Democratic side,
and so I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from New Jersey be the
next Democrat to speak, because we are informed somebody is coming from
the Republican side.
Mr. MENENDEZ. Madam President, I didn't know we were alternating.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to Senator Menendez
following Senator Reed?
Mr. REED. Madam President, let me do this. I will accede my position
to Senator Menendez to speak, and I ask unanimous consent that I follow
the next Republican speaker.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey is recognized.
Mr. MENENDEZ. Madam President, I thank my distinguished colleague
from Rhode Island. I have a time pressure, and so I appreciate his
courtesy.
I thought this debate would be a watershed moment, a moment when we
would finally move beyond Republican attempts to deny that global
warming exists. But as this debate has evolved, we see we have not
gotten very far. Instead of deny, deny, deny, the Republican playbook
has shifted to delay, delay, and delay.
The time to act is actually now. We are not going to be able to
transition from a fossil fuel-based economy to a green, renewable
energy-based economy overnight, and therefore it is critical that we
act as soon as possible to begin this transition.
I thank my colleagues who have worked so hard to get this legislation
at least to the floor. The mere fact that we are having this debate
gets us closer to actually enacting a policy to cap greenhouse gas
emissions.
I do hope that in time we can support much stronger legislation. I
have concerns about whether this bill speeds our transition to a
carbon-free economy quickly enough because of the cost containment
measures and the large numbers of offsets in the bill. I am worried
some companies might be able to delay cutting back their emissions for
over a decade. I also believe we can go even farther in supporting
renewable sources and energy efficiency.
I was hoping I would have the opportunity to offer a few amendments
to improve upon this legislation. I certainly want to offer them--we
have offered them--and I know we will probably not get to them under
the procedures we are in the midst of pursuing, but I think they are
markers for the future.
The first amendment I had hoped to offer, along with Senators
Lautenberg and Sanders, would have shifted transition assistance
funding from big oil to renewable energy generators. At a time of
record oil company profits, I do not think we need to allow oil
companies to pollute for free, especially when that money could be used
to help jump-start the development of clean, renewable, affordable
American energy.
The second amendment I offered, along with Senator Snowe, would have
boosted funding to help developing nations to adapt to changes in the
climate they had little to no part in creating in the first place.
Making investments to help vulnerable nations isn't just a necessary
step to secure an effective international climate treaty, or a way to
advance U.S. national security interests, it is a moral imperative.
The third amendment I filed with Senator Kerry would help nations
with tropical forests lower their rates of deforestation, a cost-
effective way of keeping CO2 out of the atmosphere.
Approximately 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions come from
deforestation, and if we hope to secure an effective climate treaty, we
must be willing to help forested nations create the tools they need to
effectively address the problems.
Finally, the fourth amendment I offered, also with Senator Kerry,
would require the Government to calculate the cost of inaction on
global warming, from the cost of drought to flooding to storm damage.
Many of my friends on the other side of the aisle have spent a lot of
time this week bemoaning the alleged cost of solving global warming,
but they have completely ignored the horrendous cost of ignoring global
warming. We need this study so we are not always looking at half the
balance sheet on this issue.
Many of my colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle are
rejecting out of hand any efforts we might propose. They argue that
almost anything will cost too much. They suggest any effort to go green
on the scale necessary would be too expensive. Saying we can't invest
in renewable energy because there is a dollar figure attached sounds
like telling someone with a fatal disease that the cure is too costly,
or saying to a crime victim that we can't afford to put police on the
streets because it has a cost.
There were some who argued it would be too expensive to reinforce the
levees in New Orleans, and when Hurricane Katrina hit, we found out
what the true cost of that decision was. We can't fail again to be
mindful of the words of John F. Kennedy, when he warned us that ``the
time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.''
The question isn't whether an investment needs to be made. The
question is whether we want to make that investment now, while we can
do it safely, gradually, and inexpensively; or later, when we have to
make wholesale changes to our economy in a matter of years rather than
decades.
In other words, what we are deciding is not whether to put a cap on
carbon emissions. The question is whether we do it now or whether we
wait. Do we do it now, when it is cheaper to do it and we can set
ourselves up to compete with Europe and Japan in creating new
technologies, when we can create jobs in the midst of an economic
turndown; or do we do it when our hand is forced, when Americans have
already felt the catastrophic effects of climate change, when our
coasts are flooded, when storm surges damage our houses and droughts
threaten our harvests, when the costs become enormous because we have
to change so quickly?
It is going to be far harder and far more expensive to have to stop
carbon emissions overnight than to do it now. If we want to slash our
carbon emissions 80 percent by 2050, we simply cannot wait until 2030
to get started, unless we want to risk the economic and environmental
future of this country.
Today, with the rising price of gas we have to pay at the pump, we
see the result of waiting to act until disaster strikes. In the 1970s,
because of the Arab oil embargo, we drastically improved the fuel
efficiency of our passenger vehicles. In 1976, our cars and trucks got
13 miles per gallon. By 1981 our fleet had improved to 21 miles per
gallon. From 1981 to 2006, the average fuel economy of our passenger
vehicle fleet actually declined to 20 miles per gallon.
If we had been gradually improving efficiency standards instead of
waiting for high gas prices to force our hands, we would all be better
off today. If we had increased fuel economy a modest 2 percent per
year, our new fleet of vehicles would now average 34 miles per gallon.
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Astonishingly, if we had followed this course, our current demand for
oil would be over one-third less than it is today, down over 2 billion
barrels of oil per year. Cumulatively, we would have saved over 30
billion barrels of oil, and 30 billion barrels of oil is more oil than
the entire proven oil reserves remaining in the United States. With
such a reduced demand for oil, imagine how much less we would be paying
for gas today.
Some of my colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle have been
suggesting that taxing carbon emissions would cause energy and gas
prices to go up. The reality is, anyone can tell you that prices have
been going up and that they will continue to go up under the present
policy of this administration unless we end our dependence on oil. That
means transitioning to free, renewable fuels, such as wind and solar.
We do not have to pay Saudi Arabia for the rights to use the Sun to
generate power. We don't have to send money to Nigeria for the right to
harness the power of wind. The more we improve the technology that can
run our renewable fuels, the cheaper every kind of fuel will be.
Solving global warming is not just about protecting us from
catastrophic weather and hostile foreign regimes, it is also about
jobs. Renewable energy industries are perhaps the single greatest
opportunity to create new, good-paying jobs this country has seen in a
generation.
If we want to put up millions of solar panels, it is going to take
hundreds of thousands of workers to install them, and those jobs are
created at home, unlike what happens when we continue to rely on oil,
which is that we create jobs in the Middle East, in Nigeria, and
Venezuela, to name a few.
I am proud in my home State of New Jersey we are No. 2 in the Nation
in terms of solar capacity, behind only California. We have seen new
jobs created because of it.
Global warming is a challenge that faces us all. It is a challenge we
must face together. It is not enough to sit back and watch as tragic
stories unfold, as heat waves and wildfires strike, as we see floods
and droughts more severe, hurricanes, species disappearing, ice caps
melting, glaciers melting, sea levels rising. It is not enough to sit
back and watch because we have a human moral imperative to take action.
It is not enough because someday the door on which tragedy knocks could
be our own.
Great change always has its opponents. Instead of arguing that we
should be innovative, they will argue that we should be afraid; we
should do all we can to hold on to the ways of the past instead of
having the courage to prepare for the future.
The American people are tired of being told what they cannot achieve,
and they are tired of being told they should be satisfied with the
status quo. It is time to put aside our fears, unleash our powers of
innovation, and rise to meet one of the defining challenges of our
time. For this and future generations of Americans, what the Senate
decides ultimately is going to determine the course of our country in
ways that are so significant--from the course of the environment that
we collectively share both in America and across the globe, from the
question of economic opportunity, from the question of national
security--not depending on the oil of countries that have totally
different views and values than we have. That is all wrapped up in the
debate and the votes we will be taking.
I hope we have the courage to move in a direction that ultimately
meets all of those challenges and that we act as good stewards for
future generations of Americans so we can look at this moment and say
history will judge us and ultimately will say we did what was our
responsibility to do.
I thank my colleague from Rhode Island for his courtesy.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. KYL. Madam President, first of all, I note this legislation has
nothing to do with ending our dependance on foreign oil. It does have
something to do with ending our dependence on oil. In fact, what this
legislation would do is make it much more difficult for Americans to
enjoy the standard of living we do by making it much more costly to
indulge in any consumption of energy in any form, including driving
vehicles, including turning on the lights or the air-conditioning in a
building. All of these things are deliberately made much more expensive
in this legislation--deliberately because the point of it is to make
energy consumption so expensive that we will not consume as much of it.
That way the Earth will somehow not be warmed as much because we will
not be consuming as much energy.
That is the whole point here. It is not about ending our dependence
on foreign oil. This legislation has nothing to do with that at all.
People might ask, What is cap and trade? Why are we talking about
cap-and-trade legislation? The cap and trade contemplated in this bill
has the Federal Government creating something of value--carbon emission
allowances--and they are equal to the cap on emissions set by the
Federal Government each year. The Federal Government says: Americans,
you can only drive so much or you can only consume so much electricity
and the people who produce that product are going to have to pay for
the right to produce the energy that you are consuming. Then, of
course, they are going to pass that cost on to you.
Some of these allocations are to favored groups. Others are auctioned
off. But the cost of the allowances is passed on to the consumers, as I
said. And these outstanding allowances can be traded. That is why it is
called cap and trade. So you have a group of speculators, then, who are
able to buy some of the allowances and sell them at a profit, even
though they produce nothing of value in the meantime.
While it is referred to as cap and trade, we should appreciate the
fact that in reality it is very clearly nothing more than another tax
on American consumers. A very good article in the Washington Post by
Robert Samuelson points this out. He says:
The chief political virtue of cap-and-trade . . . is its
complexity. This allows its environmental supporters to shape
public perceptions in essentially deceptive ways. Cap-and-
trade would act as a tax, but it is not described as a tax.
It would regulate economic activity, but it is promoted as a
``free market'' mechanism. Finally, it would trigger a tidal
wave of influence-peddling, as lobbyists scramble to exploit
the system for different industries and localities.
The Congressional Budget Office itself, the nonpartisan group
representing the Congress, acknowledges that businesses would pass on
most of the costs imposed by a cap-and-trade system to American
consumers. This would amount to a regressive stealth tax that would hit
low- and middle-income families the hardest.
What does the proposal cost? According to the Congressional Budget
Office, the Boxer substitute amendment before us would take out of the
private sector $902 billion between 2009 and 2019. Of that amount, the
Boxer substitute manages to spend all but $66 billion--$836 billion of
allowances are distributed not only to favored technologies and
utilities but also to buy off interests that would use funds in ways
that do not decrease carbon, such as for farming practices, endangered
species, Indian tribes, State governments, and to other countries for
their forests.
The Congressional Budget Office considers the distribution of these
free allowances the same as distributing cash, and indeed that is
exactly what it is.
Over the longer term, the Environmental Protection Agency projects
the amendment would redistribute $6.2 trillion from the private sector
to the Federal Government by the year 2050, through these allowance
auctions that energy producers and manufacturers would be required to
purchase in order to be able to continue their operations--meaning
continue to provide energy for us. Another $3.2 trillion would be
auctioned off by States and others.
According to the administration, the nearly $10 trillion cost would
make this bill the single most expensive regulation in the history of
the United States of America.
If a cap-and-trade system like the one in the Boxer substitute is
implemented, a number of economists believe it would add significant
costs to the production side of the economy and would likely have a
severe negative impact on long-term U.S. economic growth, despite
having a very modest impact on worldwide carbon levels. The
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cap-and-trade system is intended by design to raise the cost of gas and
electricity, as I said in the very beginning. Raising the cost of gas
and electricity will change people's behavior. They will use less
energy and, as a result, theoretically emit less carbon. The cap-and-
trade program cannot achieve its goals unless it increases the cost of
energy, and the proponents do not deny this.
So when you are thinking about the high cost of gasoline today, think
about the additional cost that is going to be imposed by this
legislation. The proponents say it is going up anyway. You do not have
to make it go up more than it would otherwise, and that is what this
legislation would do.
The American Council for Capital Formation projects that under this
cap-and-trade system, gasoline prices would rise from about $4 a gallon
today to $5.33 a gallon by 2014 and $9.01 by the year 2030.
As I noted, businesses would have to pass on most of the costs
imposed by a cap-and-trade system to their consumers. One must
recognize that the demand for energy is relatively inelastic. In other
words, even as prices rise, individuals find it difficult to switch to
alternatives. It is very hard to engage in any activity that does not
use energy. As a result, individuals would be forced to bear the cost
increases imposed by the system. They might use less energy, drive
less, live in colder homes during the winter, or turn off air
conditioners in the summer. Those are the choices.
When individuals use less energy, they buy less, travel less, and in
effect curtail overall economic activity. The gross domestic product of
this country would be roughly 1 percent lower at the end of 2014 and
2.6 percent lower by 2030 under this legislation. That is a huge
reduction in the economy of the United States and therefore the well-
being of the American people. As economic activity slows, employers are
not going to hire as many workers. In fact, employers would create
850,000 fewer jobs by 2014, and 3 million fewer jobs by 2030. My home
State of Arizona would lose 63,500 jobs by 2023, roughly speaking.
Ironically, this bill would become an economic stimulus for China and
India, as they would meet the manufacturing demands that we could no
longer produce competitively. Perhaps more striking is the cost on
American household incomes.
Cap-and-trade legislation would, on average, reduce income adjusted
for inflation by $1,000 in 2014 and by $4,000 by 2030. My home State
residents in Arizona would see their income fall by $3,400 by 2030.
However, not everyone will bear the same burden. Cap and trade is
incredibly regressive in its impact, since low-income households spend
a higher fraction of their income on energy. According to the
Congressional Budget Office, just a 15-percent cut in carbon emissions
would cost low-income households almost twice as much as high-income
households. Cap and trade reduces the after-tax income of those in the
bottom fifth of the income distribution by 3.3 percent. The top 20
percent of the income distribution would see their disposable income
fall by 1.7 percent.
It is important to note that the amendment of Senator Boxer claims
that it would reduce carbon emissions by 66 percent by 2050 or more
than four times the amount CBO estimated. Of course, we obviously
believe that CBO is far more correct in its assessment. But assuming
the Senator were correct, then one might expect the amendment to reduce
individuals' incomes four times as much as CBO estimated as well.
Think about that--$12,000 to $15,000 reductions in income.
I mentioned before that this creates winners and losers. Part of this
is based on the whims of Congress. We would have the authority to make
the distinctions that would enable some people to be better off than
others.
The amendment before us would redistribute $836 billion of allowances
over the 2009-to-2018 period to various special interest groups. Just
imagine that, Congress being in charge of redistributing $836 billion.
And we are going to do that without any influence of special interests?
I think not.
Robert Samuelson noted in the article I quoted from earlier:
Beneficiaries of the free allowances would include farmers,
Indian tribes, new technology companies, utilities and
States. Call this environmental pork, and that would be just
a start. The program's potential to confer subsidies and
preferential treatment would stimulate a lobbying frenzy.
Think of today's farm programs and multiple by ten.
The tax-and-spend system, in other words, would create arbitrary
winners and losers. Over the life of the bill, it would give away
allowances valued at approximately $3.2 trillion for auction by States
and other entities.
Let me conclude with this point. While having all of this dramatic
negative impact, the benefits are questionable at best. They do not
meet any rational cost-benefit analysis. A recent editorial in the Wall
Street Journal aptly summed up cap and trade as follows:
Trillions in assets and millions of jobs would be at the
mercy of Congress and the bureaucracy, all for greenhouse gas
reductions that would have a meaningless impact on global
carbon emissions if China and India don't participate. And
only somewhat less meaningless if they do.
So it is doubtful that a cap-and-trade system would actually
accomplish the goal of reducing emissions and decreasing global
temperatures.
A report released by the EPA indicates that even with a cap-and-trade
system in place in the United States, there would still be a net
increase in carbon emissions over the next several decades.
Indeed, other cap-and-trade efforts have been unsuccessful. For
example, the Kyoto Protocol, an international cap-and-trade system
aimed at controlling and reducing greenhouse gases, has largely been
considered a failure. The European trading system has not only failed
to reduce emissions as contemplated, it has constrained growth in
developed countries and has enhanced unrestricted development in
countries such as China and India.
So before we sacrifice the U.S. economy and American jobs, we need to
quantify the benefits of having a relatively slight reduction in
greenhouse gases, and compare it to the huge costs imposed on the U.S.
economy and American families.
In sum, the amendment before us would increase energy prices, harm
American families, and likely have a negative impact on long-term U.S.
growth. Moreover, it is questionable whether the legislation would even
make a perceptible dent in carbon emissions and decreasing global
temperatures.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. REED. Thank you, Madam President. We are engaged in an
extraordinarily important debate here. It is somewhat disappointing
that the debate has been shortchanged due to procedural maneuvers by
the minority party, which forced the clerk to read the entire bill and
forced the majority to file a cloture petition.
I think what Senator Kyl and many others have said, I might not agree
with, but it is important to have this vigorous debate. I am somewhat
disappointed that it has been curtailed.
But now we are engaged in something that will impact this country and
generations to come in a significant way. Seldom have we debated such
an issue with global ramifications over decades and decades and
decades.
We talk about many times the burden that our children and
grandchildren will bear as a result of the Federal debt.
But there is an equally daunting burden placed on generations to come
if we fail to come to grips with carbon emissions.
Each ton of heat-trapping carbon dioxide that human activity releases
into the atmosphere remains there for 100 to 500 years, amplifying the
warming effect on our planet, changing the climate, and fundamentally
altering ecosystems, landscapes and public health.
The more carbon that is piled onto this ecological debt today, the
more drastic the consequences will be in the future. According to the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC, the atmospheric
concentration of greenhouse gases is now the highest it has been in
650,000 years, and it continues to grow.
Madam President, what we do or what we fail to do with respect to
climate change will have an impact not only on our country but on life
on this planet into the next century and beyond. Seldom has this body
grappled
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with an issue with such sweeping global ramifications.
We frequently talk about the burden that is placed on our children
and grandchildren by the Federal debt, but an equally daunting burden
will be placed on generations to come if we fail to come to grips with
carbon emissions. Each ton of heat-trapping carbon dioxide that human
activity releases into the atmosphere remains there for 100 to 500
years, amplifying the warming effect on our planet, changing the
climate, and fundamentally altering ecosystems, landscapes, and public
health. The more carbon that is piled onto this ecological debt today
the more drastic the consequences will be in the future.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, the
atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases is now the highest it has
been in 650,000 years and it continues to grow. With near scientific
certainty, the IPCC tells us that the high level of greenhouse gases in
the air has led to the increase in global temperatures that has
occurred since the beginning of the 20th century. This increase has
accelerated in the last 50 years, making the years 1995-2006 the
warmest on record. Indeed, global temperatures may now be the hottest
observed in the last 1,300 years.
The impacts of climate change are already observable:
Higher ocean temperatures have led to an increase in the number of
intense hurricanes in the North Atlantic over the last century.
In Rhode Island's Narragansett Bay, the water temperature has climbed
4 degrees Fahrenheit in the last 40 years, coinciding with declines of
winter flounder and lobsters.
Permafrost is thawing and becoming unstable, causing buildings to
collapse in the Arctic region.
In 2007, the extent of Arctic sea ice was 23 percent less than the
previous all-time minimum observed in 2005.
Snowpack and glaciers are diminishing and are melting earlier in the
spring. This, in turn, is causing a decline in the health of rivers and
lakes and is threatening habitat for endangered species.
There has been an effect on human health, with increased mortality
from extreme heat and changes in infectious disease vectors. For
instance, in Rhode Island this has meant an increase in the incidence
of tick-borne disease.
The best science tells us that we must begin to curb emissions within
the next decade in order to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations and
avoid the catastrophic effects of climate change. If we fail,
temperatures will continue to rise with dramatic results:
With an increase of 2 degrees Celsius, millions more people will
experience coastal flooding each year.
An increase of 3 degrees will result in the loss of 30 percent of the
world's wetlands.
An increase of 1-5 degrees will place 30 percent to 40 percent of
species at risk of extinction.
Hundreds of millions of people, including up to 250 million people in
Africa, will lose access to reliable water supplies.
But this is not a debate solely about plants and animals. It is not
merely about feeling better about how we treat the Earth. At its heart
this issue is tied to the fundamental national security challenge of
this century, energy and our dependence on imported fossil fuels.
Changes to the environment do not occur in a vacuum and will have far-
reaching impacts on our national interests and our national security.
The U.S. intelligence community has recognized the threat and is in
the midst of conducting a national intelligence assessment on the
effect of climate change on our security.
Last year, the CNA Corporation's Military Advisory Board, consisting
of 11 former general and flag officers, led by former Army Chief of
Staff, GEN Gordon Sullivan, called for action to stabilize global
temperatures. They warned:
Climate change acts as a threat multiplier for instability
in some of the most volatile regions of the world. Projected
climate change will seriously exacerbate already marginal
living standards in many Asian, African, and Middle Eastern
nations, causing widespread political instability and the
likelihood of failed states.
Just this week, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer
reiterated that the alliance must prepare for new threats that stem
from the impact of global warming, saying: ``climate change could
confront us with a whole range of unpleasant developments--developments
which no single nation-state has the power to contain.''
Regrettably, we have already witnessed the political ramifications of
climate change. In writing in the Washington Post last summer, U.N.
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon noted that ``[a]mid the diverse social
and political causes, the Darfur conflict began as an ecological
crisis, arising at least in part from climate change.'' As Secretary
General Ban notes, a protracted drought, likely brought on by climate
change, served to spur conflicts over resources and fuel the hatreds
that brought genocide to this region.
With so much at stake, the United States cannot fail to lead. In
fact, we have a special obligation. As noted NASA climate expert James
Hansen recently wrote, carbon dioxide from the beginning of the
Industrial Revolution is still present in the atmosphere today,
contributing to the warming our planet is experiencing. He estimates
that the responsibility of the U.S. for the level of greenhouse gases
is three times greater than any other country.
These are the imperatives that bring us to this debate.
I commend Senator Boxer for her efforts to bring this legislation to
the point where it is today. Certainly, there must be compromise on
legislation of this magnitude. As we engage in this debate, I want to
highlight some areas of concern.
First, we should be setting more aggressive targets for emission
reductions so temperature increases are contained within an acceptable
range. In that regard, I'm concerned that the bill will reduce
emissions, at most, by 63 percent by 2050. The IPCC has estimated that
we may need to reduce emissions by as much as 85 percent in order
stabilize carbon. Sixty-three percent leaves very little room for
error. Given the stakes, I believe we should be setting a higher
target. As a cosponsor of the Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act,
S. 309, which sets a final reduction target of 80 percent, I believe
this is the goal we should set in this legislation. I am pleased to
join as a cosponsor of Senator Sanders' amendment to reach this goal. I
am also pleased to join Senators Kerry and Feinstein in their amendment
to require a scientific review by the National Academy of Sciences to
ensure the goal we are pursuing is sufficient to stabilize carbon
concentrations and to require new legislation to be proposed by the
President if we are projected to fall short.
Second, because we must ensure that emissions begin to decline no
later than 2020, we must implement the carbon cap as quickly as
possible. I think we should begin implementation in 2010. Equally
important, I have serious concerns about the bill's cost-containment
provisions which would allow the auction of allowances borrowed from
future years in order to provide additional allowances in early years.
Although unlikely, this mechanism creates the potential for a situation
in which there could be almost no reduction in U.S. emissions through
2028. Even if it is remote, it's not a possibility we should accept.
Third, we should ensure that the needs of consumers, particularly
low-income consumers are recognized in the policy that we enact. I was
disappointed to see that auction proceeds that were dedicated to the
Weatherization Assistance Program, WAP, and Low-Income Home Energy
Assistance Program, LIHEAP, under the committee-reported bill were
removed. As this debate progresses, I plan to offer an amendment that
will again provide funding for these programs, which not only help
consumers pay their energy bills but also make important strides in
reducing energy consumption and carbon emissions.
Fourth, I appreciate the steps that are taken to promote and
coordinate market oversight among various regulatory agencies, but I am
concerned about the capacity of the EPA to lead the effort to provide
oversight to a market of this size.
Fifth, we need to make sure that in any climate change bill we
address the very real impacts that capping carbon
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will have on everyday Americans living paycheck to paycheck. That is no
small task, but no climate change bill will be a success unless we find
a way to provide help to middle class families already struggling in an
ever more competitive global economy. They must be afforded the same
kind of transition assistance that many on the other side want to
provide to carbon emitters.
Make no mistake, addressing climate change will not be easy. It will
involve change and sacrifice, but it also offers opportunity and hope.
We hold the power to unshackle ourselves from the dangerous energy
resources of the fossil age and develop an economy based on new, clean
energy sources and technologies. Instead of becoming increasingly
beholden to foreign energy suppliers, we have the opportunity to become
an exporter of energy technology and to bring light to the 2 billion
people in the developing world who lack access to reliable energy. By
making the choice to face the reality of climate change, we will help
leave the world a better place for our children, grandchildren, and
generations to come.
While I hope that we can continue to make improvements to the bill, I
believe that this is an essential debate to have.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, before my friend Senator Reed leaves the
floor, if I can have his attention, this morning, Senators Warner,
Lieberman, and I and Senator Kerry held a press conference with GEN
Gordon Sullivan, whom you mentioned in your remarks, and ADM Joseph
Lopez. We had the most extraordinary testimony from them in terms of
having to act. It was chilling in a way because they said: You never
know something with 100 percent certainty.
They said: But what we learned on the battlefield is if you wait
until you have 100 percent certainty, horrible things can happen.
It was chilling. They warned us to act. So I think my friend brought
it home this morning with his remarks.
I ask unanimous consent that Senator Allard speak off his side's
time--how many minutes?
Mr. ALLARD. For 10 minutes.
Mrs. BOXER. This is up to you.
Mr. ALLARD. For 10 minutes.
Mrs. BOXER. And then Senator Sanders for 7, and then Senator Bennett
for 5, and then Senator Baucus for 10. I know Senator Craig would like
10 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Colorado is recognized.
Mr. ALLARD. Madam President, thank you. I am prepared to discuss the
Lieberman-Warner climate change bill that was amended by the Boxer
amendment. In general terms, I wish to take a moment to discuss climate
change because that is obviously the main topic on the floor today. I
have concerns about the science that some people are claiming here on
the floor of the Senate.
I think that obviously if we are going to have good policy, we have
to have good science. But let me say that from the reports I have seen,
I think it is unclear as to what the long-range trend is as far as the
temperature of the Earth is concerned. I admit that right now we are
going through a warming period, but in the last few years we may have
cooled a fraction of a degree.
I am recalling when I was in high school in the late 1950s, that we
had magazine articles, National Geographic and everyone were writing
about how we were into a cold trend, and we were heading toward an ice
age.
Now we are heading toward the trend in the headlines where we have
global warming. I have listened to some of the comments here on the
floor. One comment was that: We are at the highest temperature on
record--the problem is, the record we have of the Earth's warming and
cooling is a relatively short period of time when you look at the total
history of the Earth. If you go back to the year around 1,000, for
example, measuring based on some scientific evidence that has been
obtained from our polar caps, by going down through the depths of the
ice and analyzing it, some scientists have come up with the conclusion
that actually it was warmer in the year 1,000 than it is now. You
cannot blame that on human action. So the question comes up whether
this is a trend, a natural cycle, that happens, that is related to
sunspots or volcanic activity or whatever natural phenomena might be
happening.
I happen to agree that we probably contribute some to global warming.
The question is, how much? That has not been adequately identified
either.
I am here to raise some questions. Obviously, if we absolutely know
we are headed for catastrophe, the sooner we act, the better. But on
the other hand, we don't want to overreact. We could cause problems for
the economy and for Mother Earth if we react in the wrong way without
having good scientific evidence.
I am rather disappointed we will not have an opportunity to debate
and amend this legislation, as we should. No piece of legislation is
perfect. Obviously, there needs to be an opportunity for bills to be
amended when they come to the floor. I am disappointed the majority
leader has filled the amendment tree and filed for cloture, rather than
allowing for the full and healthy debate that is such a rich part of
the Senate's history.
Since this bill has been introduced, we have record-high gas prices.
There is pain at the pump. The common solution we have heard time and
time again, whenever we have high petroleum prices, is: You need to
raise taxes. You need to limit supply. You need to blame corporations.
You need to somehow control international cartels. You can't control
what isn't part of America. We can't pass laws and tell them when they
can form a cartel and what they can do. It is beyond our reach. But we
can take care of corporate misbehavior. We have had hearings time and
again trying to blame oil companies for overcharging. Over the years,
the conclusion is, there has not been any misbehavior as far as
corporations setting prices. They are responding to supply and demand.
They are responding to the cost of the product, taking a reasonable
profit and putting that product on the market. I happen to believe
supply and demand has the greatest impact on our prices at the pump to
date.
Obviously, this is not a perfect process. It is not a perfect bill.
We need to bring the bill to the floor, provide an opportunity for
substitutes to be brought forward, and then an opportunity to amend
those. I am disappointed we will not have an opportunity to do that.
That seems to be the trend this year. Republicans are not having the
opportunity to bring up issues they believe are important on
legislation that comes to the floor. That has happened time and again.
Then the other side blames Republicans for somehow blocking the
process. If you don't have an opportunity to offer amendments to the
legislation, that is a serious concern to those of us who have to work
in the minority in an institution such as the Senate, where there are
specific minority rights.
I would like to address some of the concerns of the Boxer amendment
to the Warner-Lieberman climate change bill. My foremost concern is the
science on which the entire bill is based. But because the ranking
member of the Environment and Public Works Committee has asked us to
leave science aside and focus on the legislation itself, I will start
there.
Based on many reports I have seen, it is unclear what, if any, effect
climate change legislation would have on global temperatures. However,
its potential economic impacts are absolutely staggering. The primary
tool this bill uses to reduce greenhouse gases is a cap-and-trade
program. It should more accurately be called a cap-and-tax program
because it is essentially a camouflaged energy tax increase.
Many of the proponents of this bill have said it is just like the
program the Government instituted to control acid rain. But unlike
sulfur dioxide in the acid rain program, there is no widely deployable
control system for CO2 removal, nor do we expect this
equipment to exist in the reasonably foreseeable future. This will
result in significant increased cost to electric utilities, their
consumers, as well as affected industries and their customers. That is
the taxpayers. Thus, the cost of compliance will have a significant
negative economic impact on electric consumers statewide and Colorado's
manufacturing industries.
[[Page S5159]]
A recent study produced by the Heritage Foundation Center for Data
Analysis found that enacting this bill would cost Colorado almost 7,000
agriculture-based jobs and over 21,000 manufacturing jobs. That is over
27,000 lost jobs in Colorado alone. The same study found that
statewide, Colorado would have a personal income loss of around $2.162
billion.
This bill also contains a provision in section 201 which was
originally formulated for the acid rain program. This provision
specifically denies that emissions allowances, which will be given out
by the Government, are to be considered a property right. The provision
also allows the administrator to limit or revoke the allowances at any
time. Specifying that allowances are not property is, therefore, the
Government's way to avoid a ``taking'' in the inevitable instance that
the administrator does revoke allowances.
How do we justify this? Government enables itself to give a product,
sets up a scheme for buying and trading that product but can, at any
time and for any reason, revoke that product without compensation.
While there is certainly legal precedent, that does not make it right.
In my view, this challenges assertions the bill's sponsors are making
that their cap-and-trade approach is a market-based one.
I will propose an amendment, if given the opportunity--I filed it by
the 1 o'clock deadline--to fix this by specifying that emissions
allowances are property rights, and while the Government could still
limit or revoke allowances, it would have to compensate the owners of
allowances in order to do so. It is only fair that the Government would
have to follow the same rules it sets out for industry to follow when
buying and selling allowances.
If we allow this legislation to go forward in its current form, we
will see energy prices go up. The national cost of gas today averages
around $4 a gallon. This will only go up if we pass the climate change
bill. Coloradans are currently feeling pain at the pump, but if we pass
this bill, they will feel it in their homes also. One of Colorado's
municipally owned utility providers has informed me that when this bill
takes full effect in 2012, their customers will immediately see their
utility bill jump above 25 percent.
Another utility, Tri-State, which provides electric power for 1.2
million rural electric customers in a 4-State area, has projected that
their costs to comply with the requirements laid out in this bill will
be $12.6 billion in 2012 to 2030. This is based on the assumption that
carbon credits would cost $50 per ton.
It is entirely possible that cost projection is very conservative,
and these are just rural electric cooperative impacts.
I also have very real concerns related to the fact that anyone--not
just covered emitters--can buy, sell, hold, or retire emissions
allowances. Anyone with a large enough pocketbook could purchase a
significant share of allowances and hold them to push the allowance
price up or retire them. That would put our Nation at risk of economic
manipulation, should another nation decide to step in and buy those
allowances. Additionally, if an investor wants to make a lot of money
off of the carbon trading market, they could just purchase and hold
those allowances until the price gets high enough to make them want to
sell.
In any of these scenarios, the end result will leave the consumers as
the ones paying the price.
In closing, I reiterate that this bill is, in my opinion, not the
right way to approach the issue of climate change. A far more effective
approach would be for the Federal Government to continue to provide
incentives for the development of greenhouse gas neutral technologies
and technologies that do not produce greenhouse gases. Incentivizing
technology development would get us to the same place without the
economic hardship that this bill would impose. A good example of doing
this has been the significant increases in renewable energy production
that have resulted from the production tax credit, clean renewable
energy bonds--called CREBs--and with incentives for clean coal
technology.
There will, of course, be a need for a larger Federal incentive
program in all these areas to move the ball forward, but this will
still be at much less cost to consumers than the $325 increase in
average annual household energy cost that the Energy Information
Administration has projected this bill could bring about.
This is a poorly thought-out piece of legislation. We need to have an
opportunity to legislate, to offer amendments, and move forward with
this important debate. This is a comprehensive piece of legislation. It
is important. It involves lots of Americans. I am disappointed we will
not have an opportunity, under the current process, to amend this
legislation.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont is recognized for 7
minutes.
Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, today we are discussing two issues
which, in fact, are related to each other. No. 1 is the outrageously
high cost of oil and gas. The second is the planetary crisis we face as
a result of global warming. There are some people who think we have to
address the price of high oil prices today and not worry about global
warming. Some people think we have to worry about global warming and
ignore the reality facing millions of people who cannot afford oil and
gas. I think we are actually smart enough to walk and chew gum at the
same time. We can and must address both these important issues.
My office has recently published a small book. It is called ``The
Collapse of the Middle Class, Letters from Vermont and America.'' It
talks about what is going on not only in my State but all over this
country, where the middle class is declining, people are working longer
hours for lower wages, losing health care, pensions, their good-paying
jobs. After all that, when you have gas at $4 a gallon at the pump,
home heating oil outrageously high, many people throughout the country
have now fallen over the economic cliff.
In terms of oil and gas prices, the time is now for the Congress to
tell our friends at ExxonMobil and other oil companies enjoying
recordbreaking profits--last year ExxonMobil earned more profits than
any corporation in the history of the world; last year the head of
Occidental Oil, a major oil company, had enough money to provide $400
million in compensation for their CEO--to stop ripping off the American
people. It is time for us to pass a windfall profits tax which says:
Enough is enough.
But it is not only the oil companies that are ripping off the
American people. The other day at the Commerce Committee, there was an
important hearing in which George Soros and major economists testified
it is not only oil company greed but speculators on Wall Street who are
driving prices up, which results, perhaps, in a 35-percent increase in
what the price of a barrel of oil should be. We have to deal with that
issue as well. This is the so-called Enron loophole. Right now, through
hedge funds, through unregulated markets, there is a massive amount of
trading on oil futures which is driving up oil prices. We should be
regulating that speculation. It should be transparent. In the process,
when we do that, as was the case with Enron and electricity, as was the
case with propane gas, as was the case with natural gas, if we begin to
address speculation in terms of oil futures, we can drive down oil
prices.
Bottom line: We have to do that. In my State, as in rural States all
over this country, where people are traveling long distances to work,
they cannot afford, on limited incomes, to pay $4 for a gallon of gas.
When the weather gets 20 below zero in Vermont, people cannot afford to
pay twice as much this year as they did a couple years ago for home
heating oil. So let us have the courage to take on the speculators. Let
us have the courage to take on the oil companies and fight to lower oil
and gas prices.
In addition, we can't ignore the crisis in global warming. My friends
come to the floor and say: Well, the scientific evidence is not clear.
That is not true. Virtually every leading scientist who knows
something about the issue, including the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change, has said, with 100 percent certainty, global warming is
a reality. In fact, what they have told us is the situation is more
dire than they had previously predicted. If we are concerned about
[[Page S5160]]
the drought we are seeing today which will only get worse, if we are
concerned about the hunger we are seeing as a result of that drought
which will only get worse, if we are worried about the severe weather
disturbances we are seeing right now, if we are worried about flooding,
about disease, it is absolutely imperative we address the crisis of
global warming and address it now.
Some people say: There may be economic dislocation if we do it. There
may be, and we have to address that. But I believe there are enormous
economic opportunities. I believe the evidence is clear we can create
millions of good-paying jobs as we move toward energy efficiency, as we
produce automobiles, not that get 15 miles per gallon but hybrid plug-
ins which get 150 miles per gallon, as we rebuild our deteriorating
rail system so people do not have to get into a car to go where they
want to go but can get on good rail, that we deliver cargo via rail.
There is enormous opportunity not only in terms of energy efficiency,
in saving huge amounts of fossil fuel, but also in sustainable energy.
I have tremendous optimism in what we can do with the technology that
is already on the shelf, not to mention the technology that will be
coming in the near future.
In terms of solar thermal plants which are now being built in the
southwestern part of this country, as well as all over the world, you
have plants, solar thermal plants, that are being built which can
provide as much electricity as small nuclear powerplants, with no, or
virtually no, greenhouse gas emissions. We are talking about producing
15, 20 or more percent of the electricity the United States needs right
from solar thermal plants.
In addition to that, as Germany is doing, as California is now doing,
there is tremendous opportunity with photovoltaics. We can put
photovoltaics on 10 million roofs in this country. The more we produce,
the more the price goes down, and we create jobs in the process.
Wind is the fastest growing source of new energy in the world and in
the United States. It is also becoming less and less expensive. I am
not just talking about large wind farms in Texas, in the Midwest. We
are talking about small wind turbines that can be placed in people's
backyards all over rural America.
Geothermal, biomass--there is huge potential. We must go forward for
the sake of our kids and our grandchildren.
I thank the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has used 7 minutes.
The Senator from Utah is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. BENNETT. Madam President, I thank the sponsors of this
legislation and the leadership of the Senate for bringing this debate
forward. I think it is warranted. I think the issues are serious. I am
not a naysayer who would say that global warming is not taking place or
that human beings are not contributing to it.
However, when I start discussing this with my constituents with
respect to the present bill, they hit me immediately with one single
question: What is it going to cost me?
So before I get into any of the aspects of global warming, I want to
answer that question. We know we have had a wide range of costs cited
on the Senate floor. They have said the increasing gasoline price will
be anywhere from 11 percent to 140 percent. We have heard that the
increase in cost to electricity will be anywhere from 44 percent to 500
percent. We have heard that the increase in cost in natural gas as a
result of this bill would be anywhere from 35 percent to 87 percent.
I do not want to pick a number between those two wide ranges in each
case. I went to Utah, and I went to the Utah Petroleum Association and
said: All right, you have looked at this bill. What will this cost Utah
motorists if this is passed? Do not give me 2030 estimates. Do not give
me numbers that are in a wide range. Tell me, what will drivers in Utah
have to pay at the pump if this bill passes?
They gave me a range: somewhere between 32 and 34 additional cents
price at the pump. How did they calculate that? They said the total
cost to Utah's oil refineries of the bill would be $500 million in the
first year of implementation. They can extrapolate that $500 million
into the price at the pump.
On electricity, I got a wider range. A Utah company estimated it
would have to raise electricity rates somewhere between 100 percent and
500 percent in order to cover the cost of their purchasing the carbon
allowances.
So we start with this debate answering the constituent question: What
will it cost? These are what it would cost in Utahns approximately 32
to 34 more cents at the pump and somewhere between 100 and 500 percent
in their electricity bill.
Now, let's get to the heart of the problem. I would like to make a
point I think everybody ignores. This is a global problem, and the bill
attempts to solve it with a national solution.
On this chart I have in the Chamber I have two lines. The blue line
is the projection of what is going to happen in carbon emissions
globally. The red line is what is going to happen in carbon emissions
in the United States. You can see, the blue line is going up
dramatically, whereas the red line is virtually flat.
Now, if the bill passes, and everything works as its sponsors say it
will--everything comes to pass in the best possible way--what will be
the impact? The dotted line in red shows what will be the impact in the
United States. The dotted line in blue shows what will be the impact
globally.
The impact globally will be minimal because increasingly the U.S.
share of global emissions is going down. So that is why I am opposed to
this bill.
I close with a comment from Daniel Botkin, Ph.D., professor emeritus
of the University of California, Santa Barbara. He says in his
statement:
You may think I must be one of those know-nothing naysayers
who believes global warming is a liberal plot. On the
contrary, I am a biologist and ecologist who has worried
about global warming, and been concerned about its effects
since 1968. . . .
Then he says:
I'm not a naysayer. I'm a scientist who believes in the
scientific method and in what facts tell us. I have worked
for 40 years to try to improve our environment and improve
human life as well. . . .
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has used 5 minutes.
Mr. BENNETT. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent for an
additional 30 seconds.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BENNETT. This is his summary:
My concern is that we may be moving away from an irrational
lack of concern about climate change to an equally irrational
panic about it.
Many of my colleagues ask, ``What's the problem? Hasn't it
been a good thing to raise public concern?'' The problem is
that in this panic we are going to spend our money unwisely,
we will take actions that are counterproductive, and we will
fail to do many of those things that will benefit the
environment and ourselves.
That is the irrational panic I think we would move to if we do this
bill without serious amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana is recognized for 10
minutes.
Mr. BAUCUS. Madam President, today, the Senate is addressing the most
compelling environmental issue of our time--global warming.
President Teddy Roosevelt once said:
I recognize the right and duty of this generation to
develop and use our natural resources, but I do not recognize
the right to waste them, or to rob by wasteful use, the
generations that come after us.
We all have a basic moral duty: a duty to leave this Earth to our
children and our grandchildren in as good a shape or better shape than
we found it. We should not rob future generations of a healthy climate
and all the benefits that come from it. What will history say about us
if we rob future generations of the chance to fish in cold water trout
streams or see glaciers in Glacier National Park?
By reasserting America's moral leadership and enacting a cap-and-
trade program, we can leave a different legacy. We can protect our
outdoor heritage, make our economy more competitive, and create more
good-paying jobs.
In Montana, we are already transitioning to a new green economy. We
have increased our wind-generating capacity more than seventyfold in
the last 2 years. The potential for this clean energy is huge. We can
replicate this success with solar, clean coal technology, with carbon
capture and sequestration, and other clean forms of energy.
[[Page S5161]]
We must begin the process of developing the next generation of energy
technologies at home. A cap-and-trade program will spur cleaner
technologies and create good-paying jobs.
We already know that a cap-and-trade system can work. It is a market-
based solution that harnesses the power of America's ingenuity and
entrepreneurship.
In the year 1990, I chaired the conference committee that completed
the Clean Air Act amendments designed to address acid rain. At the
time, there were a lot of gloom-and-doom predictions about the costs
that the Clean Air Act amendments would impose on the economy. Certain
industry groups claimed that the Clean Air Act amendments would cost
industry more than $5 billion every year. The actual cost to industry
was less than one-third of that. And the public benefits of cleaner air
have amounted to more than $78 billion a year.
A cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gases will be much more
complicated, clearly. But I am confident that by using a market-based
solution, we can stop global warming as well.
We have a moral imperative to act. We have no choice. But we must
also work to get the policy right. We have no choice there either. This
means designing a cap-and-trade system that stops global warming. But
it also means doing it in a way that enhances our economic
competitiveness, creates good-paying green jobs, and avoids harm to
working families.
Setting the cap determines whether we meet our environmental goals.
What we do with the money the cap-and-trade program raises will
determine whether we enhance our American competitiveness and help
working families.
By establishing a cap-and-trade system, we are creating a market for
greenhouse gas emissions. Under the cap-and-trade system, emitting
greenhouse gases will come at a price. Allowances will govern the right
to emit greenhouse gases. The bill before us gives away some of the
allowances but auctions others in an auction system. The bill auctions
fewer allowances in the earlier years and more in the later years of
the program, through the year 2050.
The auctioning of these allowances will generate receipts. According
to the Congressional Budget Office, enacting this substitute will
generate an additional $902 billion in receipts over the next 10
years--close to $1 trillion.
The bill we are considering allocates the money generated from the
auction through a variety of trust funds. There are 15 of them in all.
They are directed toward different needs anticipated from dealing with
global warming. For example, the bill sets aside funding for such
things as wildlife adaptation, creation of a new worker training
program, and energy technology.
All of these are worthy causes. But are they the best way to use the
receipts in order to increase our competitiveness and help working
families? Should we auction all of the allowances, more of the
allowances, or fewer? Rather than spending the receipts through the
various trust funds, should we return more of the money to the people
in tax cuts?
This bill also safeguards American economic competitiveness by
requiring importers to buy carbon allowances for products imported from
countries that have not made commitments to reduce greenhouse gases.
This requirement can serve as an effective incentive for other
countries, particularly the rapidly developing economies in China,
India, and Brazil to join us in the fight against global warming.
Of course, our trading partners will watch closely any proposal that
imposes an assessment on imports. It is important we adopt such
measures in a manner that respects international trade rules. The
proposal before us has been carefully crafted to take these rules into
account.
As a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, I
supported the Lieberman-Warner bill in both the subcommittee and full
committee. I believed it was very important to move forward on global
warming.
As chairman of the Finance Committee, I have additional
responsibilities. Those include directing the revenues generated by the
Federal Government, overseeing U.S. trade policy, and helping those
displaced by trade to retool and retrain. The bill before us today
involves these and many other matters. This is a complex and
challenging issue involving many committees within the Congress.
We in the Senate have finally woken up to the moral imperative of
addressing global warming. Now we must acknowledge the imperative to
get the policy right. I applaud Senator Lieberman, Senator Warner, and
Senator Boxer for bringing this issue before the Senate so we can begin
to debate and improve the policy.
I want to continue to work with my colleagues to get it right, as
chairman of the Finance Committee, as a member of the EPW Committee,
and as a Montanan and a concerned American. We owe it to our children
to act and to get it right.
Madam President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho is recognized for 10
minutes under the previous order.
Mr. CRAIG. Thank you, Madam President.
Let me recognize at the beginning of my comments that yesterday I was
on the Senate floor to talk about the incorporation of good forest
policy as it relates to rejuvenating America's forests to increase
their capability of sequestration of carbon out of the atmosphere. I
said at that time there would be an amendment. That amendment has the
cosponsorship of Senators Domenici, Allard, Crapo, and Barrasso and has
been filed. It is an important amendment, if we ever get to that phase
of this debate, where we will be able to effectively craft and shape a
policy for our country.
We deal with striking the international intent within this bill to
take our money to help others before we help ourselves. We define
biological sequestration. We think that is extremely important because
we know how to do that now at the Federal level. It is not the old
business-as-usual model; it is establishing a baseline and being able
to effectively measure from there. We allow forests to get credits from
meaningful sequestration, and I think this is tremendously important to
be able to do. It is not about the volume of a stand of timber; it is
about the ability of that stand to sequester. If you have 400 trees per
acre, you have overpopulated that area by as many as maybe 250 or 300
trees per acre. But that is the measurement of the Boxer amendment. It
is absolutely counterintuitive to modern forest science. We change it
to where we are and to where we know our forest scientists are today.
We use existing monitoring and measuring tools, which is very
important. It is a product of 1992 legislation when we charged the U.S.
Forest Service and their laboratories to get at the business of being
able to effectively measure. We use internationally recognized
sustainable forest management standards. We use RFS and productive tax
credits for biomass and biomass removement, and of course we use
stewardship contracting, which is critically important.
Let me take the Presiding Officer and those who might be listening
today on a very interesting journey that starts at America's gas pump.
Let me assume that the Presiding Officer has just driven up to a gas
pump somewhere in America. You stick the hose in your car, you activate
the pump, you slide your credit card, and you begin to fill. Depending
on the size of your vehicle and the price--anywhere from let's say
$3.85 a gallon for regular to maybe $4.44 in California--you begin to
grow annoyed as the calculator on the pump goes: 35, 40, 45, 50, 55,
60, 65--oops, you have maxed the pump and you have to get more by
reactivating the pump to fill your SUV. Your anger is optimal now. You
have just paid 100 bucks or somewhere near that, and you have never
done that before. You move your view up to the pump and it says
``Chevron.'' It says ``Shell.'' It says one of the major oil companies.
You focus your anger on that company and you say: It has to be their
fault. They are making record profits. Somehow, there ought to be a way
to stop them from doing what they just did to me and my pocketbook and
my family's budget.
Let me take you, the consumer, then, a step further and suggest to
you that you are part of a problem that has been growing in America for
a long while. Your demand for the use of energy has
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gone nearly straight up over four decades as you have increased your
consumption of it. Why? Because the price was reasonable and you
enjoyed it. The price was reasonable and your demand went up
dramatically, but while that was going on, there were interests at work
in our country that said: We are not going to produce any more, we are
going to produce less, and we did. So our overall supply began to drop
at about the time that our demand began to go up catastrophically. What
happened was an interesting scenario.
So now you have hung your hose up from the gas pump, you have just
paid 100 bucks, and you are angry as heck. You are part of the demand
curve in our supply in our country that is dropping down, and you have
just blamed Exxon or Chevron or Marathon or someone because you have
spent 100 bucks to fill your SUV and you are not happy.
If you took all of these small companies and blamed them all and said
they have to be the problem, they would only represent about 6 or 7
percent of the problem. The problem these companies have is that they
are buying a substantial amount of their oil from this side of the
chart. They are buying their oil from countries--from countries that
don't give a darn about our problems. We have grown so dependent on
foreign countries that now some 55 to 60 percent of our consumption
comes from them, and we pay a phenomenal amount for it, or should I say
you--you, the consumer who has just put up the hose on the gas pump and
who has grown angry, wanting to focus your anger on these companies.
Is it Canada you want to blame? Well, let's see now, at $125 a
barrel, we are paying Canada $280 million a day. Why should we blame
them? They are supplying our needs. There are no gas lines today. There
is no diminishment in supply. It is a price problem. Well, then let's
blame Saudi Arabia. Oh, yes. They are over here. They are the big boys.
The President just went over there, hat in hand, begging that they turn
their valves on, and they said: No, Mr. President. Your problem, not
ours. You are going to keep buying our oil. You need it. We are paying
them $190 million a day. Maybe it is Venezuela, run by a little tinhorn
dictator--$160 million a day flowing from our consumers' pocketbooks--
or it is Nigeria at $140 million or it is Algeria at $70 million.
The bottom line is, well over $1 billion a day comes right out of the
consumers' pocket and goes primarily to one of these companies that buy
from one of these countries. They buy the oil at the current world
price, and they are allowed to take some profit from it; sure they do.
Their profits are record highs because the charges are record highs,
and the story goes on and on.
We search to blame. We have little alternative. The business of the
oil economy has little elasticity to it. We can't switch over to
something else unless we park the SUV and get a bicycle. But you can't
haul your kids to the soccer game on a bicycle. You can't haul boxes of
groceries home on a bicycle. So the American economy and its consumers
are questioning themselves right now, saying: What do we do?
Let me suggest there is somebody to blame besides ExxonMobil and
Chevron and Marathon. Why don't you blame the Senate? Why don't you
blame the Congress of the United States which, by being subject to
environmental pressure over the last 30 years, has largely denied the
right of this country to effectively develop its oil reserves and
create a less dependent relationship with all of these countries? That
is what we ought to be doing, but we are not doing that.
Here is a map of the gulf region of Florida. In this region, we are
developing this right now. We have just opened this area after we spent
2 years trying to get it open because politics would not allow us to
open it, and we think there are about 2.2 million barrels a day
starting in 2012 down here. This is lease sale 181. But over here,
there may be as much oil as there was or is here, but this is
politically off limits. We can't do it. Why shouldn't the consumers
say: Well, what is the politics of it? You are draining my pocketbook
dry. Is there value in those politics? Why don't you develop your
reserves? Well, Florida, Presidential politics--you name it. Floridians
are awfully frustrated by the fact that you might be able to drill
there.
This area right down here is the Cuban basin, the northern Cuban
basin. Cubans are letting leases out to drill there. The U.S.
Geological Survey would suggest that there is some oil there--maybe
quite a bit of oil--but we won't get it. It won't traffic through Exxon
or Chevron because we have a policy that denies us access to that
region of the world because, if you will, of the politics of Cuba,
plain and simple.
So here is our problem with that and here is our problem with this
interesting picture. We have about 115 billion barrels of reserve in
gas, about 29 billion known, about 5 billion undiscovered resources. In
gas, we have about 633 trillion cubic feet, 213 trillion known, 419
unknown. Now, that is information that is 20 years old because
politically you dare not go out into any of these regions today with
the new seismic technology and explore because if you did and you found
oil, you might want to drill, and that would be environmentally
unacceptable. Oh, how frightening.
I remember a time--and not all do unless you are about my age--come
1969 when there was an interesting oil spill off the coast of Santa
Barbara in southern California. It made national headlines because it
was one of the first major oil spills that did substantial
environmental damage. I have oftentimes referred on the floor to our
denial to access the Outer Continental Shelf as the ghosts of Santa
Barbara that lurk in this Chamber and hide in the background of
environmental arguments. That was Santa Barbara in 1969. But what is
fascinating about Santa Barbara is that while we didn't drill offshore
Santa Barbara because of a moratorium on the Federal waters, we
continued to drill offshore Santa Barbara in the State waters. Today,
offshore Santa Barbara, CA, is producing 731,000 barrels of oil a day.
They just cut a new deal with some oil companies to drill in this area.
Well, why aren't they allowing us to drill offshore further out in the
Continental Shelf? Because California doesn't get the money. Oops.
Sorry, folks. Money trumped the environment. Remember that. In Santa
Barbara today, they are drilling for oil if it is within the 3-mile
limit of the shoreline because that is State oil and that is State
water. But out in the Federal reserve, Outer Continental Shelf, no, no,
no, no, can't do, must not do that, something about a problem.
Well, what the ghost of Santa Barbara and the 1969 oil spill did was
shove us into a period of technology unprecedented. Today, we are
drilling offshore in the gulf, and the water is so deep that we didn't
even imagine a decade ago we could be there. We are doing it
appropriately and in a very clean fashion.
So here are the headlines in Los Angeles, April 20, 2008: Santa
Barbara approves offshore drilling. Well, what happened to this picture
here? What happened in 1969 with this oil rig spilling oil, sea lions
dying, fish dying, muck, oily muck along the shoreline? That is Santa
Barbara, 1969. We were led to believe they stopped drilling altogether,
but they didn't. They just approved new drilling, but it is inside the
3-mile zone.
Now, Californians are selective, apparently, about their environment.
If there is money tied to it, well, maybe we can drill, if we get all
the money, but if we don't get as much of it, we won't drill offshore.
That is the kind of politics that have gone on today.
So remember how I started these comments a few moments ago? You have
just driven up to a gas pump, you just stuck the nozzle into the tank
of your SUV, you just cranked out 100 bucks of regular at about $4.40 a
gallon--in California, because of the boutique fuels of the Clean Air
Act--and you have grown angry because somebody was ripping you off, and
that somebody had to be an Exxon or a Chevron or a Marathon or someone
else. But I hope I have been able to suggest to you some additional
knowledge: That they represent maybe 6 percent of world production. It
is the petropolitics of the world today where nearly 90 percent of the
known oil and the reserves are owned by foreign nations that are
sticking it to us, and they are sticking it to us today because of our
own interesting greed, because we grew luxuriously fat on cheap energy
and we developed cars that take
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a lot. Now that we can't fill them for 20 bucks and it is costing us
100 bucks, we are angry and we want to blame somebody. Blame Saudi
Arabia, blame Venezuela. But how about blaming us here in the Congress,
because some of us have tried, but the body politic of America denied
that we should touch our own reserves, develop our own oil, and that we
should become dependent upon someone else.
So we have legislation on the floor today that doesn't help that. It
creates, in fact, greater dependency. It doesn't move us forward to
develop those known reserves. It doesn't allow us to do the geological
exploration in the deep waters of the Outer Continental Shelf with the
new technologies, in which we will find much more oil than we know is
there.
America, blame your Congress--blame your friendly Congressman or your
friendly Senator. Ask them how they voted. Ask them how they are going
to vote on ANWR, on Outer Continental Shelf, on new development, on new
refinery capacity. Oil is not the answer for 50 years from now, but oil
is the bridge that gets us from where we are to where we need to be
with new technologies. But our lack of foresight, our rush to be green,
and our rush to deny the realities of the marketplace has produced the
problems we have today, and there are people to blame. We ought to
start right here with a Congress that would not listen.
But year after year, while I and others brought ANWR to the floor for
a vote, and while we tried to get into the Outer Continental Shelf,
politically, it was simply an unpopular thing to do, because some would
say this would be the picture. Fellow Senators, this picture I display
on the Senate floor is a picture of the past. This is of 1969 Santa
Barbara. From that day forward, we began to apply technology to drill
heads, to drill rigs, through our capability and talent. When Katrina
hit the gulf and hit the coastline of Louisiana, parts of Alabama,
Mississippi, and Florida, offshore, not one drop was spilled. Thousands
of wells were shut down. Rigs were sent adrift. But what is depicted in
this picture did not occur. This will not occur again because of the
triple safety devices and all of the kinds of things that have been
incorporated as a result of this.
So California today drills happily away within the 3-mile zone,
because they get 100 percent. But outside the 3-mile zone, no, no, no,
can't touch, might hurt the environment. Shame on us.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Salazar). The Senator from Missouri is
recognized.
Intelligence Committee Phase Ii Report
Mr. BOND. Mr. President, with some reluctance, I come to the floor
today to continue the discussions that were begun this morning about
the Intelligence Committee's report that comes out today, called phase
II.
I am somewhat embarrassed to have to highlight the partisan divisions
and sloppy work of the Intelligence Committee that was discussed here.
Back in July of 2004, the Intelligence Committee completed an
exhaustive 2-year study of the inadequacies of the intelligence pre-
Iraq war. We looked at it. We had hundreds of interviews, brought
people in, and looked at all of the documents. Our staff analyzed all
of these items and interviewed people. We came to the conclusion that,
despite what some people had said, the intelligence prior to the Iraq
war was flawed. It wasn't a question of the administration pressuring
analysts or the administration misusing intelligence. Those charges
were made and they were very volatile. They were all dismissed because
the intelligence was bad. We passed the bill out of committee
unanimously. It was a true bipartisan work. It stands as a monument to
what effective oversight could and should be. It helped reform the
intelligence community, to make it better and improve the tradecraft of
the analysts, and to inspire more working together.
But today we have regressed significantly. What came out today as the
phase II reports were, regrettably, highly partisan. When I became vice
chairman of the Intelligence Committee, I had hopes we would be able to
put behind us the corrosive atmosphere of partisanship that had taken
over in the committee in previous years. I recommended that we work
together on phase II to bring it to an end, because most of the work
had been done in 2006. The minority asked for extensive analysis and
collation and collaboration, and they prepared that. But the offer was
rejected by the chairman.
Instead, two reports were written solely by Democratic staffers. No
minority staffers participated in the writing of the report. They were
shut out, unlike work on the phase I effort. It is an unfortunate
example of partisanship being alive and well on the committee.
The report released today is an attempt to score election year
points. I would have thought we would quit fighting the 2004 election,
but apparently we have not. It violates the committee's nonpartisan
principles and rejects the conclusions unanimously reached in previous
reports.
I think it is ironic that the majority would knowingly distort and
misrepresent the committee's prior phase I findings in an effort to
prove that the administration distorted and mischaracterized the
intelligence. In contrast, as I said, the phase I report of July 2004
concluded that most of the key judgments in that NIE, National
Intelligence Estimate, on Iraq's WMD programs either overstated or were
not supported by the underlying intelligence. And the committee found
that the Intelligence Committee failed to explain to policymakers the
uncertainties behind the judgment. The report made it clear that flawed
intelligence--not administration deception--was the basis for
policymaker statements and decisions.
Despite the Democrats' political theater on the floor today, none of
the facts in the phase II majority reports released today change that
conclusion. There is no evidence in the information brought up today
that changes the conclusions of the phase I bipartisan 15-to-0 vote.
Now, the reports that came out today ignore the fact that many in
Congress--Republicans and Democrats--examined the same intelligence as
the Bush administration, and they, too, characterized Iraq as a growing
and dangerous threat to the United States.
The public report is replete with examples of statements by the
current chairman and by other Democrats. Let me report what was said by
the current chairman.
October 10, 2002:
There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is
working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will
likely have nuclear weapons within the next 5 years. He could
have it earlier if he is able to obtain fissile materials on
the outside market, which is possible--difficult but
possible. We also should remember we have always
underestimated the progress that Saddam Hussein has been able
to make in the development of weapons of mass destruction.
He said this also:
Saddam Hussein represents a grave threat to the United
States.
Further on in the statement, he said on October 10, 2002:
The President has rightly called Saddam Hussein's efforts
to develop weapons of mass destruction a grave and gathering
threat to Americans. The global community has tried, but has
failed, to address that threat over the past decade. I have
come to the inescapable conclusion that the threat posed
to America by Saddam's weapons of mass destruction is so
serious that despite the risks--and we should not minimize
the risks--we must authorize the President to take the
necessary steps to deal with that threat. . . . There has
been some debate over how ``imminent'' a threat Iraq
poses. I do believe Iraq poses an imminent threat. I also
believe after September 11, that question is increasingly
outdated. It is in the nature of these weapons that he has
and the way they are targeted against civilian
populations, that documented capability and demonstrated
intent may be the only warning we get. To insist on
further evidence could put some of our fellow Americans at
risk. Can we afford to take that chance? I do not think we
can.
Those were the statements he made on the Senate floor. Frankly, I
said many of the same things, because he was looking at the same
intelligence I was, the majority of this body was looking at, and the
executive branch was looking at when they made the distinction. We
decided to support the President to move forward. The intelligence was
often flawed, but that was the intelligence we had at the time.
The report we have today was drafted entirely by the majority. The
minority was entirely cut out of the process. Even with the majority-
only drafted report, the twisted statements of policymakers cherry-
picks intelligence
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and validates what we have been saying for years--that the intelligence
was flawed.
No. 2, the statements report excludes intelligence, including
instances in which the committee knew that policymakers' statements
were fact checked and approved by the IC. For example, the report does
not explain that the speech of Secretary of State Powell was not only
checked and rechecked by the IC, but that the first draft of the speech
was actually written by the CIA. This original draft included text that
the majority report claims was ``unsubstantiated.''
The report does not review any statements of Democrats.
The report distorts the words of policymakers to help make the
majority's case.
The majority didn't even seek to interview those whom they accuse of
making unsubstantiated statements.
There is a second report, the Rome report, which was totally outside
the scope of the committee's authorization. The committee said we will
look at the Office of Special Plans and the PCTEG in the Defense
Department, with reference to Iraq. The report they put out today has
nothing to do with Iraq. It is about an Iranian talking about Iran. The
people whom they were talking to were not members of the Office of
Special Plans or the PCTEG. It was not an intelligence operation. The
United States had been contacted by somebody who wanted to speak to
somebody other than the CIA about information he had in Iran. It was
found not to be trustworthy or useful, and the National Security
Adviser dismissed it and said it requires no further proceeding.
We wasted time, we wasted valuable effort, and we got nothing for it.
I regret to say this has injected partisan politics and does this
committee and this body no useful purpose.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican leader is recognized.
Unanimous Consent Request--S. 3036
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I notified the other side that I am
going to propound a unanimous consent request to which I think they
will object. I didn't want to blindside them. I don't know who on the
other side is available.
I see both leaders here. Therefore, I ask unanimous consent that the
Senate resume consideration of S. 3036, the Lieberman-Warner climate
change bill; that the motion to commit be withdrawn and the pending
amendment be temporarily set aside so that I may offer an amendment
related to gas prices.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. REID. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I think it is
pretty clear what the picture is here. After trying everything that we
could to have a regular debate on this bill, we were turned away at
every point.
My memory goes back to yesterday, with the unusual, untoward request
and objection that we not be allowed to waive the reading of almost a
500-page amendment. So we spent all day yesterday doing that. I think
if my friend is interested in doing something about gas prices, that
opportunity will come quickly, because we are going to have to vote
Tuesday morning on gas prices. It is a very direct, concise debate on
gas prices. I hope we will get support from the Republicans on that
issue.
It would seem to me, if they are interested in doing something about
gas prices, they would vote cloture on that. If they wish to offer
amendments, that is the fine. But with all due respect to my friend,
who objected to even committees meeting today--committees meeting
today--in addition to having the amendment read----
Mr. McCONNELL. Parliamentary inquiry: Is this an objection or a
speech?
Mr. REID. It is both. I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has reserved his right to object.
Mr. REID. And I object, Mr. President.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator wish for the regular order?
Mr. McCONNELL. I believe I have the floor, Mr. President.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican leader does have the floor.
Mr. McCONNELL. I take no pleasure in cutting off my friend, the
majority leader. I have the floor, and I propounded a unanimous consent
request to which he objects, which is, of course, his right.
Let me make some observations about the amendment I would have
offered had I been permitted to.
My good friend, the majority leader, was complaining about the
reading of the amendment yesterday. I remind him it did not take nearly
as much of the Senate's time as his reading passages from his own book
back in 2003, which took up to 9 hours of the Senate's time, that, too,
to make a point about the way judicial confirmations were being
handled. So it is certainly not unprecedented for Members of the body--
not the majority leader, not myself--trying to make points with regard
to the displeasure, if you will, in the handling of judicial
appointments.
With regard to the amendment I would like to have offered, I ask
unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the amendment so people
will know what I would have offered had I been allowed to.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
On page 161, between lines 6 and 7, insert the following:
SEC. 530. ACTION UPON HIGHER GASOLINE PRICES CAUSED BY THIS
ACT.
(a) Determination of Higher Gasoline Prices Caused by This
Act.--Not less than annually, the Secretary of Energy, in
consultation with the Secretary of Transportation and the
Administrator, shall determine whether implementation of this
Act has caused the average retail price of gasoline to
increase since the date of enactment of this Act.
(b) Administrator Action.--Notwithstanding any other
provision of this Act, upon a determination under subsection
(a) of higher gasoline prices caused by this Act, the
Administrator shall suspend such provisions of this Act as
the Administrator determines are necessary until
implementation of the provisions no longer causes a gasoline
price increase.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, obviously, I am disappointed that the
majority has objected to allowing this amendment to become pending.
Earlier today, the assistant majority leader said we should be voting
on amendments. I actually couldn't agree more. In a week in which gas
prices have climbed to an all-time high, the Democratic majority in the
Senate is pushing legislation that would send them up, at the very
least, another 53 cents a gallon.
Since the majority took over Congress 17 months ago, gas prices have
gone up $1.66 a gallon. Since the beginning of this year alone, gas
prices have gone up nearly a dollar--82 cents. Today, AAA reported a
new record-high average gas price nationwide of $3.99 a gallon. All of
this is hurting families, workers, truckers, farmers--it is hurting
literally everyone. Yet the majority has nothing to say about it. It
has done nothing, actually worse than nothing. It has repeatedly
blocked efforts to increase production of American energy at home, as
recently as last month, when 48 Democratic Senators voted against the
American Energy Production Act.
Now, at the beginning of the summer driving season, it offers a bill
that would send gas prices up another 53 cents a gallon, for goodness'
sake. People in the Commonwealth of Kentucky are paying, on average,
$3.92 a gallon this week. They want to know what in the world is going
on around here. I am telling them to take a look at what is going on
here this very week. I am asking the same question they are: Why on
Earth are we considering a bill that would raise gas prices even
higher--even higher--than they already are?
Our friends on the other side have no serious plan for lowering gas
prices. Indeed, they seem intent on raising them even higher, which is
why I have tried offering this amendment as a sort of emergency brake
on the majority.
This amendment says that if the Boxer climate tax bill does, in
effect, increase gas prices, its provisions shall be suspended.
Let me say that again. This amendment I had hoped to be able to offer
and get pending and voted on simply says, in fact, if the Boxer climate
tax bill does, in fact, increase gas prices, its provisions shall be
suspended. Turn them off and take a time out.
Earlier this week, the junior Senator from Connecticut said the Boxer
bill would reduce gas prices. His contention runs counter to every
analysis of the bill of which I am aware. But if he is right--if he is
right--if the Boxer climate tax bill actually reduces gas
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prices, then there is no reason not to support my amendment because my
amendment would not go into effect--if, in fact, the underlying bill is
going to reduce gas prices.
If the Senator from Connecticut is right, then my amendment would not
have any effect on the cap-and-trade system outlined in this bill
because, of course, gas prices would not be increased by the operation
of the bill. If he is wrong, my amendment will protect those who are
suffering today from the high price of gasoline.
We should have an opportunity to ask Senators where they stand. Do
they believe, as I do, that gas prices are high enough already or do
they believe, as the sponsors of this bill do, that gas prices should
rise even higher? What are they afraid of? Let's have votes on these
amendments. This is the kind of bill, as I have said repeatedly,
normally in the Senate would have been on the floor for weeks. This is
a big, complicated bill, described by my friend and colleague, the
majority leader, as the most important matter for the planet. I think
we would all agree that is a big deal.
If this issue is the most important issue confronting the planet,
then it is worth more than a few days. If we spent 5 weeks and
considered 180 amendments and processed 130 of them on the clean air
bill in 1990, this bill is certainly worth a multiweek, multifaceted
debate and consideration of amendments without preclearance on both
sides.
What has evolved in the course of the last year and a half is the
only way you get to offer an amendment around here is if the other side
agrees to let you. The majority leader and I have been around the
Senate long enough to remember when that was not the way you operated
on major bills. We were both here in 1990, when Senator Mitchell was
the majority leader. The Democrats controlled the House, controlled the
Senate, and there was a Republican in the White House. We were trying
to do a clean air bill. We spent 5 weeks on it, considered 180
amendments, passed 130 of them. Nobody was asking permission to offer
an amendment. It was a freewheeling, wide-ranging, wide-open debate on
an important issue at that time.
This strikes me as very similar in nature to that, and I don't know
why we are afraid to spend time on this bill, why we are afraid to have
amendments on it. My goodness, filling the tree, filing cloture--it
strikes me my good friend, the majority leader, doesn't want anybody to
vote on any of the amendments. We wish to go through a kind of 1-week,
check-the-box exercise and move on. If this is, indeed, the most
important issue confronting the planet, why are we not spending time on
it?
So I would have liked to have had a chance to vote on that amendment.
It strikes me that if the position of the majority is this bill will
not raise gas prices, there would be no particular reason not to adopt
it because, at the end of the day, it wouldn't become operative unless
gas prices went up. GAO thinks gas prices will go up 53 cents a gallon.
I hope this bill doesn't pass, but if it does, I hope they are wrong
and that the Senator from California is right. In any event, as a good
hedge against further raising gas prices on American consumers, it
struck me that the McConnell amendment would be a good way to go.
I regret it will not be possible to offer that amendment. It would
have been good for the Senate to have considered and to have voted on
this amendment. But apparently that will not be the case today.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, look at this picture: My friend is
complaining about judges. They did this yesterday because of judges. I
gave a speech 7, 8 years ago that lasted 9 hours, so they can now say
that is fine, these many years later, we are going to force them to
read a bill.
Keep in mind, all you people who are watching, we have the lowest
rate in decades, some 30 years, of vacancies in the Federal judiciary.
Is it an emergency? Of course not. These lifetime appointments make far
more money than the average American.
This judges issue they put into this global warming debate is a
diversion. President Bush doesn't acknowledge global warming exists, so
it is obvious he is not concerned about global warming.
I so admire a few valiant souls, led by Senator Warner, on the other
side who do believe it is a critical issue. I appreciate their
vigilance and their courage for coming forward and supporting us in
trying to do something about global warming.
My friend, the Republican leader, is talking about gas prices having
gone up while we have been in control of the Senate for less than 18
months. The President of the United States has been in power for 7\1/2\
years. Gas prices have gone up 250 percent. Gas prices, since the first
of the year, have gone up 82 cents.
This whole argument objecting to committees meeting--when the
Republicans were in power, there was not much going on with the
committees, no oversight. We are having a little oversight. Maybe that
is why they don't want us to do the committee hearings.
This whole issue dealing with global warming--we have a memo of
theirs saying they are going to play political games--the whole issue
relating to this reminds me of the old-time story where a person kills
his parents and then seeks the mercy of the court because he is an
orphan. That is what they are doing.
This argument is so transparent. After not having allowed us to do
anything on this bill, they suddenly walk out here and say: We have
something we would like to amend.
We have tried. We have tried. We have a cloture vote set on this
issue. We are going to do it in the morning, to allow us to go forward
and debate some amendments. We will see what happens on that vote.
The American people understand what the Republican minority has done
to the Senate and to our country. It has even spilled over into the
House of Representatives in three special elections. The former Speaker
of the House of Representatives, the man Speaker Pelosi replaced, in a
heavily Republican district in the State of Illinois, that district
went Democratic. Why? Because of this going on.
In Louisiana, a House seat that had been Republican for many years,
the Democrats won that seat in a special election. In Mississippi, they
appointed a Senator to take Senator Lott's spot. There was a vacancy. A
Democrat won that. It is going to continue. The American people see
this picture.
Several Senators addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican leader.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, with respect to the judges issue--we
are getting things kind of mixed in together--with respect to the
judges issue, it was viewed with incredulity the suggestion that
somehow reading the amendment yesterday was without precedent. My good
friend clearly remembers his reading his own book on the floor of the
Senate. According to Senate records, it was nearly 9 straight hours,
longer than it took to read the amendment yesterday. Interestingly
enough, it had nothing to do with judges. At least reading the
amendment yesterday was a way to learn about the Boxer substitute,
since we had gotten it about 15 minutes before it was offered.
The fundamental issue on judges is keeping your word around here.
Let's not obscure the point. The fundamental issue about judges is, Are
you going to keep your word?
At the beginning of this Congress, the majority leader and I agreed
we would achieve, working together, the average number of circuit
judges of each of the last three Presidents, each of whom, to their
regret, ended their terms with the opposition party in the majority. It
was not contingent on vacancy rate. There was no discussion of vacancy
rate. It didn't have anything to do with anything other than a
numerical measurement of success.
When it became clear several months ago that there was no serious
effort being made to keep that commitment, we had a conflict here on
the floor about another bill. In connection with settling that dispute,
the majority leader committed to me that we would do three circuit
judges before Memorial Day toward the goal he and I had agreed on
earlier. We did one. We did one.
[[Page S5166]]
The only way this institution can function is that when we give our
word, we ought to keep it.
Now, on a separate track, last night, in connection with a
nominations package, the commitment was made to do three district court
judges within the next week who are on the calendar right now and have
been on the calendar since late April.
So now we have two commitments extant here. We have the commitment at
the beginning--well, three actually: the commitment at the beginning of
the Congress to reach the average for each of the last three
Presidents, which would have been 17; then we had the commitment to do
three prior to Memorial Day, only one of which was done; and now last
night, in conjunction with a nominations package, we had a commitment
to confirm three district court judges who have been on the calendar
here in the Senate since late April. And these are typically not even
controversial. The chair of the Judiciary Committee was on the floor at
the time. So we will see if that commitment is to be kept.
So that is what this is about, Mr. President. It is about keeping
your word here in the Senate.
I yield the floor.
Mr. WARNER addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I understand that the order gave a period
from 2 to 3 to the Senator from Virginia, the Senator from California,
and the Senator from Connecticut. Am I correct on that?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.
Mr. WARNER. Recognizing that our leadership had important matters to
bring to the attention of the body and that 15 minutes of that time was
consumed in that series of important messages, I ask unanimous consent
now that the entire calendar of scheduled speeches and so forth be
moved ahead 15 minutes to restore our time and thereby extend time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. WARNER. I thank the Presiding Officer, and I thank my colleagues.
Mr. President, I wish once again to express my appreciation to the
chairman, Chairman Boxer, and my colleague, Senator Lieberman, in the
long voyage we have had. Senator Lieberman and I have been working on
this for nearly a year, the climate change bill and the security bill,
as we call it, and then our chairman eventually joined and the
committee acted and the rest is history.
I look upon this as being a very substantial contribution to this
continuing debate on this very perplexing but essential subject to be
continuously watched here in the United States of America, and the next
Congress will take it up, and I think we will have laid a foundation
for the future work of the next President and the next Congress--an
important foundation. I wish we would have had more debate, but I will
not get into the politics of what happened. It is clear to all. But I
will say that in the brief period we were on the bill, for example, I
did not hear any really substantial debate contesting the fundamental
question: Is there adequate science to support--to support--the action
by the Congress of the United States and then hopefully the President
of the United States to address this issue? That seems to me to be put
aside now.
I think we can deduce from this limited debate we have had that each
and every Member of this Chamber is genuinely concerned to some degree
about the effects of the erratic changes in our climate, in our
weather, with the droughts and the floods, the tornadoes, and these
other unexplainable variations in the historical--I repeat, the
historical--benchmarks of these weather occurrences. So we are moving
forward, and that was a very important building stone.
This morning, the chairman and the Senator from Connecticut and,
indeed, the Senator from Massachusetts, Mr. Kerry--the four of us
joined to introduce two very fine, distinguished, retired four star
officers--one a general and one an admiral. They are a part of a team
of 11 members.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record
the names of all the members of the Military Advisory Board to the
Center for Naval Analysis, a national and internationally recognized
organization which deals in a nonpolitical way on issues. They put
together a very comprehensive report about the national security
implications from global climate change.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
The Military Advisory Board
General Gordon R. Sullivan, USA (Ret.), Former Chief of
Staff, U.S. Army; Chairman, Military Advisory Board.
Admiral Frank ``Skip'' Bowman, USN (Ret.), Former Director,
Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program; Former Deputy
Administrator-Naval Reactors, National Nuclear Security
Administration.
Lieutenant General Lawrence P. Farrell Jr., USAF (Ret.),
Former Deputy Chief of Staff for Plans and Programs,
Headquarters U.S. Air Force.
Vice Admiral Paul G. Gaffney II, USN (Ret.), Former
President, National Defense University; Former Chief of Naval
Research and Commander, Navy Meteorology and Oceanography
Command.
General Paul J. Kern, USA (Ret.), Former Commanding
General, U.S. Army Materiel Command.
Admiral T. Joseph Lopez, USN (Ret.), Former Commander-in-
Chief, U.S. Naval Forces Europe and of Allied Forces,
Southern Europe.
Admiral Donald L. ``Don'' Pilling, USN (Ret.), Former Vice
Chief of Naval Operations.
Admiral Joseph W. Prueher, USN (Ret.), Former Commander-in-
Chief of the U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM) and Former U.S.
Ambassador to China.
Vice Admiral Richard H. Truly, USN (Ret.), Former NASA
Administrator, Shuttle Astronaut and the first Commander of
the Naval Space Command.
General Charles F. ``Chuck'' Wald, USAF (Ret.), Former
Deputy Commander, Headquarters U.S. European Command
(USEUCOM).
General Anthony C. ``Tony'' Zinni, USMC (Ret.), Former
Commander-in-Chief of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM).
Sherri W. Goodman, Executive Director, Military Advisory
Board, The CNA Corporation.
Study Team
David M. Catarious Jr.
Ronald Filadelfo.
Henry Gaffney.
Sean Maybee.
Thomas Morehouse.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I will read first from the statement, and
then I will insert the full statement of General Sullivan in the
Record.
General Sullivan has had a 50-year career, in one way or another--on
Active Duty or continuously working--with the U.S. Army. I have known
him a long time. I remember him coming to testify before the Senate
Armed Services Committee many times in his capacity as the Chief of
Staff of the Army. He stated as follows:
Having said this, I admit I came to the Advisory Board as a
skeptic and I'm not sure some of the others didn't as well.
After we listened to leaders of the scientific, business, and
governmental communities, both I and my colleagues came to
agree that global climate change is and will be a significant
threat to our national security. The potential destabilizing
impacts of global climate change include reduced access to
fresh water, impaired food production, health issues,
especially from vector and food-borne diseases, and land
loss, flooding and so forth, and the displacement of major
portions of populations. And overall, we view these phenomena
as related to failed states, growth of terrorism, mass
migrations, and greater regional and inter-regional
instability.
This is a totally pure, nonpolitical assessment of this problem.
How I wish we would have had the opportunity to have had further
debate, at which time we could have brought forth other testimony of
members of this panel and addressed the security issues. Those were the
issues that drew me, this humble Senator, to participate and to devote
basically a year of my career with my good friend from Connecticut,
both of us members of the Armed Services Committee. It is because of
the national security implications.
I would like to read a bit from the testimony of ADM Joe Lopez. Now,
I have known Joe Lopez ever since he was a Navy captain, when I was the
Secretary of the Navy. He has a remarkable career. He stated as
follows:
National security involves much more than just military
strength. National security is affected by political,
military, cultural, and economic elements. These elements
overlap, to one degree or another, and every major issue in
the international arena contains all of them. And climate
change has an impact on each of them. This will be
particularly more pronounced in the world's most volatile
regions, where environmental
[[Page S5167]]
and natural resource challenges have added greatly to the
existing political, economic, and cultural tensions. These
instabilities that already exist will create a fertile ground
for extremism, and these instabilities are likely to be
exacerbated by global climate change.
Again, there is no politics in this. It is a clear statement from a
man who has devoted over 40 years of his life to military service for
our country, and there are nine others who participated in this panel.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record
the statements of General Sullivan and Admiral Lopez.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
General Sullivan
My name is Gordon Sullivan. I have served America as a
soldier since 1955. My last duty position was as Army Chief
of Staff--1991 to 1995. I retired from active service in 1995
and have been president of the Association of the United
States Army--Army's professional association--since 1998.
Thus, I have been in or involved with the Army for over 50
years.
I am here as the chairman of the Military Advisory Board
for CNA. The Military Advisory Board consists of retired
three- and four-star flag officers from the Army, Navy, Air
Force, and Marines.
We were charged with looking at the emerging phenomenon
known as global climate change through the prism of our own
experience, and specifically looking at the national security
implications of global climate change.
Having said this, I must admit I came to the Advisory Board
as a skeptic and I am not sure some of the others didn't as
well.
After we listened to leaders of the scientific, business
and governmental communities, both I and my colleagues came
to agree that global climate change is and will be a
significant threat to our national security. The potential
destabilizing impacts of global climate change include
reduced access to fresh water, impaired food production,
health issues, especially from vector and food-borne
diseases, and land loss, flooding and so forth, and the
displacement of major populations. And overall, we view these
phenomena as related to failed states, growth of terrorism,
mass migrations, and greater regional and inter-regional
instability.
The findings of the board are:
First, projected climate change poses a serious threat to
America's national security. Potential national threats to
the Nation--potential threats to the Nation's security
require careful study and prudent planning.
Second, climate change acts as a threat multiplier for
instability in some of the most volatile regions of the
world.
Third, projected climate change will add to tensions even
in stable regions of the world.
Fourth, climate change, national security and energy
dependence are a related set of global challenges.
The recommendations of the board are, first, that we cannot
wait for certainty. In this issue, there maybe a lack of
certainty for some, but there is certainly no lack of
challenges. And in our view, failing to act because a warning
isn't precise would be imprudent.
Second, the United States should commit to a stronger
national and international role to help stabilize climate
changes at levels which will avoid significant disruption to
global stability and security, and third, we should commit to
global partnerships to work in that regard.
Climate change, national security, and energy dependence
are all inter-related. Simply hoping that these relationships
will remain static is simply not acceptable given our
training and experience as military leaders. I think hoping
that everything is going to be great probably won't work, at
least in our view.
I would say that most of us on the Military Advisory Board
were in the military service of the United States of America
for over 30 years, most of it during the Cold War. High
levels of catastrophe could have occurred if we didn't invest
in military preparedness and awareness of the threats we
faced.
In conclusion, you never have 100 percent certainty on the
battlefield. We never have it. If you wait until you have 100
percent certainty, something terrible is going to happen. As
such, now is the time to act on the critical issue of climate
change.
Admiral Lopez
My name is ADM Joe Lopez and my naval career has included
tours as commander-in-chief of U.S. Naval Forces Europe and
commander-in-chief, Allied Forces, Southern Europe from 1996
to 1998. I commanded all U.S. and Allied Bosnia Peace Keeping
Forces in 1996; and served as deputy chief of naval
operations for resources, warfare requirements and
assessments in 1994 to 1996.
National security involves much more than just military
strength. National security is affected by political,
military, cultural and economic elements. These elements
overlap, to one degree or another, and every major issue in
the international arena contains all of them. And climate
change has an impact on each of them. This will be
particularly more pronounced in the world's most volatile
regions, where environmental and natural resource challenges
have added greatly to the existing political, economic and
cultural tensions. The instabilities that already exist will
create a fertile ground for extremism--and these
instabilities are likely to be exacerbated by global climate
change.
If you look at the Middle East, it has long been a tinder
box of conflict. The natural environment of this region is
dominated by two important natural resources--oil because of
its abundance, and water because of its scarcity. Climate
change has the potential to exacerbate tensions over water as
precipitation patterns decrease, projected to decline as much
60 percent in some areas. This suggests even more trouble in
a region of fragile governments and infrastructures and
historical animosities among countries and religious groups.
Another challenge of climate change is projected sea level
rise. Couple this threat with a predicted increase in violent
storms and the threat to coastal regions is real. Not only is
this a threat to homeland security as a response mechanism,
but some of our most critical infrastructure for trade,
energy and defense are located on our coasts. A more concrete
example of expected sea level rise affecting national
security and our strategic military installations can be
seen in low-lying islands, such as Diego Garcia, which is
a critical base of support for our Middle East operations.
Climate change is a ``threat multiplier.''
These are a few examples of how the expected effects of
climate change can lead to increased stress on populations
and increased strife among countries. We believe that climate
change, national security and energy dependence are a related
set of global challenges.
With my remaining time, I'd like to make three
observations:
The first is to highlight that link between climate change
and energy security. One can describe our current energy
supply as finite and foreign. Continued dependence on
overseas fossil fuel energy supplies, and our addiction to
them, cause a great loss of leverage in the international
arena. Ironically, a focus on climate change may actually
help us on this count. We should leverage technology and
extract and exploit our natural resources including coal to
make it safe and environmentally friendly. Nuclear power can
be exploited. The Navy has been safely doing this for years.
Key elements of the solution set for climate change are the
same ones we would use to gain energy security.
Second, this issues is great and the U.S. alone cannot
solve it. If we in our Nation do everything right--assuming
we know what is right--the hazards of global climate change
would not be solved. China and India are integral to the
global solution. We must engage them.
My third point: For military leaders, the first
responsibility is to fight and win. The highest and best form
of victory for one's nation involves meeting the objectives
without actually having to resort to conflict. It takes a
great deal of investment, planning, strategy, resources and
moral courage. But the prevention of conflict is the goal.
Finally, our security revolves around issues that are
political, economic, cultural and military in nature. We have
concluded that the potential effects of climate change
warrant serious national attention. As General Sullivan has
mentioned, national security and the threat of climate change
is real, and we can either pay for it now, or pay even more
for it later.
Mr. WARNER. So Mr. President, there again we have laid another
building block, bringing to the attention of the American people their
own security here at home, their own armed services who are called upon
to address these problems now and in the coming years.
Now, I have no basis and I will not state that the tragic weather
change that hit Burma and is taking tens upon tens of thousands of
lives should be put in a category now of global climate change, but I
do point out that, at this very moment, we still have ships and
aircraft and men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces offshore ready to
move in with food and supplies and other things.
Our country, almost alone, is the one to which the world turns when
there is some sort of a crisis, and it is clear from the statements of
these two professionals that many of those crises can be generated by
these erratic climate changes.
Mr. President, I wish to yield the floor at this moment to my other
colleagues, but I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a
series of recognitions that the three of us want to state with regard
to our staffs and to a number of organizations that have come forward,
foremost among them the Pew Center--that was the one that provided us
with magnificent books on this--and many others across America that
came forward to participate in what we had hoped to be very extensive
debate on this issue. Nevertheless, they have laid the foundation, and
they will continue to lay a foundation upon which to build and build,
until we finally come to grips with a framework of the solutions as to
how this Nation is going to lead and deal
[[Page S5168]]
with the inevitable consequences of these climate changes.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Mr. President, my colleagues and I would not be here today
were it not for the incredible input and support from other
distinguished colleagues in the Senate, as well as a great
deal of organizations and companies that helped shape our
bill.
First, I would like to thank our esteemed cosponsors of the
Climate Security Act: Senators Dole, Coleman, Collins, Casey,
Bill Nelson, Cardin, Klobuchar, and Harkin. Their critical
input made the bill what it was.
I would like to thank all the members of the Environment
and Public Works Committee, but in particular, Senators
Baucus, Carper, Lautenberg, Barrasso and Isakson. Without
their help at critical junctures of the legislative process,
we would not have moved our bill to this point.
I would be remiss if I did not recognize my dear friends,
Senators Bingaman and Specter, whose bill we borrowed heavily
from and who highlighted such important issues as cost
containment and international competitiveness.
I thank our friends from the Northeast, Senators Kerry and
Snowe, who had their own bill that informed our process and
who adopted the substitute like it was their own, not only
cosponsoring the amendment, but drumming up support every
step of the way.
I thank my dear friend, Senator Alexander. While he doesn't
support our bill, he has contributed eloquently to the
debate.
Before I joined my partner Senator Lieberman, he had a
different partner. I must thank Senator McCain, who has been
a pioneer on this issue of global climate change.
This effort would not have been possible without my partner
and dear friend, Senator Joe Lieberman, and his fine staff,
in particular: David McIntosh, Joe Goffman, and Alex Barron.
I must thank Rayanne Bostick, who along with Anna Reilly of
my staff, helped coordinate so many meetings between myself
and the Senator from Connecticut.
I must thank our fearless chairman, Senator Boxer and her
staff: Bettina Poirier, Erik Olson, Eric Thu.
I thank the members of my own staff who worked tirelessly
on this bill: Carter Cornick, Chris Yianilos, Chelsea
Maxwell, John Frierson, Shari Gruenwald, Sandra Luff, Tack
Richardson, Mary Holloway, Hughes Bates, Bronwyn Lance
Chester, and Jonathan Murphy.
There were also a number of organizations and companies
whose input was invaluable to our work. The U.S. Climate
Action Partnership members were critical to our efforts. In
particular, I highlight: Alcoa, the Pew Center on Global
Climate Change, Exelon Corporation, Florida Power and Light,
General Electric, the National Wildlife Federation, NRG
Energy, BP America, DuPont, PG&E, and the Environmental
Defense Fund.
In addition, we received valuable advice from the Nicholas
Institute at Duke University and the National Commission on
Energy Policy.
If you were one of the numerous witnesses at one of our
full committee or subcommittee hearings, whatever your
perspective was, you informed the debate, and I thank you.
Mr. President, the problem with naming those who have
helped is that you inadvertently leave someone out. I am
eternally grateful for all the input we received.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Mr. LIEBERMAN addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I wish to thank my friend and colleague
from Virginia, Senator Warner. He is an extraordinary man and a great
Senator, and we are going to miss him. I wish I could convince him to
run again, but I think it is a little late, probably past the filing
dates. But he has been an extraordinary leader in so many ways,
particularly on matters of national security.
We first worked together when we cosponsored the resolution
authorizing President Bush 41 to go into the gulf war in 1991. We
served together on the Armed Services Committee. I have never met a
more patriotic American, a more honorable man, and it meant everything
to this whole effort when Senator Warner decided he wanted to be part
of the solution to the climate change problem.
I often tease him--but it shows the strength of this man--that on the
two times Senator McCain and I introduced an amendment on the floor to
do something about global warming, Senator Warner voted against it. And
I was with him one day when somebody in the media said: Why did you
change your mind? And he said: Two words--science, grandchildren. That
says it all about this great man.
I appreciate what he has just said. Nothing has driven John Warner's
career in the Senate and his service to America over decades more than
his commitment to protect our national security. And maybe I should add
a third word--science, grandchildren, national security--four words--
because it is his understanding that climate change, if we don't do
something about it, is going to compromise and threaten the national
security of the American people.
This conference we did this morning with General Sullivan and Admiral
Lopez I thought was stunning and stirring. These are two people who
served their country in uniform for decades. There was not a lot of
rhetoric there, just stating the facts. One of them said--I forget
which one; it might have been Admiral Lopez--``The best thing you can
do if you are a military person is to prevent conflict, prevent war.''
They see this legislation as a way to do that.
I hope my colleagues consider that. There is so much on the line,
with so much work that has been done by so many people. I am not just
talking about Senator Warner and myself and Chairman Boxer, who made
all the difference in her leadership. Our staffs, so many people
outside the Senate--environmentalists, business leaders, labor leaders,
hunters, anglers, leaders in the faith community--representing the
public will of the American people, asking us to do something to
protect them from global warming and its worst consequences.
The bill we brought forth, the Climate Security Act, none of us will
say it is perfect. Of course, it is not. I don't ever remember voting
for a perfect piece of legislation. But it is very good. It creates a
framework, a structure that will allow our country to begin a decades-
long effort. This will go decades and decades to solve this problem.
Future Congresses will come back and fix this where it didn't quite
work out the way we hoped. We have a lot of mechanisms in here, which
we have described earlier, to create fail-safes to protect our economy,
our environment, our national security.
With all that on the line, I have to say it is disappointing and
frustrating that parliamentary maneuvers and concerns about something
totally irrelevant to this once-in-a-career, once-in-a-lifetime
opportunity to do something to deal with this extraordinary challenge
for our future--that those kinds of irrelevant issues are standing in
the way, potentially, of a full debate on this matter.
Tomorrow morning we come to a real turn in the road. I think the
question is not whether you think this is a perfect bill but whether
you think it is a real good-faith effort to deal with the problem of
climate change and whether you want to say, by your vote, that you
believe climate change is a real problem and a real threat to our
future and you want to be part of a solution to the problem.
Some of my colleagues have said to me today, I wish to be part of the
solution to the problem, but I am now blocked from offering amendments.
I always said I would vote for the bill if certain amendments were
adopted.
That is not literally true. The fact is, as is the regular order in
the Senate, if you filed your amendment, as everybody was duly
notified, by 1 p.m. today, and cloture is granted tomorrow, that
amendment will be fully debated next week and in the days ahead.
But this is a moment to say the Senate is prepared, if not this year
then soon, to deal with this very real threat to our environment, our
economy, and our national security.
What is the rush, some people may say. Let me quote first from a
study by the Environmental Defense Fund that has found that each 2-year
delay in starting emissions reductions doubles the annual rate at which
we will need to reduce emissions by 2020 in order to ward off a global
catastrophe. Because of the way the climate responds to the buildup of
greenhouse gases, these gases stay trapped in the atmosphere. That is
the whole problem. Then the heat from the Earth, as it bounces up,
cannot go anywhere and it stays there and you have the greenhouse
effect that is clearly warming the planet.
The truth is, our children and our grandchildren are already going to
face, inevitably, consequences of global warming. What we are talking
about now is beginning to reduce the greenhouse gases, the carbon
pollution that
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causes the globe to warm, so the consequences that we, our children,
our grandchildren and succeeding generations of Americans and people
all over the world face are not disastrous or catastrophic, because
that is totally within the realm of the possible. Many scientists say
it is not only possible, it is probable, if we do not do anything soon.
So the longer we wait to start reducing this carbon pollution that is
trapped up there, the more sharply we will need to reduce them in order
to stay within our emissions budget, you might say.
Let me add, we have received an analysis from an economic modeling
firm called On Location. They used the model of the Energy Information
Administration of the Department of Energy of the Bush administration
on our Climate Security Act. Their analysis asks one simple question:
What would happen if we wait 10 years to enact the exact same policies
that are involved in the Climate Security Act, the exact same bill, to
achieve the same cumulative emissions reductions scientists say are
required to protect the climate? The results are striking, unsettling,
and I hope motivating for quick action.
Here is what this economic modeling firm found: That waiting 10 years
to start on emissions reductions increases the cost of emissions
allowances by 15 percent. Listen to this: It doubles the overall cost
of global warming to our economy.
Whatever my colleagues are trying to say about the cost of this
innovation-driving, market-based entrepreneurial incentive policy, are
they prepared to double that number through delay? Are they prepared to
saddle the American economy and our progeny with the burden of
increasingly severe and essentially irreversible climate impacts?
Finally, I wish to draw the attention of my colleagues to this graph,
this chart, this description of what is happening. In previous debates,
we have referred to the summer Arctic ice, the polar icecap. When we
started in our interest in whether there was global warming and what
its consequences might be and whether we should do something about it,
that was in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Then-Senator Al Gore, I
think, held some of the first hearings on this subject in 1988. Senator
Kerry was involved at the time and shortly thereafter. We had to use
computer models of projections the way the weather was going to go to
see what was happening and what might happen if we allowed the globe to
warm. But we now have technology, satellite pictures, and real evidence
to show us what impact global warming is having. It is not a theory
anymore, it is not a computer model anymore.
In earlier debates, these satellite pictures--this is from 2001--were
used. Here is the North Pole at the green spot. The red line on the
outside is where the polar icecap was in 1979. The white here is where
the polar icecap was in satellite pictures taken in 2003. It is 20
percent less than it was in 1979--20 percent of the polar icecaps in
2003 had already melted away.
If that doesn't begin to stir your concerns enough about what is
happening, go over here to the 2007 satellite picture. Again, the
exterior red line is where the polar icecaps were in 1979. Look at
this. In 5--well, 4 years but let's say 5 because there are parts of
those 2 years--in 5 years, the polar icecap has melted away to the
point where it is 40 percent less now than what it was in 1979. In
2003, it had lost 20 percent; in 2007, it has lost 40 percent.
I asked the scientific fellow in my office, Alex Barron--I wish to
give him credit. I said: So this is now raising the sea levels? He said
no. He taught me a lesson. I was one of those who at college took a
course called Science for Nonscience Majors, so I am still learning.
He said: No, the ice melts as if it was ice in a glass--it sits as if
it was ice in a glass. It has air in it, and when it ultimately melts,
because the water is warming, the total amount of water will be about
the same because this ice is all in the water, the polar icecap is in
the water.
But here are two things. One is, the fact that the icecap is melting
obviously shows something is happening there, that the warmth is
causing it to melt. But here is the danger. Here is Greenland. There
the ice is on land, it is not in the water. I have now been taught,
when the polar icecap diminishes by 40 percent, the capacity of the
ice--just like wearing a white shirt--to reflect the sunlight and
reduce the impact on the temperature diminishes. In other words, the
water warms and warms the entire environment and the real danger there
is that the ice on land, in Greenland, will begin to melt. When that
begins to melt--which the scientists tell us will surely happen unless
we reduce the amount of carbon pollution we are putting into the
atmosphere--then we are in real danger because then sea levels will
begin to rise--some scientists say with a suddenness that will create
catastrophic results. I do not know that. But I can tell you some
credible scientists have told us that.
While the Senate fiddles, the globe warms. We can have these silly
parliamentary debates, and we can get into side partisan fights about
nominations, but this process is going on and getting worse, with
potentially catastrophic consequences for the United States of America
and particularly, of course, as Greenland would melt, to the enormous
coastal regions of our country.
There has been a pattern of human behavior in America over the last
century. People are moving to the coasts. It is where they want to be.
They and their lifestyles are going to be threatened in the most
consequential way unless we do something about that.
We have come a long way in this year. I am not ready to give up about
the cloture vote tomorrow, but I understand the realities and I urge my
colleagues, as they consider how to vote on it, to see this as your
opportunity to say--not whether this Climate Security Act is a perfect
bill but whether you, No. 1, accept the reality of global warming; No.
2, want to do something about it and believe that a cap-and-trade
system--nobody has come out in this debate and offered any other way to
do it. As a matter of fact, a lot of our most severe critics have said
cap and trade is actually the way to do it, but they don't like this
part of the way we have done it or that part of the way we have done
it. We welcome that debate. But this is a moment to say whether you
want to do something to stop this clear and present danger to the
security of the American people or whether you want to continue to
fiddle while the globe burns.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Nelson of Nebraska). The Senator from
California.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, how much time remains on our side?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 34 minutes remaining.
Mrs. BOXER. I would like to speak for about 20 minutes, and then I
would like to yield up to 10 minutes to Senator Salazar.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mrs. BOXER. Colleagues, let me tell you where we are. Your
Environment and Public Works Committee, for the first time, voted out a
landmark bill, the Lieberman-Warner bill. We did that after 25
hearings. We had everyone come before us. It was extraordinary. From
the leading scientists, to State government officials, to mayors, to
business leaders, to folks who run utilities, to religious leaders, it
was extraordinary--environmental organizations.
We listened and we asked questions and we voted. Now, the day that
Senator Warner decided he believed part of his legacy on national
security had to include global warming, he stepped out and he came to
me, after he had already talked to Senator Lieberman, and said: I want
to be on this team. He said: I will be with you through thick and thin.
We have had thick and we have had thin. We have had great moments and
tough moments. And we are kind of in a tough moment now because we so
want to complete work on this bill. It is going to be a very tough road
for us to be able to do that.
I went over to my friend, Senator Warner, and I told him, first of
all, what a joy it has been to work with him on this because our lives
in the Senate have kind of taken us in different directions. But now,
we finally had a chance to work together. You could not have a better
colleague. You could not have a more loyal friend.
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When he says something, he sticks with it.
We have created this troika, a tripartisan troika, which I think has
been a very good experience for all of us. I told him, because he has
several months remaining in the Senate, that when he leaves, I hope he
will become a worldwide spokesperson for action in this area.
There are very few people who bring to the table the national
security experience and his new knowledge now that he has absorbed on
this issue of global warming or climate change. I do not know if he
will do that, but if he does it, I think it is going to make an
enormous contribution as Senator Lieberman and I are here battling
every day with a new President of the United States to try to get
something done. So I hope he will consider that.
So many people did help us. Senator Warner alluded to our staffs. I
want to name a few names now. This is just a few of the people: Bettina
and Erik of my staff, David and Joe of Senator Lieberman's staff, and
Chelsea and Chris of Senator Warner's staff, and their staffs that
report to them.
There was extraordinary dedication, sleeplessness, early morning
phone calls. To get to this point is so difficult. And not one second
has been wasted because as we get this landmark bill in place, we will
take off where we left, and where we left is just a tremendous amount
of knowledge, so many of our Senators getting involved. It has really
been a heart-warming experience.
That is why it is tough to get to the point where we are now because
we are ready, ready to finish this job, ready to work with our friends.
But we are going to try to see how many votes we can get for cloture.
We urge our friends and colleagues to please say yes to continuing this
important topic.
Senator Lieberman, I think by showing these maps and showing us the
ice melt--by the way, many members of our committee, we led a trip to
Greenland. Imagine. I say to my friends who might be listening to this,
imagine this. An iceberg that is larger than the Senate Chamber,
floating, floating toward the ocean. The average age of this iceberg,
9,000 years old. Imagine this. Average age, 9,000 years old. Within 1
year, that iceberg will be nothing but water. And we know what that
means. Seas will rise. It is happening faster than we thought.
When we have this debate, our opponents come down, and they do not
talk about climate change. They do not talk about it. They haven't
challenged us on our basic premise that we have a problem. They switch
the topic to what I think is a made-up topic. And it is sad because the
Senate deserves more than that.
I don't know how many times I have said it, but I have to say it
again because there is a big advertising campaign against what is
called the Lieberman-Warner bill. I suppose I am lucky they did not put
Boxer in that one. They have said gas prices, because of this bill, are
going to go to $8 a gallon, and this morning, $28 a gallon. These
people are making things up. These people are making things up. Even
the Bush administration, who opposes us, said the worst case scenario
is 2 cents a year on the pump for 20 years.
We know because we have done the calculations that the fuel economy
bill we passed will offset that increase. So this bill brings no
increase. Indeed, this bill will get us off foreign oil, will get us
away from big oil. We will have alternatives for once, and we will be
free.
We will not have to have our President go to Saudi Arabia and hold
hands with the Prince and beg. This is not necessary if we allow
technology to move forward. So I am going to show you again. This is
annoying that I have to keep doing this, but I think it is important.
In the last 7 years, we have seen gas prices go up 250 percent, 82
cents since January--82 cents.
My friends are coming down here, and suddenly the opponents of the
bill are saying: Watch out, gas prices will rise. When truly, honestly,
they have not offered anything, in my view, to try and resolve the
terrible increases we have seen until now. So let's get rid of that
bogus issue.
We are on the precipice. We are on the moment. If we do this bill, we
will finally have alternatives to oil, and we will get off our
addiction to oil, as the President said we should. We will have
cellulosic fuel. We will be able to see new kinds of automobiles. We
are really there right now. Senator Sanders was eloquent today. There
is a plug-in hybrid that can get 150 miles to the gallon. That is all
going to happen with a bill like this one. I want to thank also the
groups that have worked so hard to help us, the environmental groups,
the faith-based groups.
I thank right now GEN Gordon Sullivan who came to the press
conference that both my colleagues alluded to this morning. I have a
copy of his statement. Did you place it in the Record, Senator?
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I have placed into the Record the
statement of General Sullivan and Admiral Lopez.
Mrs. BOXER. I would think that General Sullivan's credentials are
impeccable. He said: Yes, climate change and national security and
energy independence are all interrelated. Simply hoping that these
relationships will remain static is not acceptable, given our training
and experience as military leaders.
And then he says: Because, as you know, we have been told that the
scientists have 90 percent certainty. He addresses that at the end.
He says:
In conclusion, you never have 100 percent certainty on the
battlefield. We never have it. If you wait until you have 100
percent certainty, something terrible is going to happen. As
such, now is the time to act on the critical issue of climate
change.
Now this did not come from Senator Warner, Senator Lieberman, Senator
Boxer; it did not come from Al Gore; it did not come from Tony Blair--
all of whom are fighting hard. This came from a general with years of
experience on the battlefield.
We must act now. I think I would like to go to this chart. Waiting 2
years to act will double the annual rate at which we must cut
emissions. In other words, you have a problem, and the longer you wait,
the harder it is because the carbon goes into the atmosphere and stays
there.
So we get further and further behind. Look at this. A May 2008 study
by Tufts University economists found that the annual costs of not
addressing global warming, not addressing it, by 2100, could be $422
billion in hurricane damage, $360 billion in real estate losses, $141
billion in increased energy costs.
Let me say that again: $141 billion in increased energy costs if we
do not do something about it; $950 billion in water costs.
So if we do not act now, it is going to cost us. And we have to
devise a way, through cap and trade, which I will not go into the
details of, that essentially says: Those who are the biggest emitters
will pay for permits to pollute.
What do we do with those funds? I have a chart to show you what we
will do with those funds. Most of it goes to the following: tax relief.
In the early years, we are concerned that we may see energy,
electricity costs go up before we get into the energy efficiency we
want.
The next big amount is consumer relief through utilities and State
actions. That is second. So when our utility bills start going up,
utility companies have the right to write on that bill ``credit'' so we
stay whole.
Deficit reduction, that is another big piece. We wanted it to be
deficit neutral. I have to laugh--I think it was Senator Kyl and
Senator McConnell who said this is a tax bill. Let me get this squared
away. Our bill is a huge tax cut, huge consumer relief, not a penny of
a tax increase.
What else do we do? Workers assistance. We make sure our workers are
trained for new jobs. Local government action, they are going to do
something. For example, if they are going to take their offices and
make them energy efficient, we want to help them.
Low-carbon technology and efficiency, we know what that means. We
know the low-carbon energy sources are going to get funds.
Agricultural resources and forestry are going to get funds. National
security and international are going to get funds. Transition
assistance to emitters. In other words, we say to those who pollute,
those who emit: You are going to have to buy permits. But in the
beginning, we help them with that.
So, look, about more than half of this goes straight back to the
consumers
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and the other parts go to technology. That is what this bill does.
Why are the opponents of this bill afraid to have a debate? I do not
understand it. At first we heard they wanted the debate because they
believed they could defeat us if they talked about how this bill would
result in higher gas prices.
Frankly, between Senator Warner, Senator Lieberman, Senator Snowe,
myself, Senator Kerry, the Senators who have been on the floor, I think
we definitely debunked that point. We said it is a humpty-dumpty
argument. We are right on the precipice of getting off of foreign oil
and big oil. We are on the precipice of these new technologies with
this bill.
We are on the precipice of moving toward energy independence finally.
We have been talking about it since I was a much younger person, and
now, finally, we can do it. And what happens. We have to cut the debate
short when we are ready to get the job done.
Well, this is a national security issue. It is a religious and moral
issue. This is an issue of tremendous import for our grandchildren, for
our children. This issue strikes me as one that is a win-win for
everyone because when you address global warming and you save the
planet, which is what we must do, we finally have the impetus to get to
that energy independence. We finally have the impetus to say, you know,
we can be controlling, we can be controlling of our own future. It is a
great picture for our children to see.
I honestly think if we do nothing, we will be on the wrong side of
history. I want to say to my friends in State government, from the east
coast to the west coast to the middle of America, keep up what you are
doing. You are doing the right thing. You can't wait for us. It may not
happen today, but we are catching up with you.
I say to my friends at the Conference of Mayors, Republicans and
Democrats and Independents who support this bill: Thank you for your
support. Keep on doing what you are doing. You are in the leadership.
You are on the ground. We are coming soon. We have two Presidential
candidates who care about this issue. When one of them gets to the
White House, they will be here negotiating with us. That is going to
make a big difference, that is for sure.
I want to close by showing a great chart that says ``Yes.'' This is
the moment for us to say yes to energy independence, yes to our
children, yes to the science, yes to a diversified energy future, yes
to American manufacturing, yes to saving the planet, yes to consumer
protection, yes to new technologies, yes to a strong economy, yes to
State and local action, yes to public health, yes to tax relief, yes to
transit, yes to a level playing field, and yes to American leadership--
there are a lot of yeses on here--and, of course, yes on the cloture
petition which will allow us to get to the substitute and get to the
bill.
I reserve the remainder of my time and turn now to Senator Salazar. I
thank my colleagues all.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Klobuchar). The Senator from Colorado.
Mr. SALAZAR. Madam President, let me acknowledge the great work of
Chairman Boxer and my good friends and colleagues, Senators Warner and
Lieberman. They were two members of the Gang of 14 who brought the
Senate back from the brink of disaster, now almost 2 years ago. I
admire them as good friends and as people who have helped lead us out
of difficult times. Senator Boxer from California is unequaled in terms
of her passion for our planet and environment. I appreciate the
thoughtfulness, the bipartisan approach they have taken to deal with
what is truly one of the central issues of our time.
I want to spend a few minutes, as we come to the end of our debate on
global warming, to say how important this issue is for me. When I get
up in the morning and I think of my job as a Senator, I think about the
major issues we face around the world. We face issues of war and peace
and how we have to deal with terrorism. We face the issue of how we
deal with energy independence. Many of us here have joined in a
bipartisan effort, progressives and conservatives together, an effort
we describe as ``setting America free.'' We know the huge issue of
health care which confounds and confronts so many people. But among
those issues, which are the greatest of our time, is the reality that
we are frying our planet, as many people have said. We have not
developed a framework to move forward to make sure we save our planet,
that we save civilization for our children and grandchildren. The world
they know, the planet they will know in 2050 and 2100, when none of us
are here, will be the kind of planet where we have preserved what we
know as God's creation on Earth.
The importance of this issue is unparalleled. It is something I
believe we should be able to move forward with.
I want to illustrate this in a couple of different ways. First, with
respect to water, for the State of Colorado and the arid West--and I
know in the State of the former Presiding Officer, Nebraska, because we
share the South Platte River and its waters--we know the importance of
water. Water is the lifeblood of the West. Without water, we know
communities and fields will dry up and die. We have seen that happen in
many cases around the West.
This is a picture of a place in eastern Colorado where we have had
severe drought over the last 7 years. You see what happens to what
would have been a great crop of corn which a farmer planted, knowing
that he would harvest this crop of corn at some point in time. But
because of severe droughts we have had on the eastern plains, this
field died. There are so many places in the arid West where that same
story could be told.
There are seven States that share the water of the Colorado River.
Much of that water is born in my State of Colorado, as the mother of
many rivers, including the Colorado River, and places such as Wyoming
and Utah. As those seven States, with a population of 30 million
people, depend on the flow of water on the Colorado River, we are
seeing challenges there that we have never seen before. The flows in
the Colorado River for the last several years have been at an all-time
low over the last 100 years because of the record drought we are seeing
on the Colorado River. Lake Mead, which is one of the controlling
vessels on which we depend to regulate the flow of water on the
Colorado River, will never fill again. That is what the scientists are
telling us today.
So as we look at the reality of water across the West, it is
impressive that organizations that are not Democratic or left leaning
or so-called environmental organizations are coming to me and saying:
You need to do something about global warming. You and the Congress and
the new President have to do something about the issue of global
warming.
The ski industry in Colorado, in places from Vail to Aspen to
Steamboat, is saying: We are concerned about global warming because the
snow that is the essence of our having the best ski programs in the
entire world is in danger. The water users, the Denver Water Board, the
Northern Water Conservancy District, the Southwest Water Conservancy
District, are telling us we need to do something about water.
I believe global warming has a lot of different consequences, if it
goes unaddressed. I am hopeful this Senate will have the courage to
move forward and address the reality of global warming. There is a
connection here to our planetary security, but also to our national
security in terms of energy. I agree there are some good things we have
already done as a Senate in a bipartisan way, under the leadership of
Senators Bingaman and Domenici, with passage of the 2005 act and the
2006 Energy bill and, most recently, with passage of the 2007 Energy
Independence and Security Act. The CAFE standards we included in that
bill alone will save huge amounts of consumption of fossil fuels and
will save us from emitting thousands upon thousands of tons of carbon
into the atmosphere. Those are good things that we have done, but our
work is far from finished. We must do more.
The way of doing more is by making sure that we put a cap on carbon
in the United States. Some people say: How can you do that in the
United States, because you can't control China and the fact that they
are building a coal-fired powerplant, one a week, or you can't control
what is happening in India? But there is a reality for us as
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Americans: We must lead. We must have the courage to take the first
steps so that then the rest of the world will be able to follow us, so
we can address the issue of global warming in an effective way.
I don't believe this bill is a perfect bill. I have four or five very
important amendments I want to be considered. I could not vote for this
bill as it is currently structured, because there are improvements that
have to be made. But that is the nature of the legislative process. I
would like to have the opportunity to have my colleagues join us in a
debate so we could improve upon this bill and make it much better. I
will cite three areas where I believe we need to make improvements on
this legislation. I have others.
The first is renewable energy. I do not believe the allocation tables
included in the Boxer substitute are the allocation tables that are
appropriately supportive of a renewable energy future. I have seen a
renewable energy revolution taking place in Colorado over the last 3
years, where we are now generating over 1,000 megawatts of electric
power from wind, harnessing the power of the Sun, doing things with
biofuels we have never done before. I am proud of what is going on in
Colorado. I would like to see those allocation tables changed so we put
a much greater emphasis on renewable energy.
Secondly, coal for us, in many States, including the West, is very
much what oil is to Saudi Arabia. We have vast amounts of coal, not
only in my State but obviously to the north in Wyoming and Montana. I
believe there is a future for clean coal technologies through the
methods of carbon capture and sequestration. Yet it is money that has
kept us from moving forward with a demonstration of those projects.
That technology shows great promise. It is my hope that we could amend
this legislation to move forward with carbon capture and sequestration
in a more effective way.
Finally, I do not agree that there is sufficient recognition of the
contribution that farmers and ranchers can make with their bioproducts.
It is those products that end up consuming the very carbon dioxide we
are now emitting into the atmosphere. We need to offer amendments with
respect to the agricultural offsets that are included in this bill to
make them a much more effective way of helping us address the carbon
problem we have.
Let me conclude by saying to my colleagues once again: I have the
utmost and greatest respect for my leaders and my role models--John
Warner, Joe Lieberman, Barbara Boxer--for the work they have done, for
having brought us to this point on this legislation. If given the
opportunity, and if we can have a robust debate on the floor of the
Senate on global warming, we can make this bill a much better bill. We
can put the United States in a position of leadership where we address
the issue of carbon, we address the issue of global warming, and we
save our planet and civilization.
I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is 6 minutes remaining.
Mr. WARNER. Madam President, I wonder if I might take 3 and my
distinguished colleague from Connecticut, the senior partner of this
partnership, would have the final few words to say.
I thank our colleague from Colorado. How much I have enjoyed, through
the years he has been here, how he has stopped at every opportunity to
talk about the land, the farm that is in his family, and his love for
the land and the outdoors. He speaks from the standpoint that he has
tended that land and loves it. He wants to preserve that land for
future generations. I commend him.
This debate has laid strong building blocks for the future. We have
worked our way through the issues of the science. We have worked our
way through how national security is linked to this subject. We have
worked our way through the fact that technology must be encouraged in
every possible way to accommodate the capture, transportation, and
eventual sequestration of CO2, this greenhouse gas that is
affecting the atmosphere. That technology needs a known, dedicated,
constant--underline ``constant''--stream of funding. Whatever global
climate exchange comes up, eventually the Congress of the United States
must put in a clear understanding that we are going to fund and have
that funding stream go to provide for the needs of the technology to
come up with the answer to this question. Our several States--another
building block--each of the States, in its own individual way, is doing
things. We commend them. But the United States must step up and lead.
Lastly, we must devise clearly a policy toward other nations in the
world--nations we trade with, nations we otherwise have relationships
with. We are all in this together. Sharing of the hardships must be
common among those nations. We cannot ask the citizens of our Nation to
accept a level of sacrifice greater than that which would be accepted
by other leading nations of the world.
I am very proud of what has been done. I am humble to have had a
small part in laying this foundation.
I yield the floor to my colleague.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, again, I thank my friend from
Virginia. I get a kick out of him calling me his senior colleague on
this matter. We are at least equal. I say to my colleague, I consider
you to be the leader because without your decision to be part of the
effort to come up with a solution to this problem, this bill would not
have moved out of committee. It is the first time ever that has
happened. So I thank you for your strong words. I thank you for
everything you have done. We are going to keep you in this fight next
year. We are going to figure out a way to do it.
I also thank Senator Salazar.
Mr. WARNER. Madam President, I say to the Senator, you are the
chairman of the subcommittee. Senator Boxer is chairman of the full
committee.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Yes.
Mr. WARNER. I am the ranking member of the subcommittee.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Only in name. I consider you to be the person who made
it possible for us to get where we are.
Madam President, I thank Senator Salazar for his statement. I think
it perfectly summed up the decision that our colleagues in the Senate
are going to have tomorrow on the vote on cloture, because Senator
Salazar said it: This is a problem. He showed us the concerns he has
about the land and water of his beloved State of Colorado and the
impact of global warming on those necessary-to-life, fundamental-to-
life elements in Colorado.
He also said he basically thinks this is a good-faith approach. He
likes the basic architecture of our bill. But he has a lot of things he
would like to change about it to make it better. But he is going to
vote for cloture tomorrow because he does not want to end the debate.
He knows all the amendments filed, as is our rule, prior to 1 p.m.
today will come up for debate. They are presumably subject to second-
degree amendments as the debate goes on. He does not want the debate to
end.
If it ends tomorrow, he wants his last statement this year, by his
vote tomorrow, to be that he wants to be part of a solution to the
carbon pollution that is warming our globe and a lot of us believe is
endangering the future of our country, our people, and the people of
the world.
So this is a big problem that requires a big solution. I hate to see
it get stopped by small worries. We are here to legislate. We are here
to debate. We are here to amend. The body can work its will. If you do
not think this is a perfect measure, come on out and make it better.
The only way you are going to be able to do that is by voting for
cloture tomorrow.
I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.
Mr. BUNNING. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the
speakers during this hour controlled by Senator Inhofe be the
following: Senator Bunning, Senator Vitter, Senator Corker, Senator
Sessions, Senator Domenici, and Senator Inhofe.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Kentucky.
Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, please, this is a parliamentary inquiry
and not to be taken away from the time of my friends. I just found out
when we did our unanimous consent request it was not clarified that
following the Republican side, Senator
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Boxer or her designee would have 5 minutes, followed by Senator Inhofe
or his designee to have 5 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mrs. BOXER. Thank you.
Mr. INHOFE. Very good.
Then, Madam President, one thing further: The Senator from Kentucky
did not mention the times. I want to make sure all of our speakers on
our side know we are going to hold them to the times because we have
more speakers than we have time. Thank you.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the request from the
Senator from Kentucky?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Kentucky.
Mr. BUNNING. Thank you, Madam President.
I am here on the floor today because this mandatory cap-and-trade
bill represents the greatest threat to the American economy I have seen
since my fellow Kentuckians first elected me to represent them in 1986.
We have had 30 years to address the energy crisis in America. In 1974,
we got the first shot across the bow, and the balance of power in the
world shifted from the oil consumers to the oil producers. We looked at
domestic production and alternative fuels. But when the crash in the
1980s came, so did our investment in future sources.
But what is the biggest achievement of this Congress? Stopping 70,000
barrels of oil from going into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. We
could have had a million barrels a day right now from Alaska if
President Bill Clinton had signed our legislation to open ANWR in 1995.
What about the need for clean nuclear energy? Thanks to the majority
leader and environmental groups, we have spent decades working on Yucca
Mountain and still do not have the waste reserve we need for a strong
nuclear energy industry.
The last thing America needs today is another energy mistake.
The reason this climate change legislation is on the floor today is
simple: It is fear. The Democrats in Congress want you to be afraid.
They want you to be afraid that manmade emissions will cause massive
hurricanes, raise sea levels, prolong droughts, and kill off endangered
species.
I am not standing here telling you we should not protect the
environment or that manmade carbon emissions have not increased. I am
telling you that carbon emissions are a function of economic growth and
technology. It means jobs, cars, and energy. When I look at these
emissions, I do not know what role they play in overall climate change
relative to other natural effects such as solar radiation.
For a minute, let's say the carbon issue needs immediate action. What
will we get from passing this legislation? If all the world's
industrial nations were to completely comply with familiar or similar
ambitious goals, the climate change would be seven one-hundredths of 1
degree Celsius cooler in 20 years. Such a small change occurs naturally
all the time. From Sun spots to forest fires to volcanic activity,
nature does much more on its own day to day.
So what is the point of the climate change bill? The Democrats in
Congress want you to pay more for energy so you drive less, buy smaller
cars, and use less electricity. They are telling Americans they know
better and want the Government to manage their money for the good of
the environment.
This bill would raise $5.6 trillion for the Government over the next
40 years. Let me say that again: $5.6 trillion. This money does not
magically appear in the Government coffers; it comes out of your
pockets. The supporters of this bill will try to tell you it comes from
oil companies, utilities, or any number of other people. But they are
just straw men. That is not how our economy works. American consumers
are going to get stuck with this bill. It means natural gas prices
doubling. It means gasoline prices 30 to 40 percent higher--and it
costs $4 a gallon for regular unleaded gasoline today--than they would
have been. It means electric costs between 40 and 120 percent more.
In my home State of Kentucky, the average family will spend $324 more
for electricity every year, $133 more for natural gas, and $397 more
for their gasoline. That is per year. So I want everyone in America to
take a look at your last month's bills. Can you afford to double your
natural gas bills, add a dollar for every gallon of gasoline you buy,
and add $50 to the average electricity bill? Many of us cannot do it.
Now, think about paying that money every month, every year, for the
next 40 years. That is your share of the $5.6 trillion Uncle Sam will
take because of this legislation.
What will happen to all of the money you send to us here in
Washington? Under this bill, there is a $5.6 trillion cost over 40
years, and the Government will spend it on new programs, $566 billion
to the States--back to all 50 States--$237 billion for wildlife, $342
billion to foreign countries--figure that one out. I cannot.
Let me make it clear: Democrats and the environmentalists are trying
to scare Americans into adopting legislation that will take money out
of their pockets to pay for new Government programs that could decrease
global thermal temperatures by seven one-hundredths of 1 degree over 20
years. And these changes are only estimates. They are not backed by
conclusive evidence. Respected scientists disagree about the true
effect increased emissions will have in coming decades. Just 20 years
ago, some of these same scientists came to the Capitol warning us of an
ice age. Can you believe that? Twenty years ago.
If this tax-and-spend plan based on incomplete science does not sound
bad enough, it only gets worse. Based on several studies, nearly 4
million Americans will lose their jobs because of this legislation. A
cap-and-trade program would force many industries, such as steel,
automotive, aluminum, cement, and others, to take their jobs to other
countries where energy costs are lower and environmental regulations
are looser.
Let's look at the airlines as an example of what could happen to
American jobs because of this bill. Based on current projections, the
airline industry expects to pay $62 billion for jet fuel in 2008. That
is $20 billion more than they paid last year, or about a 50-percent
increase.
Let's look at this chart I have in the Chamber. In response to this
price shift, eight airlines have gone completely out of business in the
last 6 months and another is operating in bankruptcy. Eight are out of
business. Thirty cities lose service, and 9,000 jobs are eliminated. To
make it worse, the Democrats in Congress have stopped efforts to
address this crisis in the airline industry.
I have proposed incentives for coal-to-jet-fuel facilities that would
produce clean-burning aviation fuel with carbon capture technology at
less than half of the current cost of oil: $65 a barrel. If we had
invested in alternative jet fuel technology, maybe we could have saved
the thousands of jobs that are now in jeopardy.
Think about what you would feel if you were laid off because of high
oil prices or if you had to choose between the grocery store and
filling your truck with gasoline. Now imagine your congressional
representative deliberately voted to make things worse. It is not just
about American jobs and dollars and cents. America could bring its
greenhouse gas emissions to zero and it would not reverse the growth in
worldwide emissions, thanks to rapid expansion in China and India and
other developing countries.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is notified that he has used 10
minutes.
Mr. BUNNING. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent for 3 more
minutes.
Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I have to object.
I am going to object, as I said earlier, to any of our speakers going
over because they would be doing that at the expense of those who have
not had a chance to speak. So let me renew that unanimous consent
request, that the times for the next speakers will be Senator Vitter
for 10 minutes, Senator Corker for 10 minutes, Senator Sessions for 5
minutes, Senator Domenici for 15 minutes, Senator Inhofe for 10
minutes, then Senator Boxer for 5 minutes, and Senator Inhofe for 5
minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Before the Senator from Louisiana speaks, the Chair wishes to make an
announcement.
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