[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 134 (Tuesday, September 22, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9648-S9650]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             CLIMATE CHANGE

  Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, let me thank the Senator from California 
for allowing me to go first in this group that I am sure will appear 
down here to talk in morning business.
  As the cap and trade continues to languish in the Senate, President 
Obama is trying to salvage international climate change talks that are 
on the brink of collapse. So he gave a

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climate change speech at the United Nations, hoping to inspire hope in 
the process marred by failure. His speech, however, fell short of 
expectations, offering only to talk of rising sea levels and climate 
refugees, sort of resurrecting things that have been refuted in the old 
Gore speeches.
  President Obama's speeches have been delivered against a backdrop of 
confusion and disagreement in the international community over climate 
change. The European Union is angry that the Senate is stalling cap and 
trade. China and India refuse to accept binding emissions cuts. The New 
York Times admits that global temperatures ``have been stable for a 
decade and may even drop in the next few years.'' In other words, we 
are actually in a cooling period right now, maybe not as dramatic as 
the one I recall back so well in 1975, when they said another ice age 
is coming, nonetheless it is cooler. We are not involved in global 
warming right now.
  He was addressing the global economic recession that has taken 
precedence over climate change in countries throughout the world. This 
global economic recession is one that has captured the interest of the 
people all over the world and has them looking to see: Is this science 
really there that they were talking about, going all the way back to 
the late 1990s and the Kyoto treaty? This is deja vu all over again. 
These are some of the same issues that have stymied climate talks ever 
since Kyoto.
  We were told all rancor and disagreement would evaporate once the new 
administration assumed power in the United States. After all, the 
failure to achieve an international climate pact was simply George 
Bush's fault. President Obama would bring change and the ability to 
persuade the likes of China and India to transcend their national self-
interest for the global good. That has not happened and is not going to 
happen.
  I was surprised President Obama failed to define what success will 
mean in Copenhagen, so I will have to do it for him. From the 
standpoint of the Senate, success will not mean a vague, open-ended 
commitment on the emissions from India or China, the world's leading 
emitter. Success can only mean that China and other developing 
countries agree to mandatory emission cuts comparable to those required 
in America and that any treaty or agreement that did not avoid causing 
harm to our economy would not be acceptable. Unless those conditions 
are met, no such treaty or agreement will be approved by the Senate.
  I remember the Senate resoundingly rejected exempting developing 
nations such as China way back in 1997. That is still alive today. It 
passed 94 to 0. It said we will not agree to any treaty. At that time, 
Vice President Gore had signed the Kyoto treaty. They were trying to 
encourage us to ratify that treaty. President Clinton never brought it 
to the floor. It is because we had spoken loudly and clearly with a 
unanimous vote in the Senate that said we are not going to ratify 
anything that either doesn't force the developing countries such as 
India and China to have the same requirements as we have or that hurts 
us economically. That is the position--it was then and is today--of the 
U.S. Senate. I think that still commands support in the Senate. Any 
treaty the Obama administration submits must meet that resolution.
  We hear that China is making progress in reducing emissions and that 
the administration will persuade China to agree to more aggressive 
steps in Copenhagen.
  By the way, that is where they have the annual meeting, the big bash 
the United Nations puts on. I went to one of those back in about 2003, 
I guess it was, in Milan, Italy.
  The administrations's climate change envoy, Todd Stern, is saying 
something different. On September 2--he is the person from the Obama 
administration--on September 2, he said: ``It is not possible to ask 
China for an absolute reduction below where they are right now'' 
because, as he said, ``they are not quite at that point to be able to 
do that. And, in that respect, developing countries are different''--
totally violating the intent of the 1997 agreement that this Senate 
had.
  This is the first time someone from the administration has said let's 
treat developing countries different from developed countries.
  Let me restate a bit. Stern is saying China simply can't make 
reductions that would be comparable to anything the United States 
accepts domestically. This is not a surprise considering China is now 
the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide while U.S. emissions have 
remained relatively stagnant. Make no mistake here, China is 
unapologetic for its refusal to accept binding emissions cuts, and it 
will pursue an all-of-the-above strategy, including burning coal as it 
deems necessary; all of the above: oil, gas, coal, nuclear; they are 
very big in nuclear over there.
  China also stated that before it accepts absolute, binding emissions 
reductions, developing countries must reduce their emissions by at 
least 40 percent by 2020.
  Let me say that again. China won't accept absolute reductions until 
developing countries--that is, the United States, including the United 
States--reduce their emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. 
This is really astounding considering that the Waxman-Markey bill only 
calls for a 14-percent reduction and they are saying they expect us to 
have a 40-percent reduction.
  Accepting the Chinese position would mean certain economic disaster 
for the United States, for jobs and businesses--not to mention 
emissions--going to China.
  Over the coming days and weeks, we will hear much about China's 
national mitigation plan, its 5-year plan to reduce emissions. We will 
hear stern warnings that China is outpacing the United States on clean 
energy. But this is a smokescreen to hide the chaos and failure of 
international climate change negotiations.
  In the coming weeks, President Obama will reach some sort of 
bilateral agreement with China on climate change, but it won't require 
China to do anything other than business as usual. We have gone through 
this before. I can understand China's position. If I were in China, in 
that government, I would say the same thing. I would say: Let's go 
ahead and let's get the developed nations to have some kind of 
reductions so that will move manufacturing jobs to us, to China. I have 
to say this about the new Administrator of the Environmental Protection 
Agency, Lisa Jackson, in her honesty the other day in a public 
hearing--I asked her the question: If we were to pass one of these 
bills where we unilaterally pass something in the United States, like 
Waxman-Markey, if we did that, would that have any reduction in 
worldwide reductions in CO2? She said no, it would not have 
any effect. Obviously, it wouldn't.
  Anyway, you could argue that if we were to pass Waxman-Markey, it 
would have the effect of increasing worldwide emissions because our 
manufacturing base would go to countries where they didn't have any 
emission requirements.
  So, in the final analysis, President Obama's speech to the United 
Nations was a failure to define success, a failure to provide real 
solutions for international energy security, and a failure to sketch 
the outlines of a meaningful international climate change agreement 
that will pass the Byrd-Hagel test of 1997.
  I think surely after the August recess, after so many people were 
beaten up on the fact that they did not want to have any type of a 
government-run health system, they certainly did not want to pass 
something that would be a cap and trade that would have the effect of 
providing the largest single tax increase in the history of America, a 
tax increase in the range of $300 to $366 billion a year.
  I can remember back when we passed that very large tax increase in 
1993. It was called the Clinton-Gore tax increase. It increased the 
marginal rates, increased capital gains, it increased the death tax, 
all of the other taxes. I was pretty upset about it at that time. I 
talked on the Senate floor. I said that was a $32 billion tax increase. 
This would be 10 times that size. So I do not think it is going to 
happen. This commission will listen to the speeches between now and 
Copenhagen. I plan to make a few myself.
  I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Udall of Colorado.) The clerk will call 
the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.

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  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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