[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 170 (Tuesday, November 17, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Page S11402]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       PRESIDENTIAL TRIP TO CHINA

  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I wish to talk about the President's trip 
to China. It appears evident--which we have known all along--that we 
are not going to be passing anything in this country on cap and trade. 
We have the bill that is up right now by Senators Kerry and Boxer, who 
have talked about this now for 8 years. Every time they talk about it, 
there is more and more opposition to it. Right now, the interesting 
thing is that the most recent polling shows that only 4 percent of the 
American people think this is a problem. Four percent are wrong and the 
96 percent are right.
  Nonetheless, in China, keep in mind, their output of CO2 
emissions could amount to twice the combined emissions of the world's 
richest nations, including the United States, the European Union, and 
Japan. Consequently, the problem there is China, India, Mexico, and the 
developing countries. We all know nothing will pass this body that 
doesn't treat the developing countries as developed nations.
  I will not dwell on this. At a later time, I will. I plan to make a 
very long--well over an hour--talk. I am trying to get some time now to 
do that. This will be the fifth time I have done this in the last 6 
years concerning this particular subject, which is the alleged global 
warming attached to the CO2 emissions.
  I will say this: As far as what is going on right now in China, the 
Chinese are not going to line up and agree, in Copenhagen or anyplace, 
to start reducing their own emissions. Frankly, they are the ones who 
are the big beneficiaries. This is kind of interesting, because even if 
we did it and the developed nations did it, it still wouldn't have any 
material reduction in CO2. Even if you believed 
CO2 or anthropogenic gases caused global warming or climate 
change, it is still not going to work, as Tom Quigley said it would 
back when Senator Gore--Vice President Gore at that time--tried to do a 
study to determine what wonderful things would happen if we joined the 
Kyoto treaty. The question was, to his own scientists: If all nations, 
all developed nations, including the United States, the European Union, 
and all of them, were to sign the Kyoto treaty and live by its emission 
requirements, how much would it reduce the temperature? Tom Quigley, a 
renowned scientist, came out with this report and said it would reduce 
it by less than seven one-hundredths of 1 degree Celsius by 2050. So 
all of the pain, all of the taxes, the largest tax increase in the 
history of America, and it does not reduce anything. Consequently, I 
don't think it is necessary to belabor that. China is not going to do 
it, no matter what the President does on his trip to China.

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