[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 89 (Thursday, June 20, 2013)]
[House]
[Pages H3982-H3984]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CLIMATE CHANGE
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 3, 2013, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from California
(Mr. Waxman) for 30 minutes.
Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Speaker, today the Speaker of the House, not the
presiding officer at the moment, but the Speaker of the House, John
Boehner, made some irresponsible remarks about climate change. He was
asked about the reports that the President is prepared to act to
protect the planet and future generations from climate change impacts.
And here's what the Speaker had to say:
I think this is absolutely crazy. Why would you want to
increase the cost of energy and kill more American jobs at a
time when the American people are still asking, where are the
jobs? Clear enough.
Well, I could not disagree more strongly with Speaker Boehner.
Presidential action to protect the climate and future generations is
absolutely essential. The House is controlled by leaders who deny the
science and are recklessly ignoring the risks of a rapidly changing
climate.
The House has become the last refuge of the Flat Earth Society. That
is why the President must act, using his existing authorities under the
law.
The Speaker's assertion that acting to reduce emissions will hurt the
economy is absolutely wrong. We need to act to lead the world in the
clean energy economy of the future. If we don't act, initiative,
leadership, and economic growth will go to countries that do.
Now, I've been in Congress for over three decades. I worked on the
Clean Air Act reauthorization of 1990. I remember the testimony we
received in the 1980s about how, if we tried to do more in the
environmental area, we would lose our jobs and our economy would be set
back. We would face another depression.
Well, on a bipartisan basis, we adopted the Clean Air Act. We had the
bill sponsored and signed by President George H.W. Bush, and that
legislation led to accomplishments of reducing air pollution in some of
our heavily polluted urban areas, including my own home of Los Angeles.
We were able to stop the ravages of acid rain, which were causing
destruction of our forests and rivers and ponds in the Northeast and in
Canada. We were able to do something about toxic pollution, which was
causing birth defects and cancer in large numbers of people who lived
near industrial facilities. And we were able to get legislation passed
and moved forward to stop the destruction of the upper ozone of our
planet.
We accomplished these goals because we didn't pay attention to the
naysayers who told us our economy would be ruined, we would lose jobs,
we should forget about a healthy environment, we should forget about
pristine air in our national parks.
Luckily, we had leadership, from Republicans and Democrats, to do
something, and we can now talk about the great accomplishments that we
achieved. And at the same time, we created more jobs. We created more
industries. We created new technological developments.
But let me talk about why the President needs to act on this question
of climate change. On Monday, the International Energy Agency, IEA,
released
[[Page H3983]]
a report concluding that the world is not on track to meet the goal of
limiting global average temperatures below 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, or 2
degrees Celsius.
Now, that is a tremendous concern because the scientists are telling
us that if we don't achieve the goal of reducing the temperature rise,
we are going to see some very severe impacts: flooding of our coastal
cities, increased risk to our food supply, unprecedented heat waves,
exacerbated water scarcity in many regions, increased frequency of
high-intensity tropical cyclones, irreversible loss of biodiversity,
including coral reefs.
{time} 1620
Recognizing this danger, our country and other countries around the
world joined together in 2010 and said that we've got to do what we can
to keep the temperature rise below 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. The IEA
concluded that the world is failing to meet this goal. Greenhouse gas
emissions are driving climate change, and it's happening with
increasing rapidity. So can we just deny this is happening? Can we say,
oh, it will cost jobs and we shouldn't pay any attention to it?
On our committee, the Energy and Commerce Committee, which has
jurisdiction over this whole question, the Democratic leaders on the
committee have asked that we have hearings to bring in the scientists
because some of our Republican members have said they don't believe in
the science. We sent over 36 letters asking that the scientists be
brought before the committee to tell us why they think these terrible
things may happen, and we have never gotten a response from a single
letter of request for hearings.
Can you imagine the people running the Congress denying the
scientists and then refusing to hear from the scientists or claiming
the science is uncertain and not resolved and then refusing to hear
from scientists who can come in and talk about what they have learned?
Now, if we're facing a world where all the accumulated greenhouse
gases stay in that atmosphere and to the point where our planet is
heating up and we're facing terrible consequences, you don't have to
buy everything they say, but what are the chances that they're right?
Ten percent? Would we take the risk that we're going to face a 10
percent chance of all these catastrophic consequences and do nothing
about it? Well, that seems to be what the Republican leaders are
saying, including the primary leader of the House, the Speaker.
Now, let's look at some other more recent examples. When the
President announced historic fuel economy standards, critics said cars
would get smaller and more expensive, and it would hurt the sales of
our automobiles. Well, they were completely wrong. Vehicle sales are
booming. They are at high levels now. Consumers are saving money
because cars are more fuel efficient. This is an accomplishment--an
accomplishment--despite all the naysayers. When the Obama
administration issued mercury standards for power plants and other
sources, House Republicans said it would cost jobs and raise
electricity prices.
Well, that hasn't happened. Implementation has gone smoothly, and
electricity prices have not gone up. In fact, wholesale prices actually
went down, and there have been no rolling blackouts as predicted by the
doomsday scenarios.
In 2011, the EPA issued a report on the benefits of the Clean Air Act
over the period from 1990 to 2020. According to the study, the direct
benefits of the Clean Air Act in the form of cleaner air and a
healthier population, more productive Americans, are estimated to reach
nearly $2 trillion in the year 2020. We're talking about saving money
by protecting our environment.
So when the Speaker says that we shouldn't pay attention and that
it's crazy to pay attention to the concerns about climate change, he's
absolutely wrong. When he says action to reduce carbon emissions would
harm the economy, just the opposite will happen. We will create new
clean energy businesses and more economic growth.
The President has said that if Congress won't act, he must act; and
he is absolutely right. The President must act, and he has the
authority to act under existing laws. Congress will not act because the
leadership of the House of Representatives denies reality. They want to
politicize science. They want to politicize science by ignoring it.
Well, science is not another political opinion. Science is looking at
the evidence. Turn on the television news any day of the week, and you
will hear stories about droughts, superstorms, new hurricanes, new
climate events, and new record levels of temperatures. Don't we think
that something might be happening and that we have some responsibility
in government to try to do something about this issue?
Addressing climate change will require actions over the long term,
but the IEA report highlights four policies that can be implemented now
and through 2020 at no economic cost, policies that will help reduce
local air pollution and increase energy security.
First, that report recommended that countries adopt specific energy-
efficiency measures. We don't have to build new power plants if we use
our energy resources more efficiently. We can have more efficient
heating and cooling systems in residential and commercial buildings,
more efficient appliances and lighting in residential and commercial
buildings. Energy-efficiency measures can account for half of the
emissions reductions that the report proposes through the year 2020.
Secondly, the report said that if countries limit the construction
and use of inefficient subcritical coal-fired power plants and switch
instead to cleaner and more efficient plants, we will see the air get
cleaner and the threat from climate change be dramatically reduced.
Thirdly, the report recommended that countries reduce emissions of
methane, a potent greenhouse gas from upstream oil and gas production,
by installing readily available technologies in the short term and
pursuing additional long-term reduction strategies.
And, fourth, the report proposed that countries accelerate the phase-
out of fossil fuel subsidies which exacerbate climate change by
encouraging consumption of carbon pollution emitting energy. Why are we
subsidizing the oil companies with special tax breaks? Is a tax break
for an oil company any different from appropriations of dollars for the
oil companies? They're doing very well on their own.
What we need to do is to provide a level playing field for
competition for renewable fuels, alternatives and efficiency. These are
the things that we ought to be focusing on rather than keeping oil and
coal the predominant sources of our energy for electricity and fueling
our motor vehicles.
Things are changing. They're changing because investors don't want to
buy into stranded investments because they know climate change is
happening. The American people are getting a clear sense that something
is happening in the climate, but they don't hear Congress even talking
about it. And around the world, others are moving forward. Why should
we allow others, whether it's the Chinese or the Europeans, to develop
the technologies? We have always been the leader in developing
technologies for the future. We developed the catalytic converter to
control pollution from automobiles. We invented the scrubbers that
could be used on power plants to reduce the emissions that come from
these power plants. We have made all these advances over the years
because we've given a clear incentive for anti-pollution control
devices because we wanted to reduce pollution, and now we have a
Congress where they want to deny at the highest levels of leadership in
this Congress that climate change exists and the President shouldn't
take any action.
Imagine the top leader of the House of Representatives saying:
I think it's absolutely crazy. Why would you want to
increase the cost of energy and kill more American jobs at a
time when the American people are still asking, where are the
jobs?
{time} 1630
Well, the jobs can come along with efforts to reduce pollution. We
have always seen the economy and our protection of the environment go
hand in hand. We shouldn't say that we have to choose. We can have
both. We have a long history in this country of bipartisan support for
the proposition and the reality that we can preserve the environment
and protect our economy
[[Page H3984]]
and prosper, if we are willing to adopt policies and show some
leadership.
Mr. Speaker, I remember when the compliance costs were being thought
of, when we were trying to deal with the acid rain problem. Industry
after industry on the record--and it's all available to review--claimed
the costs would be enormous. Then when we passed the law, the actual
costs were a small fraction of what was being predicted. When they were
told that they had to accomplish the goal under a cap-and-trade program
to reduce sulfur emissions that were causing acid rain, we accomplished
the goal at a fraction of the original estimates--which I think were
highly inflated for scare purposes--but we accomplished the goal
because we said this is the goal, accomplish that goal. You can benefit
from new technologies and new ways to accomplish our environmental
objectives. And that's exactly what we did, we moved out with the acid
rain pollution problem.
So my colleagues and Mr. Speaker, let's not have leaders who say we
have to say that we're going to ignore the threat from climate change
in order to protect jobs. We can protect and promote jobs and protect
our environment at the same time.
And Mr. President, you were so right when you said if the Congress
will not act, you must act, you must lead. We are looking to the
President to show that leadership because we're not going to get it
from this House of Representatives.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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