[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 39 (Monday, March 10, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Page S1418]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS

      By Ms. COLLINS (for herself and Mr. Durbin):
  S. 2100. A bill to promote the use of clean cookstoves and fuels to 
save lives, improve livelihoods, empower women, and protect the 
environment by creating a thriving global market for clean and 
efficient household cooking solutions; to the Committee on Foreign 
Relations.
  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Clean 
Cookstove Support Act. This legislation addresses a serious global 
public health and environmental issue, and I am very pleased to be 
joined in this effort by my friend and colleague, Senator Durbin.
  Nearly half of the world's population cooks over open fires or with 
inefficient, polluting, and unsafe cookstoves using wood, agricultural 
waste, dung, coal, or other solid fuels. Smoke from these traditional 
cookstoves and open fires is associated with chronic and acute diseases 
and affects women and children disproportionately.
  Alarmingly, the Global Burden of Disease Study of 2010 doubled the 
mortality estimates for exposure to smoke from cookstoves referred to 
as household air pollution from 2 million to 4 million deaths annually 
in the developing world. The GBD indicates this is more than the deaths 
from malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS combined. The GBD ranks 
household air pollution as the fourth worst overall health risk factor 
in the world and as the second worst health risk factor in the world 
for women and girls. Millions more are sickened from the toxic smoke 
and thousands suffer burns annually from open fires or unsafe 
cookstoves.
  Traditional cookstoves also create serious environmental problems. 
Recent studies show that the emissions of black carbon or common soot 
from biomass cookstoves significantly contribute to regional air and 
climate change. In fact, cookstoves account for some 25 percent of 
black carbon emissions. Each family using a traditional cookstove can 
require up to 2 tons of biomass cooking fuel, and where demand for fuel 
outstrips the natural regrowth of resources, local land degradation and 
loss of biodiversity often results.
  Moreover, the collection of this fuel is a burden that is shouldered 
disproportionately by women and children. In some regions of the world, 
women and girls risk rape and gender-based violence during the up to 20 
hours a week they spend away from their families gathering fuel.
  Replacing these cookstoves with modern alternatives would help 
reverse these alarming health and environmental trends. This would be 
relatively inexpensive. In fact, there are stoves that are coming on 
the market now that cost as little as $20 and are 50 percent more 
efficient than the traditional cooking methods. It also could be done 
quickly. It is what scientists call the low-hanging fruit of 
environmental fixes.
  Through the leadership of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton 
and the United Nations Foundation, the Global Alliance for Clean 
Cookstoves was formed in 2010. Recognizing the serious health and 
environmental issues posed by traditional cookstoves, the alliance aims 
to save lives, improve livelihoods, empower women, and combat pollution 
by creating a thriving global market for clean and efficient household 
cooking solutions. Alliance partners are working to help overcome 
market barriers that currently impede production, deployment, and use 
of cookstoves that are clean in the developing world.
  To assist in this important endeavor, several Federal agencies and 
departments have committed a total of up to $125 million to the sector 
for the first 5 years of the alliance. These include a wide variety of 
departments, including the Departments of State, Energy, and Health and 
Human Services, the U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID, 
the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Science Foundation, 
and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation. The U.S. Department of 
Agriculture, NOAA, and the Peace Corps have also made commitments to 
provide technical assistance in the developing world.
  To help advance the alliance's goal to spur the adoption of clean 
cookstoves in 100 million households by the year 2020, the U.S. 
Government has focused its commitments on applied research and 
development, diplomatic engagement to encourage a market for clean 
cookstoves, and to improve access, international development projects 
to help build commercial businesses, and development efforts, including 
humanitarian and empowerment programs for women and girls.
  The legislation Senator Durbin and I are introducing today reinforces 
this commitment and would require the Secretary of State to work to 
advance the goals of the alliance. In addition, the bill authorizes the 
existing funding commitments made by our government to ensure that 
these crucial pledges toward preventing unnecessary illness and 
reducing pollution around the globe are met.
  By supporting the work of the alliance and the commitments of the 
U.S. Government to replace traditional cookstoves with modern versions 
that emit far less soot, this bill aims to directly benefit some of the 
world's poorest people and to reduce harmful pollution that affects us 
all. It offers a way for us to address the second leading contributor 
to greenhouse gas emissions in a way that is inexpensive, not 
burdensome to the people of this country, and will benefit poor people 
living in developing nations.
  There is yet another reason for my colleagues to support this 
initiative. Addressing persistent global issues of poverty and 
underdevelopment makes our country more secure by undercutting some of 
the key drivers of extremism and militancy around the world.
  I urge my colleagues to join Senator Durbin and me in supporting the 
Clean Cookstoves and Fuel Support Act.

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