[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 173 (Tuesday, December 1, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8223-S8226]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             CLIMATE CHANGE

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, as the Presiding Officer knows well, 
every week that I am here and the Senate is in session, I come to the 
floor to remind us of the damage carbon pollution continues to do to 
our atmosphere and oceans. Today I rise for the 120th time to urge my 
colleagues to

[[Page S8224]]

wake up to the threat of climate change. I am not alone, although it 
sometimes seems a bit lonely here.
  We have an advertisement today in the Wall Street Journal--we will 
find it here in 1 second; well, I seem to have mislaid it--that has a 
considerable number of American companies that have called upon the 
public and called on the readers of the Wall Street Journal to support 
a strong outcome in Paris. It matches another Wall Street Journal full-
page advertisement--this one went back to October 22--which was 
``Republicans and Democrats Agree: U.S. Security Demands Global Climate 
Action.'' That had 23 Republican former officials, including Senators 
Cohen, Coleman, Danforth, Hagel, Lugar, Kassebaum, Smith, and Snowe, 
Secretaries of Commerce, State, Treasury, members of the National 
Intelligence Council, Homeland Security advisers, and Trade 
Representatives. In total, 33 Republican and military officials were 
calling on us to get serious about it. So a lot of people out there, 
including Republicans, are interested in getting something done.
  I wanted to build my remarks this week around something interesting 
that Pope Francis said this past weekend about the upcoming climate 
talks in Paris. He said: ``It would be sad, and dare I say even 
catastrophic, were special interests to prevail over the common good 
and lead to manipulating information in order to protect their own 
plans and interests.''
  ``Sad,'' and ``even catastrophic''--let's look at that part. The fact 
is, we have changed the composition of our atmosphere, pushing the 
concentration of carbon dioxide beyond the range it has been in for at 
least 800,000 years, longer than our species has been on the planet. 
For 8,000 centuries, humans have inhabited an Earth with an atmosphere 
between 170 and 300 parts per million of CO2. Concentrations 
have now hit 400 parts per million, farther out of the range than the 
midpoint of the range, and that trend continues to rise. By the way, 
that is measurement. That is not somebody's theory. That is not a 
computer-model run. We have measured that.
  Last year was the hottest year since we began keeping records in 
1880, a dubious distinction. According to the World Meteorological 
Organization, the last 5 years are now the warmest 5-year period in 
human history. This year is on track to be another recordbreaker, 
expected to reach the both symbolic and significant milestone of 1 full 
degree Celsius above the average temperature of the preindustrial era.
  Many scientists agree that 2 degrees above the precarbon-era norm 
will likely mean irreparable harm to our planet and to our current way 
of life. So it would, indeed, be sad and perhaps ultimately 
catastrophic if we were to do nothing.
  Yet we in Congress continue to do nothing, which brings me to the 
next of Pope Francis's words in that opening quotation: ``special 
interests prevail[ing] over the common good.'' Well, doing nothing is 
just fine by the big polluters because they make more money when we do 
nothing. To keep their profitable racket running, the polluters spend 
huge sums on lobbying and on politics, particularly right here in the 
Congress. As one author has written, and I will quote him: ``[R]ivers 
of money flowing from secret sources have turned our elections into 
silent auctions.'' And the polluters get what they pay for. With the 
Congress of the United States distracted and deceived by their 
mischief, the effects of climate change just keep piling up.
  This problem got worse in 2010 when the big polluters got a gift. 
They got handed a big, new political weapon. Thanks to five Justices on 
the U.S. Supreme Court, all of them Republican appointees, the big 
polluters can now threaten lawmakers with the cudgel of unlimited, 
undisclosed Citizens United money. So we do nothing, and the polluters 
offload onto everyone else the costs in damage from their fossil fuel 
product, the costs of heat waves, of sea level rise, of ocean 
acidification, of dying forests, of worsening storms and more. The 
polluters happily dump those costs onto everybody else. They suck up 
hundreds of billions of dollars in effective public subsidy, according 
to the International Monetary Fund, and of course they fight 
desperately to protect their favored status.
  Pope Francis had it right--special interests indeed prevail over the 
common good. And that brings us to the Pope's words about them 
``manipulating information in order to protect their own plans and 
interests.''
  I have spoken on this floor about the decades-long, purposeful 
corporate campaign of misinformation on climate change. The fossil fuel 
industry and its allies gin up doubt about the dangers of carbon 
pollution through a smokescreen of misleading public statements, 
sophisticated marketing, and polluter-funded front groups. The mission 
of these well-organized and mightily funded deniers is to manufacture a 
product--uncertainty, doubt. The polluters spend huge amounts on a big, 
complex PR machine to churn out doubt about the real science. It is a 
fraud. It is a deliberate pollution of the public mind.
  We know that a network of front organizations with innocent-sounding 
names has emerged to propagate that baloney science. This network has 
been well documented by Dr. Robert Brulle at Drexel University and Dr. 
Riley Dunlap at Oklahoma State University, among others. Professor 
Brulle's follow-the-money analysis, for instance, diagrams the complex 
flow of cash to these front groups, a flow that the fossil fuel 
industry persistently tries to obscure.
  A new study was released just last week, a study by Dr. Justin 
Farrell at Yale University. His work examines how corporations have 
used their money to amplify the voices of climate deniers and to 
exaggerate scientific uncertainty. Dr. Farrell used computers to 
perform a comprehensive quantitative analysis of more than 39 million 
words written by 164 climate denial organizations--yes, there are 164 
of them; this is a big beast--over a 20-year period. His study compared 
corporate-funded groups to the rest.
  Professor Farrell's stated purpose was to uncover empirically the 
actual social arrangements within which large-scale scientific 
misinformation is generated and the important role private funding 
plays in shaping the actual ideological content of scientific 
information that is written and amplified. He describes the climate 
denial apparatus as a complex network of think tanks, foundations, 
public relations firms, trade associations, and other groups that are 
``overtly producing and promoting skepticism and doubt about scientific 
consensus on climate change.'' Farrell describes the function of the 
network as, one, ``the production of an alternative contrarian 
discourse,'' and two, ``to create ideological polarization around 
climate change.'' Why polarization? Because ``it is well understood 
that polarization is an effective strategy for creating controversy and 
delaying policy progress particularly around environmental issues.''
  So the polarization we see in this building on this issue is a 
product created by a network of corporate-funded climate denial front 
groups. We are the living proof of the success of this scheme. 
Corporate backing created a united network, said Farrell, within which 
the contrarian messages could be strategically created. That is right, 
climate denial is ``strategically created.''
  Farrell's data show particularly that donations from ExxonMobil and 
the Koch family foundations signal what he calls entry into a powerful 
network of influence, and that corporate funding influences the actual 
language and thematic content of polarizing discourse. And, of course, 
one of the areas of distinct corporate-funded polarizing discourse 
produced by this network was questions about the scientific veracity of 
long-term climate change. Again, it is the product of a scheme.
  Professor Farrell made another comparison. He has made the same 
comparison that others have made with tobacco. I will quote him:

       Well-funded and well-organized ``contrarian'' campaigns are 
     especially important for spreading skepticism or denial where 
     scientific consensus exists--such as in the present case of 
     global warming, or in historical contrarian efforts to create 
     doubt about the link between smoking and cancer.

  To create doubt about the link between smoking and cancer. That echos 
the telling sentence from the tobacco denial campaign: Doubt is our 
product.
  Just as Pope Francis said, the denial machinery is ``manipulating 
information in order to protect their own plans

[[Page S8225]]

and interests.'' The actions of the climate denial machine have been so 
effective, they have made it ``difficult for ordinary Americans to even 
know who to trust,'' says Farrell. Doubt is still their product.
  Every generation of Americans has faced its challenge, and each has 
risen to its challenge. Some generations left bloody footprints in the 
snows of Valley Forge to secure our independence. Some generations were 
torn to pieces by cannon fire in the great battles of the Civil War. 
Some generations endured mustard gas and trench warfare in World War I. 
Some secured the world's freedom from the Axis powers in World War II. 
Some rebuilt the American economy after the Great Depression. Some were 
beaten, bombed, and burned as they struggled to secure the civil rights 
we now enjoy. We are the generation whose duty it is to face down the 
climate crisis that threatens our planet and face down the folks behind 
this vast climate denial scheme. All we have to do to rise to our duty 
is to resist all the dark money, all the fossil fuel-funded threats and 
intimidation Citizens United made possible.
  Let me read from an opinion that was in my clips today from David 
Brooks, a conservative columnist. I see him at American Enterprise 
Institute gatherings. He is a self-identified Republican conservative 
who was writing about climate change and the upcoming Paris conference. 
He says this as if he is communicating with Alexander Hamilton. He 
obviously is not, but that is his rhetorical device. He said, ``So I 
seanced up my hero Alexander Hamilton to see what he thought'' about 
the Paris climate conference. Here is what he said:

       First, [Alexander Hamilton] was struck by the fact that on 
     this issue the G.O.P. has come to resemble a Soviet 
     dictatorship--a vast majority of Republican politicians can't 
     publicly say what they know about the truth of climate change 
     because they're afraid the thought police will knock on their 
     door and drag them off to an AM radio interrogation.

  That is a conservative Republican economist talking about this.
  We can get through this. We simply need conscientious Republicans and 
Democrats to work together in good faith on a common platform of 
established science, clear facts, and basic common sense. If we do 
that, we can protect the American people, the American economy, and our 
American reputation from the harm of the looming effects of climate 
change. It is on us. It is on us. We simply need to shed the shackles 
of corrupting influence and rise to our duty, as other generations 
always have. We do not have to be the generation that failed. Yes, we 
are headed down a road to infamy now, but it doesn't have to be that 
way. We can leave a legacy that will echo down the corridors of 
history, so the generations that follow us will be proud of our efforts 
the way we are proud of those who did great things for our country 
before us. But sitting here doing nothing, yielding to the special 
interests, won't accomplish that.
  This new analysis out of Yale is an important addition to the 
increasing body of academic research and journalism that is shining 
some much needed sunlight on the shadowy enterprise of phony science 
and phony doubt that props up climate denial. It is time we all caught 
on to this deceptive enterprise. Being suckers down a road to infamy is 
not a good legacy. It is time to wake up.
  Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the advertisement 
``Business Backs Low-Carbon USA'' in the Wall Street Journal and the 
article by David Brooks, ``The Green Tech Solution,'' be printed in the 
Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:


                           PAID ADVERTISEMENT

                     Business Backs Low-Carbon USA

                            lowcarbonusa.org


WE ARE SOME OF THE BUSINESSES THAT WILL HELP CREATE THE FUTURE ECONOMY 
                         OF THE UNITED STATES.

       We want this economy to be energy efficient and low carbon. 
     We believe there are cost-effective and innovative solutions 
     that can help us achieve that objective. Failure to tackle 
     climate change could put America's economic prosperity at 
     risk. But the right action now would create jobs and boost 
     competitiveness.
       We encourage our government to
       1. seek a strong and fair global climate deal in Paris that 
     provides long-term direction and periodic strengthening to 
     keep global temperature rise below 2  deg.C
       2. support action to reduce U.S. emissions that achieves or 
     exceeds national commitments and increases ambition in the 
     future
       3. support investment in a low-carbon economy at home and 
     abroad, giving industry clarity and the confidence of 
     investors
       We pledge to continue efforts to ensure a just transition 
     to a low-carbon, energy-efficient U.S. economy and look 
     forward to enabling strong ambition in the U.S. and at the 
     Paris climate change conference.

       Autodesk, Inc.; The Coca-Cola Company; Unilever; Adidas 
     Group; Johnson Controls, Inc.; Clif Bar & Company; Intel; 
     Kingspan Insulated Panels; Microsoft; Qualcomm; Sprint; 
     Colgate-Palmolive Company; Smartwool; The Hartford; Volvo, 
     Volvo Group North America; Burton; Snowbird; eBay; Seventh 
     Generation; Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies; Vail 
     Resorts; Levi Strauss & Co.; EMC; New Belgium Brewing 
     Company; Squaw Valley Alpine Meadows; Annie's; Alta; General 
     Mills; Dignity Health; BNY Mellon; Jupiter Oxygen 
     Corporation; Hewlett Packard Enterprise; Outdoor Industry 
     Association; Procter & Gamble; Ben & Jerry's; Schneider 
     Electric; Xanterra; Nike; The North Face; Symantec; JLL; 
     Powdr Corporation; Gap Inc.; Owens Corning; EnerNOC; Hilton 
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     IKEA; Aspen Snowmass, Aspen Skiing Company; Vulcan; Eileen 
     Fisher; DuPont; CA Technologies; Nestle; Pacific Gas and 
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     Gravity Research; Dell; Mars, Incorporated; NRG; Ingersoll 
     Rand


                    Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2)

       Ameristar SolarStream, Big Kid Science. Bloom Energy, 
     Canadian Solar. Inc., Carbon Lighthouse. Clean Blue 
     Technologies, Inc. Clean Edge, Clean Energy Collective, 
     Decent Energy, Inc., Drew Maran Construction, Inc., Creep 
     Optimizers. USA, Ideal Energy, Intex Solutions. iSpring 
     Associates, Jacobs Farm--Del Cabo, Krull & Company, Lenox 
     Hotels, LIVINGPLUG. Make Good, Want MEI Hotels, Inc.. 
     Microgrid Energy, National Car Charging LLC., Next Step 
     Living. NLine Energy, Inc.. Nth Power, one3LED, Recurrent 
     Energy, Sequoia Lab, Sierra Energy, Sustainable Farming 
     Corporation, Terviva, Toniic, Uswharrie Bank, Vigilent, Wall 
     @ Law

       Coordinated by Business Council for Sustainable Energy, 
     CDP, Ceres, C2ES, Environmental Defense Fund, Environmental 
     Entrepreneurs, The Climate Group, We Mean Business, and World 
     Wildlife Fund in collaboration with the above businesses.
                                  ____


                [From the New York Times, Dec. 1, 2015]

                        The Green Tech Solution

                           (By David Brooks)

       I've been confused about this Paris climate conference and 
     how the world should move forward to ameliorate climate 
     change, so I seanced up my hero Alexander Hamilton to see 
     what he thought. I was sad to be reminded that he doesn't 
     actually talk in hip-hop, but he still had some interesting 
     things to say.
       First, he was struck by the fact that on this issue the 
     G.O.P. has come to resemble a Soviet dictatorship--a vast 
     majority of Republican politicians can't publicly say what 
     they know about the truth of climate change because they're 
     afraid the thought police will knock on their door and drag 
     them off to an AM radio interrogation.
       This week's Paris conference, I observed, seems like a 
     giant Weight Watchers meeting. A bunch of national leaders 
     get together and make some resolutions to cut their carbon 
     emissions over the next few decades. You hope some sort of 
     peer pressure will kick in and they will actually follow 
     through.
       I'm afraid Hamilton snorted.
       The co-author of the Federalist papers is the opposite of 
     naive about human nature. He said the conference is nothing 
     like a Weight Watchers meeting. Unlike weight loss, the pain 
     in reducing carbon emissions is individual but the good is 
     only achieved collectively.
       You're asking people to impose costs on themselves today 
     for some future benefit they will never see. You're asking 
     developing countries to forswear growth now to compensate for 
     a legacy of pollution from richer countries that they didn't 
     benefit from. You're asking richer countries that are facing 
     severe economic strain to pay hundreds of billions of dollars 
     in ``reparations'' to India and such places that can go on 
     and burn mountains of coal and take away American jobs. And 
     you're asking for all this top-down coercion to last a 
     century, without any enforcement mechanism. Are the Chinese 
     really going to police a local coal plant efficiently?
       This is perfectly designed to ensure cheating. Already, the 
     Chinese government made a grandiose climate change 
     announcement but then was forced to admit that its country 
     was burning 17 percent more coal than it had previously 
     disclosed. The cheating will create a cycle of resentment 
     that will dissolve any sense of common purpose.
       I countered by pointing out that policy makers have come up 
     with some clever ways to make carbon reductions more 
     efficient, like cap and trade, permit trading and carbon 
     taxing.
       The former Treasury secretary pointed out that these ideas 
     are good in theory but haven't worked in reality. Cap and 
     trade has not worked out so well in Europe. Over all,

[[Page S8226]]

     the Europeans have spent $280 billion on climate change with 
     very little measurable impact on global temperatures. And as 
     for carbon taxes, even if the U.S. imposed one on itself, it 
     would have virtually no effect on the global climate.
       Hamilton steered me to an article by James Manzi and Peter 
     Wehner in his favorite magazine, National Affairs. The 
     authors point out that according to the United Nations 
     Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the expected 
     economic costs of unaddressed global warming over the next 
     century are likely to be about 3 percent of world gross 
     domestic product. This is a big, gradual problem, but not the 
     sort of cataclysmic immediate threat that's likely to lead 
     people to suspend their immediate self-interest.
       Well, I ventured, if you're skeptical about our own 
     policies, Mr. Founding Father, what would you do?
       Look at what you're already doing, he countered. The U.S. 
     has the fastest rate of reduction of CO2 emissions 
     of any major nation on earth, back to pre-1996 levels.
       That's in part because of fracking. Natural gas is 
     replacing coal, and natural gas emits about half as much 
     carbon dioxide.
       The larger lesson is that innovation is the key. Green 
     energy will beat dirty energy only when it makes technical 
     and economic sense.
       Hamilton reminded me that he often used government money to 
     stoke innovation. Manzi and Wehner suggest that one of our 
     great national science labs could work on geoengineering 
     problems to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. 
     Another could investigate cogeneration and small-scale energy 
     reduction systems. We could increase funding on battery and 
     smart-grid research. If we move to mainly solar power, we'll 
     need much more efficient national transmission methods. Maybe 
     there's a partial answer in increased vegetation.
       Hamilton pointed out that when America was just a bunch of 
     scraggly colonies, he was already envisioning it as a great 
     world power. He used government to incite, arouse, energize 
     and stir up great enterprise. The global warming problem can 
     be addressed, ineffectively, by global communiques. Or, with 
     the right government boost, it presents an opportunity to 
     arouse and incite entrepreneurs, innovators and investors and 
     foment a new technological revolution.
       Sometimes like your country you got to be young, scrappy 
     and hungry and not throw away your shot.

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.

                          ____________________