[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 134 (Wednesday, September 7, 2016)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5361-S5363]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CLIMATE CHANGE
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, as the Senate reconvenes after several
weeks of work in our home States, I am back for the 145th time asking
my colleagues to wake up to the pressing reality of climate change. We
are sleepwalking through this moment, willfully ignoring the warning
signs of an already altered Earth, largely because of a decades-long
corporate campaign of misinformation on the dangers of carbon
pollution.
Just last week, while we were back home, scientists at the
International Geological Congress presented the beginning of a new
geological epoch, the Anthropocene. Transitions between geological
epochs are marked by a signal--a signal in the global geologic record,
like the traces of the meteorite that wiped out the dinosaurs at the
end of the Cretaceous epoch.
What are the signals of the beginning of the Anthropocene?
Humans--anthropods--have increased carbon dioxide in the Earth's
atmosphere from 280 parts per million before the Industrial Revolution
to 400 parts per million and rising today--a pace of increase not seen
for 66 million years and a level never seen before in human history on
this planet.
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We have also dumped so much plastic into our waterways and oceans
that microplastic particles can be found virtually everywhere and are
now even infiltrating our food chain. We have poured so much pollution
into our atmosphere--that thin blue shell under which we currently
thrive--that permanent layers of particulates, such as black carbon
from burning fossil fuels, are left in sediments and glacial ice. The
signals we are leaving are many, and they are clear.
Dr. Paul Crutzen, the Nobel Prize-winning chemist who coined the term
``Anthropocene'' remarked back in 2011: ``This name change stresses the
enormity of humanity's responsibility as stewards of the Earth.'' His
words echo those of Pope Francis, who tells us this in his encyclical
``Laudato Si'': ``Humanity is called to recognize the need for changes
of lifestyle, production, and consumption, in order to combat this
warming or at least the human causes which produce or aggravate it.''
Yet attempts to address climate change are stifled in this Chamber by
an industry-controlled, many-tentacled apparatus deliberately polluting
our discourse with phony climate denial as it pollutes our atmosphere
and oceans with carbon. Polls show more than 80 percent of Americans
favor action to reduce carbon pollution. So our inaction signals the
filthy grip these bad actors have on this Chamber.
Before the recess, 19 colleagues came to the floor to shine a little
light on this web of climate denial spun by those actors. All told, we
delivered over 5\1/2\ hours of remarks describing the activities, the
backers, and the linkages of dozens of denier groups.
A growing body of scholarship examines this climate denial apparatus,
including work by Harvard's Naomi Oreskes, Michigan State's Aaron
McCright, Oklahoma State University's Riley Dunlap, Yale's Justin
Farrell, and Drexel's Robert Brulle. Their work reveals an intricate,
interconnected propaganda web that encompasses over 100 organizations,
trade associations, conservative think tanks, foundations, public
relations firms, and plain old phony-baloney polluter front groups. In
the words of Professor Farrell, the apparatus is ``overtly producing
and promoting skepticism and doubt about scientific consensus on
climate change.''
Well, our little floor effort got the attention of the climate
deniers. Shortly after our ``web of denial'' floor action, Senator
Schatz and I received a letter from ExxonMobil telling us that it
believes the risks of climate change are real, that it no longer funds
groups that deny the science of climate change, and that it supports a
carbon fee, like our American Opportunity Carbon Fee Act.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record
a copy of this letter.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record as follows:
Exxon Mobil Corporation,
Washington, DC, July 21, 2016.
Hon. Sheldon Whitehouse,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senator Whitehouse: I am writing in response to
comments you recently made on the Senate floor about
ExxonMobil and our position on climate change and felt it
important to better inform you of our position. ExxonMobil
shares the same concerns as people everywhere--how to provide
the world with the energy it needs to support economic growth
and improve living standards, while reducing greenhouse gas
(GHG) emissions. It is a dual challenge. Technological
advancements in the ways in which we produce, deliver, and
use energy are critical to our ability to meet this
challenge.
ExxonMobil believes the risks of climate change are real
and warrant thoughtful action.
As a global issue, addressing the risks of climate change
requires broad-based, practical solutions around the world.
ExxonMobil believes that effective policies to address
climate change should:
Ensure a uniform and predictable cost of carbon across the
economy;
Be global in application;
Allow market prices to drive the selection of solutions;
Minimize complexity and administrative costs;
Maximize transparency; and
Provide flexibility for future adjustments to react to
developments in climate science and the economic impacts of
climate policies.
As policymakers develop mechanisms to address climate
change risk, they should focus on reducing the greatest
amount of emissions at the lowest cost to society. Of the
policy options being considered by governments, we believe a
revenue-neutral carbon tax is the best--a position we first
took more than seven years ago.
We are actively working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
in our own operations and to help our customers reduce their
emissions as well. That means developing technologies that
reduce emissions, including working to improve energy
efficiency and advance cogeneration. In fact, our
cogeneration facilities alone enable the avoidance of
approximately 6 million metric tons of greenhouse gas
emissions each year, and allow us to feed power back to the
grid in certain instances.
Since 2000, ExxonMobil has spent approximately $7 billion
to develop lower-emission energy solutions. That figure does
not include the fact that as the nation's leading producer of
natural gas, ExxonMobil has contributed substantially to the
overall drop in U.S. energy-related CO2 emissions over the
past decade.
We are also advancing conventional carbon-capture-and-
storage technology while at the same time pursuing innovative
carbon-capture solutions involving carbonate fuel cells. This
far-sighted research aims to reduce the cost of carbon
capture to keep CO2 out of the atmosphere. Advancing economic
and scalable technologies to capture carbon dioxide from
large emitters, such as power plants, is an important part of
ExxonMobil's suite of research into lower-emissions solutions
to mitigate the risk of climate change.
And we are pioneering development of next-generation
biofuels from algae that could reduce emissions without
competing with food and water resources.
We reject long-discredited efforts to portray legitimate
scientific inquiry and dialogue and differences on policy
approaches as ``climate denial.'' We rejected them when they
were made a decade ago and we reject them today.
To advance the quality of analysis and discussion of
leading public policy challenges, we provide funding to a
broad range of non-profit organizations that engage in the
development and consideration of options to address them
responsibly and effectively. Often these organizations
support free market solutions and expanded economic growth.
We consider our support for such organizations from year to
year to assess their continuing contribution to the public
discussion of social, environmental, and economic issues. As
you know, several years ago, we discontinued funding several
non-profit organizations when we determined that our support
for them was unfortunately becoming a distraction from the
important public discussion over practical efforts to
mitigate the risks of climate change.
If you, or your staff, would like to discuss this or any
other matter, please let me know and, as always, we would be
pleased to meet.
Sincerely,
Theresa Fariello,
Vice President,
Washington Office.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. It is a nice letter, but its claims simply do not
conform to our experience.
In 2015, for instance, ExxonMobil repeatedly funneled millions to
groups peddling climate denial. According to its own publicly available
``2015 Worldwide Giving Report,'' ExxonMobil contributed over $1.6
million to organizations that were profiled in our floor statements,
including the American Legislative Exchange Council and the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce.
ExxonMobil's letter claims that the company's support for a revenue-
neutral carbon tax dates back 7 years. If that were so, you would think
at some point during those 7 years Exxon executives would have
expressed that support to the authors of a carbon fee bill. My and
Senator Schatz's American Opportunity Carbon Fee Act meets all the
relevant criteria mentioned in the letter, yet ExxonMobil has not
endorsed the bill or lobbied our colleagues on its behalf or even
expressed interest in meeting with either of us to discuss the White
House-Schatz proposal and how to make it become law.
Behind ExxonMobil's professed support for a carbon fee, here is what
we really see: zero support from the corporation and implacable
opposition from all ExxonMobil's main lobbying groups--the American
Petroleum Institute, for instance, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its
array of various front groups. The actual lobbying position of
ExxonMobil is vehemently against the revenue-neutral carbon tax
ExxonMobil claims to support.
The letter from ExxonMobil was not the only letter in response to our
July floor speeches. Twenty-two organizations in the Koch-funded
network with lengthy records of climate change denial also sent a
letter objecting to being characterized as Koch-linked climate deniers.
This group of organizations, which purportedly is not a
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group, sent their letter out on a common letterhead. Since the web of
climate change denial is designed to be so big and sophisticated, with
so many parts that the public is made to believe it is not a single,
special-interest-funded front, that may not have been their smartest
move. Interestingly, some of the groups that participated in this
letter were not even mentioned in our floor remarks. Such is the web of
denial.
In our reply to them, Senators Reid, Schumer, Boxer, Durbin, Sanders,
Franken, Warren, Markey and I noted that they are all well supported in
the web of climate denial, to the tune of at least $92 million, in a
network bound together by common funders, shared staff, and matched
messages. It is one beast, though it may have many heads.
We offered these organizations a simple test. If you are for real,
disclose all of your donors. There is a lot of dark money going into
these groups. So we asked: Show us that you represent many, many
millions of Americans--as they claimed in the letter--not just many,
many millions of dollars from the Koch brothers' fossil fuel network.
I contend that these organizations are well-funded agents of hidden
backers with a massive conflict of interest, and that it is their job
to subject our country to an organized campaign to deceive and mislead
us regarding the scientific consensus surrounding climate change and to
do so with the purpose to sabotage American response to the climate
crisis.
I contend that the conflict of interest of their hidden backers runs
into the hundreds of billions of dollars. If you use the Office of
Management and Budget's social cost of carbon, one can calculate the
annual polluter cost to the rest of us from their carbon pollution at
over $200 billion per year. Think what mischief people would be willing
to get up to for $200 billion per year. The International Monetary Fund
estimates that the effective subsidy for American fossil fuels is
actually even higher--$700 billion per year. For that kind of money,
you can fund a lot of front groups.
The front group's letter points out that our Founders intended for
public policies to be well informed and well debated. Well, I could not
agree more.
On July 31, leading national scientific organizations, including the
American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American
Meteorological Society, and the American Geophysical Union, sent
Members of Congress a no-nonsense message that human-caused climate
change is real, that it poses serious risks to modern society, and that
we need to substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Observations throughout the world make it clear that
climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research
concludes that the greenhouse gases emitted by human
activities are the primary driver. This conclusion is based
on multiple independent lines of evidence and the vast body
of peer-reviewed science.
That is the voice of fact, analysis, and reason. We are well informed
by the real scientists. The scientists have the expertise, the
knowledge, and the facts. What they don't have is that massive conflict
of interest that requires setting up an armada of front groups and that
gives them the $100 billion motivation to run this scheme. It is time
to let the scientists and the facts take their place.
This issue has been thoroughly debated and vetted in the legitimate
world. It is time now for us here in Congress to wake up to our duties
and at last to act.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Tillis). The Senator from Ohio.
(The remarks of Mr. PORTMAN pertaining to the introduction of S. 3292
are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills
and Joint Resolutions.'')
Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. PERDUE. 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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