[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.

[[Page S5362]]

  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

[[Page S5363]]

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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