[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 36 (Wednesday, March 1, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1529-S1530]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Climate Change

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am here today for the 158th time to 
ask this Chamber to wake up to the mounting evidence of climate change. 
The sad truth is that, in Congress anyway, this issue has turned 
starkly partisan thanks to a torrent of dark political money that the 
fossil fuel industry uses to both threaten and reward the Republican 
Party in a dirty, dark money game of stick-and-carrot. Republicans in 
Congress ignore climate change for the simple reason that the fossil 
fuel industry has become their political life support system. It does 
not have to be this way.
  Outside this Chamber, even Republicans see things very differently. 
In the investment sector, where people have to make decisions based on 
real facts and where duties to shareholders limit overly creative 
accounting, the Republican signal is clear.
  An impressive group of Republican former Treasury Secretaries and 
Republican former Presidential economic advisers recently proposed a 
conservative, market-based climate solution. Republican Presidents 
trusted these folks with the conduct of the U.S. economy. Jim Baker was 
Secretary of the Treasury under President Reagan, Hank Paulson was 
Secretary of the Treasury under President George W. Bush, and George 
Shultz was Secretary of the Treasury under President Nixon, in addition 
to other distinguished offices that they held. Joining those three were 
Martin Feldstein, Chairman of President Reagan's Council of Economic 
Advisers, and Greg Mankiw, who held that position for President George 
W. Bush; Rob Walton, the former chairman of the board of Walmart, the 
world's largest retailer and employer; and Tom Stephenson from Sequoia 
Capital, the venture capital firm out in Silicon Valley. This 
Republican group proposed a ``carbon dividends'' plan. It combines a 
carbon tax on fossil fuels--which reflects harm from carbon emissions 
which market economics ordinarily requires to be built into the price 
of the product--with a big dividend returning all of the revenues to 
the American people, and a reduction of regulations, which may be 
mooted by a good enough carbon fee. This idea is actually not so 
different from my own American Opportunity Carbon Fee Act.
  In their report, they all note that the ``mounting evidence of 
climate change is growing too strong to ignore.'' Many would say that 
it grew too strong to ignore a good decade ago, but it is important 
that these Republican leaders have acknowledged this.
  They also said: ``Economists are nearly unanimous in their belief 
that a carbon tax is the most efficient and effective way to reduce 
carbon emissions.''
  This report lines up with many other Republicans outside Congress who 
support a revenue-neutral carbon fee. It is the favorite climate 
solution in conservative economic circles. Indeed, it is the only 
widely accepted climate solution among Republicans.
  The Niskanen Center, a Libertarian think tank that spun off from the 
Cato Institute, last month wrote this:

       The case for climate action is now so strong that one would 
     be hard-pressed to find a serious academic economist who 
     opposes using market forces to manage the damage done by 
     greenhouse emissions.

  Like the Treasury Secretaries, economists and investors throughout 
the financial community are saying loud and clear: We can no longer 
ignore climate change.
  Goldman Sachs, for instance, in 2015 did a report on the low-carbon 
economy. It was called: ``Goldman Sachs equity investor's guide to a 
low carbon world, 2015-2025.'' So unless somebody here is going to say 
that Goldman Sachs is in on the hoax, Goldman Sachs is taking this 
pretty seriously.
  Last year, the investment firm BlackRock, with more than $1 trillion 
in assets under management, issued a report titled: ``Adapting 
Portfolios to Climate Change.''
  I don't think investors trust $1 trillion to a firm that falls for 
hoaxes. BlackRock, like Goldman, knows that climate change is real and 
is helping its investors plan for the economic fallout.
  BlackRock warns in its report: ``Investors can no longer ignore 
climate

[[Page S1530]]

change. . . .'' Parenthetical editorial comment: That is the job of 
Republicans in Congress.
  BlackRock also had something to say about a price on carbon. They 
said this: ``Higher carbon pricing would help address [externalities 
from fossil fuels] and would be the most cost-effective way for 
countries to meet their Paris agreement pledges.''
  So in the real world, where real decisions are being made by very 
smart people backed by real money, they are telling their clients: You 
must take climate change seriously, and you must take carbon pricing 
seriously.
  The BlackRock report had this data on prices that companies are 
setting on carbon internally--in their own internal accounting--across 
sectors, including healthcare and energy and utilities. As we can see, 
the price per metric ton ranges from a low of about $10 in information 
technology, up to over $350 per metric ton--internal costs of carbon 
accounting in these industries.
  The point ought to be pretty clear. The business community is acting, 
investors are insisting on it, and a price on carbon is a key part of 
the program.
  The legendary Wayne Gretsky's rule was to ``skate to where the puck 
is going to be.'' These major firms recognize where the carbon economy 
is heading. We should too. We would, if it weren't for the political 
mischief wreaked in Congress by the fossil fuel industry.
  BlackRock and Goldman Sachs are not alone. The insurance and 
reinsurance industry is one of the world's biggest investors, as well 
as one of the world's best analyzers of risk. Munich Re and Swiss Re, 
and others in property casualty and reinsurance, warn us that climate 
change is real and portends huge costs for society. Munich Re's head of 
risk accumulation in the United States said in 2015: ``As a nation, we 
need to take steps to reduce the societal impact of weather events as 
we see greater variability and volatility in our climate.''
  One of the biggest investors in the housing market is the Federal 
Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, Freddie Mac. Freddie Mac has warned 
about climate change impact on the real estate sector: ``The economic 
losses and social disruption may happen gradually, but they are likely 
to be greater in total than those experienced in the housing crisis of 
the great recession.''
  When we think of what we went through in the housing crisis of the 
great recession, wow, Freddie Mac is warning that the economic losses 
and social disruption from climate change in our housing markets are 
likely to be worse.
  These are all serious investors and they have serious warnings for 
us, and ignoring all of them just to please fossil fuel industry 
patrons is a big, big mistake.
  Even President Trump's nominee to head the Securities and Exchange 
Commission, Jay Clayton, thinks we need action. For years, his law firm 
has encouraged clients, including ExxonMobil, to disclose climate 
change-related risks to the SEC and to investors. If he is confirmed, I 
hope he will enforce the SEC's existing disclosure requirements for 
climate risk and clarify that public disclosures should include asset 
valuations based on global compliance with international treaties. 
Investors need climate change risks disclosed against a ``reality 
check'' baseline that assumes international compliance with the Paris 
climate commitments. An assumption that we fail should not be 
acceptable.
  Slowly, investor disclosures are improving. Last year, New York 
attorney general Eric Schneiderman forced Peabody Energy to restate its 
disclosures. Just last week, Chevron acknowledged to its investors in 
an SEC filing that, lo and behold, some of its products ``may be 
considered pollutants,'' noted ``new conclusions about the effects of 
the company's operations on human health or the environment,'' and they 
acknowledged ``an increased possibility of governmental investigations 
and, potentially, private litigation against the company.''
  It is better late than never, I suppose. Now it is time for the rest 
of the industry to report fully and fairly, first on the risks that 
shareholders bear from assets that are wrongly valued now--that are 
falsely valued in their reports--and, second, on the company's 
potentially culpable behavior in climate denial.
  Institutional investors are joining in those efforts. Our Rhode 
Island pension fund, managed by our treasurer, Seth Magaziner, is 
pushing for greater transparency on political and lobbying spending at 
large energy companies like Exxon, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and Devon. 
For the resolution filed at ConocoPhillips, Rhode Island was joined by 
over 20 other cofilers, including the State of Connecticut, Senator 
Murphy's home State, whom I see here on the floor.
  Just recently, the G20 nations--the 20 biggest economies in the 
world--set up a group called the Task Force on Climate-related 
Financial Disclosures. It is made up of 32 members from large banks, 
insurance companies, asset management companies, pension funds, credit 
rating agencies, and accounting and consulting firms--you know, liberal 
extremists. And they are saying: Here it comes; let's get ready. They 
have asked that companies begin to come clean on the climate risk they 
face.
  The big energy companies need to come clean on how much they are 
spending to deny climate science and where they are spending it, 
because, ultimately, it is their own investors who will be hurt by 
their irresponsibility. Ultimately, all the phony climate denial they 
pay for is a fool's errand because the laws of physics, chemistry, and 
biology aren't going away, and a day of reckoning for all this mischief 
and nonsense they have paid for inevitably will come.
  We in the Senate have a duty to the American people to find a way to 
combat climate change. I realize this body will need help in that task. 
We will need help from the business community, which can apply its 
understanding of market forces and risk analysis to this challenge. It 
would help if the fossil fuel industry would focus on the long term 
health of its shareholders rather than on short-term gain. The fossil 
fuel industry should stand down the relentless political opposition it 
has maintained to any climate solution, and it should stand down the 
phony climate denial operation it continues to support.
  It will take all of us coming together--companies, investors, 
regulators, governments, citizens, Republicans and Democrats--to 
achieve Donald Trump's once-stated goal of combating the ``catastrophic 
and irreversible effects of climate change''--his quote: ``catastrophic 
and irreversible effects of climate change.''
  I did not misquote President Trump, although he was Donald Trump 
then. It was 2009, and this full page advertisement was taken out in 
the New York Times declaring that the science of climate change was 
``irrefutable'' and the consequences of climate change would be 
``catastrophic and irreversible.'' It was signed by none other than 
Donald J. Trump, as well as his children, Donald Trump, Jr., Eric 
Trump, and Ivanka Trump. They were right then. If they get back to 
this, they will be right now.
  The evidence and the science have only piled up since 2009. It is 
time for all of us to heed the advice of our universities, our 
scientists, and the people who actually know what they are talking 
about, and put the arguments of the fossil fuel industry where they 
belong--in the trash bin of history. We need to wake up before it is 
too late.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.