[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 79 (Monday, May 8, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2789-S2792]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                            Paris Agreement

  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, on December 19, 2015, in Paris, France, 
diplomats representing more than 190 countries finalized the world's 
most ambitious, comprehensive, and achievable multilateral agreement to 
combat climate change at the United Nations Framework Convention on 
Climate Change's 21st Conference of Parties, or COP21.
  I led a delegation of 10 Senators to COP21 to bolster U.S. leadership 
and to provide confidence in the U.S. commitment to the global effort 
to fight the existential threat of climate change. The result was an 
agreement that has nearly universal support, with every party committed 
to reducing carbon emissions. The momentum coming out of COP21 felt 
unstoppable.
  That momentum continued through 2016. On Earth Day, an impressive 175 
nations signed the Paris Agreement. Six months later, and in less than 
a year's time, the Paris Agreement reached the threshold for entry into 
force. Up until recently, the United States has led this global effort. 
The strength of our commitment and diplomacy spurred global enthusiasm 
for the Paris Agreement.
  Some have said that we are the first generation to feel the effects 
of climate change and the last generation who can do something about 
it. Climate change impacts are apparent in my home State of Maryland. 
Recently, Annapolis began experiencing routine tidal flooding. Today's 
generations of Smith Islanders may be the last as a rising Chesapeake 
Bay encroaches further ashore each year.
  Around the world, climate change is expanding the range and duration 
of regional wildfire seasons, prolonging extreme droughts in the Middle 
East and Southern Africa, which I have witnessed firsthand, and has 
caused Bolivia's Lake Poopo to evaporate entirely, and entire island 
nations are being swallowed up by the South Pacific.
  The good news is, acting to prevent the worst effects of climate 
change holds tremendous economic and job growth opportunities for our 
Nation. The world looks toward the United States for leadership, not 
just in terms of domestic emissions reductions but also in our private 
sector and academia for clean energy solutions to power the world. 
Maryland is positioned to be at the forefront of U.S. leadership in 
technology innovation.
  For example, the University of Maryland, in partnership with the U.S. 
Department of Energy and a number of Maryland private sector companies 
like Redox Energy, are leading the way in developing commercial-scale, 
in-demand technology that the global energy market is demanding.
  In 2015, global investment in renewable energy was nearly $350 
billion, which was more than the global investment in fossil fuel 
energy. The Department of Energy's 2017 U.S. Energy and Employment 
Report showed that nearly 1 million Americans work in the energy 
efficiency, solar, wind, and alternative vehicles sectors. This is 
almost five times the current employment in

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the U.S. fossil fuel electric industry, which includes coal, gas, and 
oil workers. Even though gas and oil have hit record-low prices on the 
global market, current and projected price per watt for renewables is 
also low, making clean energy remarkably affordable and competitive in 
the market.
  The United States stands at the crossroads of global clean energy and 
climate change leadership, and the policy path we take on these issues 
could not only shape the strength of our economic future but our 
overall standing in the world. Forward thinking domestic climate change 
and clean energy policy, including substantial investments in clean 
energy R&D and clean energy production incentives, have made the United 
States an incubator for clean energy investment and entrepreneurship.
  We see these things in every State of the Nation--new innovators and 
investors in the clean energy sector.
  Creating a robust domestic market helps U.S. companies develop tested 
records of accomplishment, skilled workforces, and scalable products to 
export around the world to a global energy market that is hungry for 
clean energy solutions. This is where domestic policy intersects with 
U.S. climate diplomacy, which is priming that export market by building 
good will and faith in U.S. capacity and commitment.
  The United States must not squander the considerable time and effort 
it took to build the world's confidence in the United States when 
combating climate change.
  The rejection of the Kyoto Protocol by the United States severely 
strained a wide range of diplomacy issues for the Bush administration. 
That is not just a Senator saying this. Let me quote Secretary of State 
Colin Powell, when he stated:

       Kyoto--this is not talking out of school--was not handled 
     as well as it should have been, and when the blowback came I 
     think it was a sobering experience that everything the 
     American president does has international repercussions.

  That was General Powell warning us about the importance of 
international diplomacy and that our actions have consequences.
  Hindsight on the impact U.S. participation in Kyoto would have had on 
the protocol's success and on the U.S. economy is another debate 
entirely--and we will leave that for a different day--but a clear 
lesson from the episode is that the United States must not 
underestimate how seriously the world takes the issue of international 
cooperation to combat climate change.
  Should the Trump administration withdraw the United States from the 
Paris Agreement, it will be an incredible insult to our global partners 
and severely tarnish the trust nations have in the United States. That 
distrust will bleed over into all areas of U.S. diplomacy and 
cooperation.
  While the Paris Agreement does not have enforceable, binding 
provisions that would punish parties for missing self-determined 
mitigation targets, nothing precludes other countries from acting 
outside the confines of the agreement to create uncomfortable 
conditions for nonmembers. It is worth noting here that if we were to 
pull out, we would be in a club with Syria and Nicaragua.
  For example, in November of last year, immediately after the election 
and during COP22, the New York Times reported that leaders from other 
countries--so deeply offended by the President-elect's ill-informed 
rhetoric on climate change and the Paris Agreement--were contemplating 
implementing border tariffs on goods imported from nations failing to 
account for carbon emissions.
  Staying in the agreement and continuing to advocate for what is in 
the best interests of the United States could prevent countries from 
taking such actions.
  Many critics of the Paris Agreement sound as though they are stuck in 
1997, echoing concerns about the 20-year-old Kyoto Protocol that are 
simply untrue about the Paris Agreement. The Paris Agreement takes a 
different approach to international climate change cooperation by 
creating an action model that allows for ambitious action and 
accountability through peer review.
  The agreement takes a radically different approach to pollution 
mitigation that incorporates many conservative principles our 
Republican colleagues routinely espouse: increased transparency and 
universal reporting requirements for all parties. All parties, both 
developing and developed nations, commit to reducing greenhouse gas 
pollution. All parties determine their own greenhouse gas pollution 
mitigation commitments. Nationally determined commitments are 
nonbinding.
  Let me repeat that. The nationally determined commitments are 
nonbinding. It is up to us, our country, to determine how we will meet 
our targets and when we will meet our targets, and the enforcement is 
solely within our own means. No international group can enforce any of 
these commitments on us. That was at the request of many Members of 
this body, and that was followed in the Paris Agreement.
  The Paris Agreement was forged by the lessons the United States 
learned from the Kyoto Protocol process. Each addressed commonly 
criticized elements of the Kyoto Protocol.
  I cannot stress enough how seriously committed leaders around the 
world are to the success of the Paris Agreement. For example, it is the 
top agenda item for both the upcoming G7 and G20 meetings. As such, we 
absolutely cannot underestimate how thoroughly insulted our friends and 
allies around the world will be if the United States retreats from the 
agreement.
  Make no mistake, callously disregarding cooperation and partnership 
with the global community on a crisis that is literally threatening the 
very physical existence of countries will have consequences for our 
foreign policy, diplomacy, national security, and U.S. economic 
opportunity in an undeniably globalized economy. Retreating from the 
Paris Agreement puts America alone, not America first, and being alone 
is tantamount to being last.
  The expectation among our partners to the Paris Agreement is that the 
United States will remain engaged, although a common refrain among 
foreign delegations is that the world is moving ahead regardless. I 
take that to mean that if U.S. leadership falters, other countries will 
jump at the opportunity and fill the void we create and receive the 
gains which should have been ours.
  U.S. energy policy should support the goals of the Paris Agreement. 
We have already seen hundreds of American corporations make commitments 
in the agreement's name. There is infinite potential from enhanced U.S. 
production of scalable and exportable clean energy technology that the 
world is demanding to power our collective future. If we do the 
opposite and retreat from the global effort to combat climate change, 
then we can expect to lose out on this economic growth potential 
because countries like Germany, China, and India will gladly take our 
place as the world's leader for clean energy innovation and finance. I 
will do what I can to protect against this loss.
  It is in our national security interests for the United States to 
remain actively engaged with the world community to fight climate 
change.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MARKEY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Ernst). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. MARKEY. Madam President, in December of 2015, nearly 200 nations 
gathered in Paris in order to reach an agreement that each country 
would make a commitment to the reduction of dangerous greenhouse gases 
that were warming the planet and causing more and more havoc across 
this entire world.
  That agreement is something that was hard-won. It took the leadership 
of the United States because so much of the CO2 that had 
been sent up into the atmosphere since the dawn of the industrial age 
was red, white, and blue. It called upon each nation to make a 
commitment, and they did. The countries making commitments equaled 80 
percent of the world's greenhouse gas emitters.
  The Trump administration has many advisers telling the President that 
he should pull out of this Paris Agreement, that he should cede 
leadership to

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the Germans, to the Chinese, and to other nations rather than having 
the United States continue to be the leader. That would be very 
dangerous for our country because we would be ceding leadership in this 
clean energy revolution to other countries around the planet.
  There are still many who do not understand the role this clean energy 
revolution is already playing inside our country. In 2016, we deployed 
nearly 24,000 new megawatts of wind and solar on our planet. To put it 
another way, in 2005, the total amount of solar energy that was 
deployed in the United States was 79 megawatts--79. In 2016, we 
deployed 14,000 megawatts of new solar power.
  Wind--last year, we deployed another 8,000 megawatts in our country. 
We are heading toward a point where we have an incredible number of 
people who are working in these industries. Remember, there are no more 
than 65 to 75,000 people who are still working as coal miners in the 
United States. In Massachusetts alone, we now have more than 100,000 
people who work in the clean energy sector. In wind and solar alone in 
our country right now, we have 360,000 people who work in those 
sectors.
  By the year 2020, if we just continue at the pace at which we have 
been moving over the last several years, there will be 600,000 people 
working in the wind and solar sector. That is the future. That is where 
we should be going. Those are the goals we should be trying to reach.
  Instead, what President Trump is saying is that the United States is 
a technological weakling, that the United States cannot do it, that the 
United States can't find the capacity to be able to meet this 
challenge, that we have to give up.
  The President says he is going to revive the coal industry, a 19th 
century industry, instead of trying to have the United States be the 
leader in this world on the production of clean energy technologies.
  Last night, I was at the Kennedy Library, and we were celebrating the 
100th birthday of President John F. Kennedy. On that occasion last 
evening, the library presented to Barack Obama his Profile in Courage 
Award. Amongst other things that were cited was his commitment to 
dealing with this challenge of climate change that is affecting our 
planet and the role that the United States can and should play in the 
solving of that problem.
  President Obama promulgated last year a Clean Power Plan. That Clean 
Power Plan was intended to reduce greenhouse gases in the utilities 
sector by 32 percent by the year 2030. President Trump has already 
said: We can't accomplish that. We can't figure that out. We don't know 
how to reduce those greenhouse gases.
  In 1961, President Kennedy said that we were going to put a man on 
the Moon in 8 years and return those pilots back to Earth safely. We 
had to invent new metals. We had to invent new propulsion systems. 
President Kennedy said that we were not going to do it because it was 
easy but because it was hard.
  We were threatened by the Soviet Union for supremacy in outer space. 
President Kennedy challenged our Nation to respond to the threat of the 
Soviet Union, and we won.
  Here we are, nearly 60 years later, with another challenge, a 
challenge that threatens this planet. President Trump says that as a 
nation we are not up to the challenge. As a nation, we can't figure out 
how to solve this problem, even though the solutions are already out 
there and being deployed across this Nation.
  Another example of solutions like wind and solar: Elon Musk has a new 
all-electric vehicle that is going to cost $35,000 and is going to be 
deployed next year; 400,000 of these vehicles are to be sold. That is a 
game-changing moment in the history of the automobile, going back to 
its invention. It is a game changer. To a certain extent, for existing 
industries, it is a game-over moment unless they get into this all-
electric vehicle revolution.
  What is Elon Musk doing? Elon Musk is creating a Darwinian, paranoia-
inducing environment within which all of the rest of these automotive 
companies are now going to have to operate--go electric or perish 
economically as a company.
  This is how far it has come: Right now, Tesla has a market value that 
for all intents and purposes is equal to Ford and to General Motors. 
That is how much the American people have given in terms of confidence 
in this company, in this man.
  We can do it. It should be the President of the United States who is 
saying we can do it. The rest of the world expects us to do it.
  Why do we continue to import oil into our country from Saudi Arabia? 
Why do we continue to import oil from other countries around this 
planet? Why can't the President set as a goal that we are going to have 
100 percent renewables in our country by the year 2050, that we are 
going to accept it as a national challenge in the same way that 
President Kennedy accepted the challenge in 1961 to put a man on the 
Moon, to control, to dominate in outer space?
  This is a letter to President Trump, which is in today's New York 
Times. The full-page ad says:

       Dear President Trump,
       As some of the largest companies based or operating in the 
     United States, we strongly urge you to keep the United States 
     Paris Agreement on climate change.

  What are the names of these companies? Adobe, Apple, Danfoss, 
Facebook, Gap, Google, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Ingersoll Rand, 
Intel, Johnson Controls, Mars Incorporated, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, 
National Grid, PG&E Corporation, Salesforce, Schneider Electric, 
Unilever, VF Corporation.
  This isn't the President challenging companies in our country to 
respond to the challenge. These are the companies in America 
challenging the President to respond to the challenge. It is the 
Kennedy era on its head; it is like JFK in reverse. He is saying we 
can't do it when the private sector is saying we can.
  Ultimately, this challenge to our competitiveness globally is 
something that Donald Trump is going to forfeit for our workers. This 
opportunity to create jobs and markets and growth is going to be 
something that we lose.
  We need a President who is going to stand up for this stable, 
practical framework, which is giving an incentive to the private sector 
to solve this problem. We will be creating jobs while saving all of 
creation. That is what the winning formula is going to be.
  This Paris Agreement is going to lead to increased competitiveness in 
jobs, in economic growth. By remaining a party to the Paris Agreement, 
rather than retreating, we will give Americans the opportunity to 
harness that can-do spirit and technical know-how to create new 
businesses and jobs. We will give our Nation the opportunity to be a 
leader in the global effort to address climate change. We will give 
America the opportunity to lead in this century and into the next.
  I urge the United States to remain in the Paris Agreement. We can 
either be the leader or the laggard internationally in developing the 
new clean energy technologies that will drive our economy and help 
combat climate change.
  It is a sad day for our Nation when the President of the United 
States is challenged by the private sector to step up, especially when 
he calls himself the CEO President of our country. He is turning his 
back on these innovative companies that want to be able to create jobs 
here in our country in order to save our planet. I pray for the well-
being of our planet and that the President honors this commitment.
  I think that the French made a huge statement yesterday in electing 
their new President, Macron. He was saying to the French people: We 
must engage the rest of the planet. We must work with the rest of the 
planet.
  The Paris Agreement was signed in France in December of 2015. That 
election yesterday, I think, should be taken as a signal that we should 
not be retreating from our global leadership.
  I urge this administration to adopt an approach that does unleash 
further this wind and solar and all-electric vehicle revolution.
  With that, I yield back the remainder of my time.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.

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  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.