[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 91 (Thursday, May 25, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3196-S3199]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
PARIS AGREEMENT
Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, there has been a lot of discussion in the
media over the last couple of weeks about what President Trump is going
to do and should do with the Paris climate agreement. We know all about
this agreement. It was entered into by President Obama in December of
2015 at the U.N. annual party that they hold, the 21st annual
Conference of Parties meeting.
Let me explain what this is. It was 21 years ago they decided--the
United Nations had always been quite offended every time something
happened that they were doing in the United Nations that was not in the
best interest of the United States. Several of us would call and
threaten to withhold some of our funds supporting the United Nations.
Of course, the United Nations has always wanted to be independent. They
wanted to not be accountable to anyone so consequently they put
together these parties. The best way for them to do that is if they
could somehow be funded independently and not be accountable to the
various countries--not just the United States but any of the rest of
them.
So they hold this meeting in December of every year, and they hold it
in very exotic places. Everybody gets really excited. They have 192
countries come in. What they are trying to do is get them all to limit
their CO2 emissions. Of course, they all come in because 99
percent of the 192 countries are ones who want to get money out of this
deal. I ran into a friend of mine from Benin, West Africa. This was
several years ago. I said: Why are you here? You are not really going
to agree with this stuff. He said: No, this is where the money is. This
is the biggest party of the year.
One of the worst things that ever happened at their big party was--
they headed to South America someplace, I don't remember where--when
they ran out of caviar. They have these big meetings every year.
Well, the last one I went to was December 2009. It was in Copenhagen.
You might remember that was just after President Obama was elected. He
and his administration were pledging to the 192 countries that we were
going to pass a form of cap and trade. Well, they all went to
Copenhagen--Nancy Pelosi, Hillary, John Kerry, Barack Obama--they all
went there and told them we were going to pass cap and trade here in
the United States so they all needed to follow form. This is
interesting because of the 192 countries he was talking to, most of
them didn't even know our form of government. They didn't know that we
had a Senate that had to confirm these things or that we even had a
legislature. They assumed that was going to happen.
I remember, right after they left, I went to Copenhagen. I had to go
in the morning and get back in time for votes all in 1 day. I did that.
At that time, they termed me as the ``one-man truth squad.'' I told
them under no circumstances--this is 2009--were we going to pass any
kind of cap and trade in this country. I was right. They were shocked
over there because they assumed if the President said we are going to
do it, that we are going to do it. The legislation was estimated at
that time to cost between $300 and $400 billion--that is per year--to
implement. It never came to a vote because the Democrats knew they had
at that time--keep in mind this is 2009--they had control of the White
House, they had control of the House and Senate, and they had, at that
time, 60 votes in the Senate, but they couldn't get the votes because
it was too expensive.
So many people thought it was the first time we would consider cap
and trade, but it wasn't. We had been working on that for years. They
first tried it in 2003. In 2003, we had a bill for the U.S. Senate. I
remember being down here--because at that time I was chairman of the
Subcommittee on the Environment and Public Works. They had that
jurisdiction. So I was down here to try to make sure that thing wasn't
going to pass. Sure enough, it didn't. We defeated it, 43 to 55. Then
the same group tried it again in 2005. At that time, they only got 38
votes, and that failed. Then, in 2008, Senators John Kerry and Joe
Lieberman tried it again. Of course, at that time, it failed again.
Now, that is a far cry from the 60 votes necessary in order to get
something like that to pass. We have been looking at that with various
forms of legislation for quite a number of years.
After suffering those embarrassing defeats in the Senate, President
Obama
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sought to do by regulation what he couldn't do through legislation.
That is how we got the Clean Power Plan. I think it is important to
think back where we got to this point. There has also been an
implementation cost, by their own admission, some $300 billion a year,
and it made it impossible at that time for us in the United States to
build a new coal-fired powerplant.
It is interesting. Some people say: Why do you go back so often to
Oklahoma? I said: Well, I like to talk to real people. I can remember
being at Shattuck, OK. I bet the Chair doesn't know where Shattuck is.
It is in Western Oklahoma.
A guy said: Now, explain this to me.
This was actually during the Obama administration.
He said: If we in the United States are dependent upon fossil fuels--
that is, coal, oil and gas, and nuclear--to produce 89 percent of the
power it takes to run this machine called America, and if President
Obama is successful in doing away with coal, oil and gas, and nuclear,
then how do we run this machine called America?
For that reason, the President decided he was going to do this with
regulations.
I ask unanimous consent that this list of all of the regulations--47
of them--we have been able to do away with in the first 100 days be
printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks.
A few weeks ago, he signed an Executive order instructing the EPA to
unwind the United States from this regulation. That is exactly what my
friend, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, is working to accomplish right
now.
While the President has disavowed the Paris Agreement, he has not
pulled out as of this time. He has been kind of busy doing other
things.
I understand there are a lot of competing voices on this front. Many
people don't believe the Paris Agreement is binding. While that is
true, to a certain degree, it is kind of shortsighted.
I am speaking today because I believe the President should make a
clean exit from the Paris Agreement and avoid a lot of confusion. There
are two key reasons I want to do that.
The first one, reason No. 1, is that if we remain in the agreement,
we are putting ourselves at significant litigation risk.
The Paris Agreement commits the United States to lowering its
greenhouse gas emissions by 26 to 28 percent by 2025. This is
interesting because in the Paris Agreement that took place, the
President at that time, President Obama, was getting just a little bit
panicky. He had already gone to seven of these and had been unable to
pass any kind of an agreement that would accomplish his goal of putting
coal, oil, and gas out of existence. So this agreement that he made, he
made unilaterally, saying: I agree on behalf of the United States of
America that we will reduce our emissions of CO2 by between
26 and 28 percent by 2025.
Well, we all know that the environmental community wants to do
whatever it possibly can to regulate carbon. There is a reason for
this. You might wonder why this is. There is a professor named Richard
Lindzen. Richard Lindzen is a professor at MIT and is one of the top
professors in this discipline. He said: If you control carbon, you
control life.
It makes it a bureaucrat's dream. So yes, in fact, that is what he
was trying to do. That is all they want. So if we stay in the Paris
Agreement, environmentalist groups--radical groups--would be able to
sue the EPA to force it to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under
section 115 of the Clean Air Act. Section 115 of the Clean Air Act is
entitled ``International Air Pollution.'' This section is triggered
when a country asserts that our pollution is harming them, establishing
an endangerment finding, and when there is a reciprocal agreement
between our countries and those countries that have such a regulation.
It is not difficult to imagine that if we remain in the Paris
Agreement, the environmentalists, NGOs, led by the Natural Resources
Defense Council, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Sierra Club, and
others, will file lawsuits against the EPA as it takes legal steps to
deregulate the Clean Power Plan.
While there has not been an internal endangerment finding, the
environmentalists would be working to force the issue. Further, they
would make the case that the reciprocal requirements of section 115 of
the Clean Air Act are met by the Paris climate agreement. Even though
it is not binding at the international level, the environmentalists
could, with a sympathetic judge, make a case that the administration
has made the reciprocal agreement by staying in Paris. It would sound
good. It is not too hard to find a sympathetic judge nowadays. This is
something they have been planning to do all along. They built this back
door into the agreement as the Obama administration was actually
writing it.
You ask, why would certain lawsuits be filed? A former general
counsel at the Sierra Club, David Bookbinder, said that section 115 of
the Clean Air Act is--these are his words--``the silver bullet de jour
of the enviros, and they are dead serious about this,'' meaning that
they believe the Paris Agreement clearly states that it meets the
reciprocity test established by section 115 of the Clean Air Act.
If you have noticed, the environmental groups have been very silent
about whether the administration should stay in the agreement. We all
know they want us to stay in the agreement, but why be so quiet at this
time? Because we have not heard from them. Well, the reason is, I think
the environmental groups who are trying to accomplish this see that
there is real progress being made to convince the President to stay in
the Paris Agreement, which means they could have their wish of
greenhouse gas regulations. If we stay in the agreement, they could sue
the EPA and force regulations under section 115. So they have been very
quiet. They don't want President Trump to know they will also benefit
if we stay in the agreement. Because of this, they are allowing people
to believe that nothing will happen by staying in the agreement. I have
heard this from Republicans and Democrats.
It really does not make too much difference, because for
ratification, the votes are not there, and everybody knows it. In the
meantime, you are subject to the lawsuits. So they just don't want us
to know it as well. Could it be that a Republican President would give
them the tools they need to force greenhouse gas regulations even
without meaning to? It is a possibility. This is why the President
needs to make a clean exit from the agreement.
If the President stays in the Paris agreement, he will be putting at
risk our ability to accomplish his campaign goals; namely, ending the
war on fossil fuels and rescinding the Clean Power Plan. He has already
taken the Executive steps he needs on this front. The EPA is currently
on solid legal footing. But we must not limit the effectiveness of
these key steps by remaining in the Paris Agreement.
So that is reason No. 1. Reason No. 1 is that if we remain in the
agreement, we are subjecting ourselves to all of the lawsuits that will
be out there.
The other reason, the second reason I will mention, is that even if
we pull out of the agreement, we will still have a seat at the table.
I have heard the statement quite often, in fact, by some people in
the Trump administration--they say: We don't want to pull out of it
because we want to maintain a seat at the table. As they have these
meetings every December, we want to be there so we can express what
America really is planning to do and is not planning to do.
But let's keep in mind that the seat at the table was established way
back in 1992. That was when they had the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change, the UNFCCC. This is the 1992 treaty that
supports all the big parties that meet every December that are held in
the exotic locations I mentioned. That group was the foundation of the
Paris Agreement and the foundation of the Copenhagen discussion in
2009.
Now, 2009 is when they had the event in Copenhagen. That is the one
where all the people went and told them that we were going to pass cap
and trade, which we were not going to pass cap and trade, and we
didn't. Further, it was the foundation of the Kyoto Protocol of 1997,
which was the first agreement that sought to set binding international
greenhouse regulations.
The Senate demonstrated its intent to defeat that with the Byrd-Hagel
resolution. Let's remember what that was. The Berg-Hagel resolution--by
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Senators Byrd and Hagel--was right here in this Chamber. They said they
were going to oppose the ratification of any treaty that does one of
two things--either it is harmful economically to the United States of
America, or that countries that are developing countries, such as
China, are not a part of it.
Well, that was the case. So the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 was a natural
follow-on from that decision that was made. So even if President Trump
removes the United States as a signatory to the Paris Agreement, we
will continue to have a seat at the table and the President will have
the ability to negotiate further deals. That is already done. That was
the done, and it is inescapable. It was done back in 1992. We have been
a party to that protocol. We have been ever since then and we will
continue to be regardless of whether the President pulls out of the
Paris Agreement.
In the event the President does decide to stay in the Paris
Agreement, he will need the Senate for ratification because the Paris
Agreement meets seven out of eight criteria established by the State
Department to determine what constitutes a treaty. An agreement need
meet only one of these, and this meets seven. So it would have to come
in for ratification. If the President does not exit, the Paris
Agreement will be considered as a treaty.
It is in the best interests of the Nation and the President's agenda
to make a clean exit from this agreement. That is why we sent a letter,
which was sent out this morning by about 25 Members of the Senate,
encouraging the President to pull out of the agreement. It is the best
way to get everything he wants: a complete end to the war on fossil
fuels--which has been ongoing since the day Barrack Obama went into
power--without the risk of any further future litigation mandating that
the EPA establish new greenhouse gas regulations, and a decent seat at
the table for the United States, which we all agree that we want. If
for some reason he decides not to withdraw, he will have to submit it
to the Senate as a treaty, and it would be defeated.
Let me mention two other things which I think are important and which
I want to include in the Record at this time.
You know, we have been talking about the Paris Agreement. The far
left has been trying to get a forum of cap and trade ever since Kyoto
in 1997. They have tried to do it through legislation, tried over and
over again, as I mentioned. They could not do it, so they tried to do
it through regulation.
You might wonder, what was it way back in the beginning--what were
the motives for this in the very first place? I carry this. I think it
is very important to realize what people were saying about it.
The former Minister of the European Union--her name was Margot
Wallstrom. She said: ``Kyoto is about the economy, about leveling the
playing field for big business worldwide.''
Then along came Jacques Chirac. He said during a speech at the Hague
in November of 2000 that Kyoto represents ``the first component of an
authentic global governance.''
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper once dismissed UN's Kyoto
Protocol as a ``socialist scheme.''
Then Christiana Figueres, who was actually at Paris at the time this
thing was put together, said that ``the real goal is to change the
economic development model for redistribution of wealth among
nations.''
Those are some of the original comments people have forgotten about.
The last thing I will mention, because I think it is significant, is
that I remember going to Copenhagen. At that time, the person who was
the head of the EPA--an appointment by the President at that time--was
Lisa Jackson. Lisa Jackson--actually, we became pretty good friends at
that time. She had one problem: She had a hard time saying things that
were not true. I asked her a question right before we left. I said: I
have a feeling that once I leave town, once I go to Copenhagen, you are
going to come up with an endangerment finding.
This was live on the record, by the way, in the committee I was
chairing. She kind of smiled, so I knew it was true.
I said: Now, if you come up with an endangerment finding, it has to
be based on science. What science would you rely on?
She said: Well, on the IPCC.
That is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Now, I wouldn't say as luck would have it, but it is kind of
coincidental that right after she made that statement was when the big
scandal that was referred to as ``Climategate'' came along. They
discovered that the scientists who were with IPCC were not getting the
results they wanted. So they rigged the science, and they were caught
doing it with emails. So there wasn't any question as to what they were
trying to do. So that totally diffused the effectiveness and the
legitimacy of the IPCC.
In fact, Christopher Booker of the UK Telegraph said: ``This is the
worst scientific scandal of our generation.''
So when people keep saying that science is settled, that is where it
all came from--the IPCC.
Clive Crook of the Financial Times said:
The closed-mindedness of these supposed men of science,
their willingness to go to any length to defend a
preconceived message, is surprising even to me. The stink of
intellectual corruption is overpowering.
Well, I assumed at the time that that would end their providing the
science and justification for passing what would have been the largest
tax increase in the history of this country.
So, anyway, back to the issue here, several of us feel that to avoid
all of this from happening, the best way to do it is to have this
President, when he gets back from his trip, do what he campaigned on
and pull out of the Paris Agreement, and I anticipate that he will do
that.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
CONGRESSIONAL REVIEW ACT RESOLUTIONS PASSED
SEC Rule requiring oil and gas companies to disclose their
``playbooks'' on how to win deals. Inhofe-CRA--first signed
since 2001; Stream Buffer Zone rule that blocks coal mining;
Education rule mandating federal standards for evaluating
teacher performance; Education rule establishing national
school board; Interior rule that blocked Alaska-control of
hunting & fishing; Social Security rule that put seniors with
``representative payees'' on gun-ban list; OSHA rule that
changed paperwork violation statute of limitations from 6-
months to 5-years.
Defense rule that blocked contractors from getting deals if
suspected (not convicted) of employment-law violations; Labor
rule blocking drug-testing of unemployment beneficiaries; BLM
rule blocking oil and gas development on federal lands.
Federal Communications Commission rule that would have
established 2nd regime of privacy rules in addition to
Federal Trade Commission; HHS rule that would make it easier
for states to fund Planned Parenthood; Department of Labor
(DOL) rule forcing private sector employees onto goverment
run retirement plans; DOL rule allowing states to bypass
protections on retirement plans.
TRUMP EXECUTIVE ACTIONS
Regulatory reform: requires 2 regulations be repealed for
each new regulation; WOTUS: directs EPA to rescind Waters of
the United States Act; Energy: repeals clean power plan,
other harmful regulations . . . ending War on Fossil Fuels;
Mexico City: reinstates ban of fed funds going to NGOs that
do abortions; Hiring Freeze: freezes federal hiring (exempted
military); Military: rebuilds military; Approves Keystone XL
pipeline; Approves Dakota Access pipeline.
Permit Streamlining: expedites infrastructure and
manufacturing project permits; Immigration: 90 day suspension
on visas for visitors from Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia,
Sudan,Yemen. 20 day suspension of U.S. Refugee Admission
Program; Sanctuary Cities: blocks federal Department of
Justice grants to sanctuary cities; Dodd-Frank: demands
review of Dodd-Frank banking regulations and demanding roll-
back; Shrink government: directs federal agencies to
reorganize to reduce waste and duplication; Trade: evaluates
policies to reduce trade deficit; Opioids: fed task force to
address opioid drug crisis; Fiduciary rule: delays
implementation of bad DOJ rule; Religious Liberty: Eases
enforcement of Johnson Amendment and grants other protections
for religious freedom; Offshore drilling: revises Obama-era
offshore drilling restrictions and orders a review of limits
on drilling locations; National Monuments: Directs a review
of national monument designations.
Improves accountability and whistleblower protections for
VA employees; Affirms local control of school policies and
examines Department of Ed regulations; Reviews agricultural
regulations; Reviews use of H-1B visas; Top-to-bottom audit
of Executive Branch; Moves Historically Black Colleges and
Universities offices from Department of Ed to White House;
Obamacare: directs federal agencies to ease burdens of ACA;
Establishes American Technology Council; Establishes office
of Trade and Manufacturing Policy;
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Identifies and reduces tax regulatory burdens; ``Hire
America, Buy America''; Establishes a collection and
enforcement of antidumping and countervailing duties and
violations of Trade and Customs laws; Creates an order of
succession within DOJ; Revokes federal contracting executive
orders.
Mr. INHOFE. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
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