[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 35 (Tuesday, February 27, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1234-S1236]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Climate Change

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am here for my 198th ``Time to Wake 
Up'' speech with my increasingly dog-eared and beaten chart.
  My last two speeches focused on, shall we say, the peculiar role two 
of this country's largest trade associations play on climate change. 
They have dozens and dozens of member companies that support action on 
climate change. Renewable energy now provides more jobs than fossil 
fuels and lots of American manufacturing. Yet the U.S. Chamber of 
Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers spend millions 
and millions of dollars lobbying Congress against climate action, 
against renewables, and in favor of the fossil fuel industry. Go 
figure.
  In 2016, Senator Warren and I surveyed the 108 companies on the 
chamber of commerce's board, and we couldn't find a single one that 
would endorse the chamber's anti-climate lobbying--not one. Many of 
these companies had very public pro-climate positions. None said they 
had even been consulted by the chamber about the chamber's anti-climate 
crusade.
  The U.S. Chamber of Commerce's war on climate action isn't just in 
lobbying Congress. It also spends tens of millions of dollars in 
elections, using political attack ads to sink pro-climate candidates. 
So I asked in my last speeches: Why? Why does the chamber and NAM 
advance the special interests of the fossil fuel industry, opposing 
climate action, ignoring their own pro-climate members, and turning 
their backs on the whole renewable energy and green technology economy? 
Why, indeed.
  Well, today I would like to talk about a fossil fuel trade 
association--the American Petroleum Institute,

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API. API is a slightly different beast than the chamber and NAM. It 
represents the oil and gas industry. You wouldn't expect it to care 
about renewable energy or green technology. API's policy positions 
should align with the big oil companies it represents, but it gets 
complicated. It gets complicated because the big oil companies all 
claim to support action on climate change. Here is what ExxonMobil 
claims: ``The risk of climate change is clear and the risk warrants 
action.''
  In 2009, then-Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson said the company supported a 
price on carbon. That is supposedly ExxonMobil's position today.
  Here is Shell on carbon pricing: ``The transition to low-carbon 
solutions is best underpinned by meaningful government-led carbon 
`pricing' mechanisms.''
  On the Paris Agreement, Exxon publicly supported the Paris Agreement, 
as did Chevron, as did Shell, as did BP. In addition, BP and Shell 
signed on to an initiative to eliminate methane flaring.
  So summing up, all of the major oil companies supported the Paris 
Agreement. Three out of four, including ExxonMobil--the big kahuna--
publicly support putting a price on carbon emissions, and two of them 
even support eliminating methane flaring.
  So where is the American Petroleum Institute on these policies? Let's 
start with the Paris Agreement. API funds a group called the American 
Council on Capital Formation, which, along with the Chamber of 
Commerce, funded the debunked study claiming that the Paris Agreement 
would cause massive job losses and huge costs. This debunked report was 
cited by President Trump as justification for withdrawing from the 
Paris accord. So API funded the report used as a basis for withdrawal--
but wait. It gets better. The authors of this API-funded study are the 
same two characters API hired way back in 1997 and 1998 to write 
similar reports critical of the Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol, of 
course, was violently opposed in the Senate by the fossil fuel industry 
and API.
  So here we are 20 years after Kyoto, and API used almost exactly the 
same playbook--even the same personnel--against the Paris Agreement 
that they had used against the Kyoto accord, except that this time API 
paid for the report through a front group to hide API's hand in 
torpedoing the Paris Agreement. How do you relate that to the stated 
position of the four oil majors for the Paris Agreement? You would have 
to ask API to explain.
  So now let's look at API's position on carbon pricing, which three 
out of those four oil majors say they support. API's President has 
claimed that his organization doesn't have an official position on 
carbon pricing, but if you take a look at API's website, it is loaded 
with comments critical of putting a price on carbon, and API also 
funded yet another study claiming that a price on carbon emissions 
would be bad for the economy.
  On the issue of methane flaring, API out front led the charge against 
Department of the Interior and Environmental Protection Agency rules. 
Its lobbying campaign has paid off, as two of Trump's fossil fuel 
stooges, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and EPA Administrator Scott 
Pruitt, are busily trying to dismantle these rules. Luckily, they are 
not very bright about it, and courts keep upending their schemes.
  Let's look at the lobbying. Big Oil money provides much of API's 
power in the Halls of Congress. API has spent over $100 million 
lobbying the Federal Government, and apparently its lobbying goes 
against the wishes as stated by its biggest clients, the four oil 
majors. If you look, there is a big bump up in 2009 and here through 
2016--the Obama years--when they wanted to go in and stop all kinds of 
progress on climate change.
  In this building, we all know perfectly well that API is not here 
lobbying for a price on carbon. We know perfectly well that if a 
Republican were to say, ``I am for a price on carbon,'' or sign on to a 
bill, they would probably get a visit from API saying, ``Whoa, not so 
fast there, partner.'' We know perfectly well that they are not in this 
building lobbying for the Paris accord.
  So why the discrepancy? Is it possible that all of this money--$100 
million--is being thrown around without the approval of the big oil 
companies? Has the American Petroleum Institute sort of gone off on its 
own, off the leash, free range, running away from the oil companies? It 
is a puzzlement, this vast gulf between the pro-climate policies the 
oil majors say they support and the anti-climate policies the API 
lobbyists support.
  I said one possibility is, Big Oil doesn't know how its lobbying 
money is being spent. Maybe those CEOs have lost control of their own 
trade association and don't even know it. I mean, after all, around 
here, who pays attention to their own lobbying operation, anyway? Maybe 
the $100 million is such chump change to the big oil companies that 
they have just lost track of it, like we might lose change in our couch 
cushions.

  Maybe--cover your ears, young pages, because I may say something 
shocking here--maybe it is a scam. It is totally shocking that a big 
corporation will say one thing and do another. What a concept, but it 
is a concept that works out great for Big Oil. The Big Oil CEOs get to 
go to cocktail parties in Davos or on Fifth Avenue. They get to go to 
international conferences, and with all their sophisticated friends, 
they get to say: Hey, we are not a bunch of science-hating, heads-in-
the-sand climate deniers. We have sensible climate policies.
  At the same time, they can send their lobbying goons out to make sure 
no one in Congress takes that ``sensible climate policies'' nonsense 
seriously. It is great. Have your front group do your dirty work for 
you, fill your websites with happy assurances, while you let API loose 
on Washington to crush any pro-climate policies that might actually 
reduce carbon emissions and threaten your bottom line.
  Hypocrisy? Yes, but then hypocrisy is famously the tribute vice pays 
to virtue. I suppose it is at least a start. It is a sign that we have 
reached the point where Big Oil recognizes the need to try to at least 
look virtuous. That is a start, but it still leaves us with this huge 
disconnect between the pro-climate policies the big oil companies claim 
to support and their American Petroleum Institute's relentless anti-
climate lobbying.
  Remember, throughout the oil industry's decades-long campaign against 
climate action, they knew all along. Exxon knew decades ago about the 
effects of carbon pollution, but they worked through an elaborate web 
of front groups to propagate doubt and denial about the science they 
knew.
  Shell knew too. In 1991, Shell even produced a documentary warning 
about the serious threat climate change posed to the future of 
civilization. Despite acknowledging this threat, Shell, like Exxon, 
continued to fund API and other front groups that sought to mislead the 
public about climate change and opposed climate action here in 
Congress.
  Exxon's trade group--this American Petroleum Institute--also knew. 
They knew of the reality of climate change. They knew it was caused by 
carbon emissions from fossil fuels, and they knew of the danger it 
poses. Way back in 1959--almost 60 years ago--API was warned by an 
eminent scientist that if we kept burning fossil fuels, we would 
increase the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Back in 
1959, they were warned. The prediction they received was that it would 
warm the atmosphere, melt the icecaps, and submerge coastal cities and 
towns, as we are beginning to see along the Florida coastline right 
now. That was the prediction in 1959.
  In 1959, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 
316 parts per million. Then, in 1968, a group of scientists API had 
itself commissioned warned API that significant temperature changes 
could occur by the year 2000 and that, ultimately, potential damage to 
the environment could be severe. By 1968, the atmosphere concentration 
of CO2 was up to 323 parts per million.
  In 1980, scientists hired by API again warned API that carbon 
emissions from burning fossil fuels were likely to have catastrophic 
effects. By 1980, the atmospheric concentration of CO2 was 
339. In 1983, API disbanded the scientific working group it had created 
to study global warming. Apparently, API didn't like what it was 
hearing so, in 1983, they shut it off. There is a legal term for when 
you are on notice but

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then just turn away; it is called ``willful ignorance.'' By 1983, the 
atmospheric concentration of CO2 was 343 parts per million.
  Then came 1999, when James Hansen's famous Senate testimony 
threatened API's willful ignorance scheme. So API and its Big Oil 
members founded a front group with the misleading name Global Climate 
Coalition. What is it with these front groups and these people, anyway? 
Why is it always these front groups? Global Climate Coalition began to 
spread falsehoods and disinformation about climate science, even though 
in 1989 they knew. In 1989, they had known for 30 years, since that 
first report in 1959, and by 1989 the atmospheric concentration was 353 
parts per million.
  In 1993, API hired one of the same men who wrote those phony Kyoto 
and Paris reports that I mentioned to write a report attacking 
President Clinton's so-called Btu tax on fuel sources. In 1993, the 
CO2 concentration in the atmosphere was up to 357 parts per 
million. In 1998, API did that report attacking the Kyoto Protocol. It 
also commissioned what it called its Global Climate Science 
Communications Plan, a plan designed to mislead Americans about climate 
science. By 1998, the atmospheric concentration of CO2 was 
367 parts per million.
  In 2009, API fought and killed the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade 
legislation that would have controlled carbon emissions. By 2009, the 
atmospheric concentration of CO2 was 387 parts per million.
  Now here we are in 2018. API is still fighting climate action. The 
concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is now 407 parts per 
million, almost 30 percent higher than it was when API probably first 
learned what climate science meant. As we have kept dumping carbon 
pollution into the atmosphere, temperatures and sea levels have indeed 
steadily risen--just as API was told they would. They knew, but they 
lied.
  For decades, they lied on a massive industrial scale. They lied 
through phony science. They lied through phony front groups and bogus 
studies. They lied through talk shows. They lied through rightwing 
media. They lied through AstroTurf, and well-paid PR firms. They lied 
for decades, and now the American people have to pay the price of 
climate change to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars.
  So, from their point of view, what the heck? After decades of lying 
about climate change, what is a little discrepancy now between what Big 
Oil CEOs say and what Big Oil lobbyists do? The industry's 
sophisticated and expensive disinformation and lobbying campaign has 
blockaded climate action in this country for more than half a century. 
When you have been lying that long, maybe it is a hard habit to break.
  Looking back at this whole scam, I guess API and its members actually 
see it as a win--nearly 60 years of industry profits they protected 
behind the barricade of lies, but at what price to our country? At what 
price to Americans whose lives have already, in many cases, been 
upended by climate change? At what price to people around the world who 
will suffer the effects of climate change and one day want an answer 
about why America, through all this period, let this take place--why 
America let them down.
  The time for deception, the time for front groups, for 
misinformation, for inaction is over. API and its fossil fuel allies 
over at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and National Association of 
Manufacturers have blocked climate action in Congress long enough. Look 
at the price we paid to allow the fossil fuel lobby to dictate climate 
policy in this great body. Four hundred seven parts per million is a 
measurement, and it is a measurement unprecedented in the full span of 
human history on this planet.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Rubio). The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.