[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 187 (Wednesday, November 28, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7170-S7174]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Climate Change

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, a persistent argument of my climate 
talks is how corrupt climate denial is. The premise of that argument is 
that the fossil fuel industry denial apparatus is wrong about climate 
change and knows it is wrong. That is my case. The fossil fuel industry 
denial apparatus knows it is wrong about climate change.
  Well, it is a beautiful world, and every once in a while, along comes 
something that proves my case. Last week, on the afternoon of Black 
Friday, the Trump administration released its National Climate 
Assessment by 13 Federal agencies describing the monumental damage the 
United States is facing from climate change. In more than 1,000 pages, 
the report contradicted nearly every fake assertion Trump and his 
fossil fuel flunky Cabinet have made about climate change.
  Trump's pro-polluter policies are predicated on the lies and nonsense 
of this fossil fuel industry denial apparatus, and this report is 
devastating to those policies and to those lies.
  So how did the fossil fuel apparatus respond? What did they do to 
rebut the National Climate Assessment? They did nothing. They did 
nothing. There was all that big talk from Scott Pruitt about how they 
were going to ``red team'' climate science. Well here comes the climate 
science. Where is your red team? Nothing. Instead of engaging with this 
devastating report by the U.S. Government's leading scientists, they 
tried to bury it, timing its release for a day of the year when it 
would be least likely to get public attention.
  Consider for a moment the environment in which they backed down from 
this challenge--no red team, no nothing. They just whimpered and ran 
away and tried to bury the report on Black Friday. At a time when their 
industry populates the Trump administration, at a time when the 
President is in their pocket, at a time when both Houses of Congress 
are under fossil fuel industry control, their phony climate denial 
front groups wield more influence than ever. This should have been 
their moment.
  The tell here is that even in this environment, the fossil fuel 
industry and its bevy of stooges in the Trump administration got this 
report and did nothing. Why? Why nothing? There is only one answer. 
Because they know they are wrong. They know the real science is right. 
They know their science denial campaign is phony, so they backed down. 
They folded like a cardboard suitcase in a rainstorm.
  That, my friends, is an admission. It is an admission by inaction. It 
is an admission that even the fossil fuel industry knows the climate 
science is irrefutable.
  Interestingly, ``irrefutable'' is just what President Trump and his 
family said about climate science in this full-page advertisement they 
signed in the New York Times in 2009, saying that science of climate 
was ``irrefutable'' and that there will be ``catastrophic and 
irreversible'' consequences of climate change.
  The new National Climate Assessment plus the recent Intergovernmental 
Panel on Climate Change report are both very clear. The irrefutable 
science that these two reports disclose couldn't be more clear: Damage 
from climate change is already occurring; there is no credible natural 
explanation for it; human activity is the dominant cause; future damage 
from further warming will be worse than we previously thought; 
economies will suffer; and we are almost out of time to prevent the 
worst consequences of climate change.
  The Bank of England report on this--they are the biggest financial 
regulator in the UK, and they said: The financial risks are far-
reaching in their breadth and magnitude, have uncertain and extended 
time horizons, are foreseeable, but these risk factors will be 
minimized if there is an orderly transition to a carbon economy, but 
the window for an orderly transition is finite and closing. We are 
almost out of time.
  These two reports are tough stuff. As the Trump administration 
summary states, the ``Earth's climate is now changing faster than at 
any point in the history of modern civilization, primarily as a result 
of human activities. The impacts of global climate change are already 
being felt in the United States and are projected to intensify in the 
future,'' which makes sense, since in the history of human 
civilization, the Earth has never seen atmospheric CO2 
concentrations like we have today.
  Many scientists have said warming of around 3 degrees centigrade is 
now likely. What does that mean? Heating the planet well beyond 2 
degrees centigrade would create a ``totally different world,'' says 
Michael Oppenheimer, a climate scientist at Princeton University. He 
says:

       It would be indescribable, it would turn the world upside 
     down in terms of its climate. There would be nothing like it 
     in the history of civilization.

  Here is what the Trump climate assessment chronicles: From our Ocean 
State, we are concerned about sea levels, ocean acidification, and 
warming. We note sea levels are rising, as oceans warm and upland ice 
melts. If fossil fuels are not constrained, the reports says, ``many 
coastal communities will be transformed by the latter part of this 
century.'' For my coastal State, that is a pretty ominous warning. 
Along coasts, fisheries, tourism, human health, even public safety are 
being ``transformed, degraded or lost due in part to climate change 
impacts,

[[Page S7171]]

particularly sea level rise and higher numbers of extreme weather 
events.''
  You get the sea level coming up, and that extreme weather event--
which is stronger to begin with now--has a lot more ocean to throw at 
our shores.
  Out West, ``more frequent and larger wildfires, combined with 
increasing development at the wildland-urban interface portend 
increasing risks to property and human life,'' the report says. By the 
way, from 2000 to 2016, wildfires have burned at least 3.7 million 
acres of the United States in every single year except for 3. From 2000 
to 2016, more than 3.7 million acres burned in all years but 3. 
California still smolders as I speak.
  More than 100 million people in the United States live with poor air 
quality, and climate change will ``worsen existing air pollution 
levels.'' Increased wildfire smoke heightens respiratory and 
cardiovascular problems. With higher temperatures from global warming, 
asthma and hay fever rise.
  Groundwater supplies have declined over the last century, and the 
decrease is accelerating. ``Significant changes in water quantity and 
quality are evident across the country,'' the report finds.
  Midwest farmers take a big hit: warmer, wetter, and more humid 
conditions from climate change; greater incidence of crop disease and 
more pests; worsened conditions for stored grain. During the growing 
season, the Midwest will see temperatures climb more than any other 
region of the United States, the report says. Crop yields will suffer--
a warning that is echoed by grain giants like Cargill.
  To sum it all up, the report says climate change will ``disrupt many 
areas of life,'' hurting the U.S. economy, affecting trade, 
exacerbating overseas conflicts for our military. Costs will be high: 
``With continued growth in emissions at historic rates, annual losses 
in some economic sectors are projected to reach hundreds of billions of 
dollars by the end of the century--more than the current gross domestic 
product of many U.S. States.''
  Danger warnings already flash in some economic sectors. Freddie Mac 
has warned of a coastal property value crash, saying: ``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 and 
Great Recession.'' From a coastal State, that is an ominous warning.
  The insurance industry agrees. Trade publication Risk and Insurance 
has warned: ``Continually rising seas will damage coastal residential 
and commercial property values to the point that property owners will 
flee those markets in droves, thus precipitating a mortgage value 
collapse that could equal or exceed the mortgage crisis that rocked the 
global economy in 2008.'' By the way, the leading edge of this may 
already be upon us as coastal property values are beginning to lag 
inland property values, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.
  Separate from the coastal property values threat is another warning 
about a carbon bubble in fossil fuel markets. Fossil fuel reserves, now 
claimed as assets, that are not developable in a 2-degrees-Centigrade 
world become what they call stranded assets. A recent economic 
publication estimated that collapse of the ``carbon bubble'' would wipe 
out ``around 82 percent of global coal reserves, 49 percent of global 
gas reserves, and 33 percent of global oil reserves.'' A separate 
economic review warns that $12 trillion of fossil fuel industry 
financial value ``could vanish off their balance sheets globally in the 
form of stranded assets.'' Twelve trillion dollars is over 15 percent 
of global GDP, which is why the Bank of England--which I quoted earlier 
as a financial regulator--is warning of this carbon asset bubble as a 
systemic economic risk. That may be the blandest set of words in the 
English language that convey the worst threat. If you were to graph 
``blandness of language'' and ``seriousness of threat,'' you would 
probably come up with systemic economic risk. It basically means 
economic meltdown. Well, that is what we are looking at.
  This level of collapse could cascade beyond the fossil fuel 
companies. It is not just a question of their shareholders getting 
wiped out. It is such a crash that it cascades out into the global 
economy--a crash like that, unfortunately, hits the United States 
particularly hard because lower cost producers can hold on and unload 
fossil fuel reserves into the collapsing market at fire sale prices. 
When they do, the economists warn, ``regions with higher marginal 
costs''--like the United States--``lose almost their entire oil and gas 
industry.''
  The solution is to decarbonize, to invest in more renewables, to 
broaden our energy portfolio away from this asset collapse risk. One 
paper concludes that ``the United States is worse off if it continues 
to promote fossil fuel production and consumption.'' Another paper 
concludes--this is the good news:

       If climate policies are implemented early on and in a 
     stable and credible framework, market participants are able 
     to smoothly anticipate the effects. In this case there would 
     not be any large shock in asset prices and there would be no 
     systemic risk.

  So how do we get to eliminating this hazard of no systemic risk? How 
do we get to no systemic risk? We do what works for us anyway: move to 
renewables. As this graph shows, we have to make a big move to avoid 
this hazard. A carbon price--which is the remedy the fossil fuel 
industry pretends to support, while sending its political forces out to 
oppose exactly the laws it pretends to support--would allow this big 
move to happen, all while generating revenues that could be cycled back 
to States and citizens and help the hardest hit areas of transition.
  The smart move we need to take to make this happen does not have to 
be painful. We avoid a lot of pain if we make the move, but that 
doesn't mean the move itself has to be painful. Nobel Prize winner 
Joseph Stiglitz says it is a win economically. He has testified:

       Retrofitting the global economy for climate change would 
     help to restore aggregate demand and growth. Climate 
     policies, if well designed and implemented, are consistent 
     with growth, development, and poverty reduction. The 
     transition to a low-carbon economy is potentially a powerful, 
     attractive, and sustainable growth story, marked by higher 
     resilience, more innovation, more livable cities, robust 
     agriculture, and stronger ecosystems.

  We could do it the hard way--do nothing; get hit with those dire 
economic consequences because the status quo is not safe.
  Fortune magazine summed up the Trump administration's climate report 
quite beautifully, so I will quote them at some length: ``The report 
catalogs the observed damage and accelerating financial losses 
projected from a climate now unmoored from a 12,000-year period of 
relative stability.''
  What a phrase that is. The Earth's climate, which we inhabit, is 
unmoored from a 12,000-year period of relative stability.
  It goes on:

       The result is that much of what humans have built, and many 
     of the things they are building now, are unsuited to the 
     world as it exists. And as time goes on, the added cost of 
     living in that world could total hundreds of billions of 
     dollars--annually.

  Which way we now go depends on the Congress of the United States--on 
whether Congress can put the interests of our people ahead of the 
interests of the fossil fuel industry.
  The record is not good. I will concede that. Since the Citizens 
United decision, the politics of climate change have turned into a tale 
of industry capture and control. So far, despite the fossil fuel 
industry's obvious conflict of interest, could there be a more obvious 
conflict of interest, indeed? Despite their provable pattern of 
deception and despite clear warnings from, well, virtually everywhere 
now, the Republican Party has proven itself incapable of telling the 
fossil fuel industry: No, we tried our best for you. We held in for you 
as long as we could, and we did everything we could think of, but we 
are not going to wreck our economy, our climate, our oceans, our 
country for you.
  So it doesn't look good, but the climate report does say we still 
have time if we act fast.
  I ask unanimous consent that an article by Max Boot, titled, ``I was 
wrong on climate change. Why can't other conservatives admit it, too?'' 
be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks.
  It concludes: Why haven't other Conservatives owned up to this 
danger?

       They are captives, first and foremost, of the fossil fuel 
     industry. . . . It is a tragedy for the entire planet that 
     the United States' governing party is impervious to science 
     and reason.

  I will close with a reference to ``The Gathering Storm,'' which is 
Winston

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Churchill's legendary book about a previous failure to heed warnings. 
Churchill quoted a poem of a train bound for destruction, rushing 
through the night, with the engineer asleep at the controls as disaster 
looms:

       Who is in charge of the clattering train?
       The axles creak, and the couplings strain.
       . . . the pace is hot, and the points are near,
       [but] Sleep hath deadened the driver's ear;
       And signals flash through the night in vain.
       Death is in charge of the clattering train!

  I contend that we are now that sleeping driver, that the signals are 
flashing at us, so far, in vain, and that it is decidedly time to wake 
up.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                       [From The Washington Post]

I Was Wrong on Climate Change. Why Can't Other Conservatives Admit It, 
                                  Too?

                             (By Max Boot)

       I admit it. I used to be a climate-change skeptic. I was 
     one of those conservatives who thought that the science was 
     inconclusive, that fears of global warming were as overblown 
     as fears of a new ice age in the 1970s, that climate change 
     was natural and cyclical, and that there was no need to incur 
     any economic costs to deal with this speculative threat. I no 
     longer think any of that, because the scientific consensus is 
     so clear and convincing.
       The Fourth National Climate Assessment, released Friday by 
     the U.S. government, puts it starkly: ``Observations 
     collected around the world provide significant, clear, and 
     compelling evidence that global average temperature is much 
     higher, and is rising more rapidly, than anything modern 
     civilization has experienced, with widespread and growing 
     impacts.'' The report notes that ``annual average 
     temperatures have increased by 1.8  deg.F across the 
     contiguous United States since the beginning of the 20th 
     century'' and that ``annual median sea level along the U.S. 
     coast . . . has increased by about 9 inches since the early 
     20th century as oceans have warmed and land ice has melted.''
       The report attributes these changes to man-made greenhouse 
     gases and warns: ``High temperature extremes, heavy 
     precipitation events, high tide flooding events along the 
     U.S. coastline, ocean acidification and warming, and forest 
     fires in the western United States and Alaska are all 
     projected to continue to increase, while land and sea ice 
     cover, snowpack, and surface soil moisture are expected to 
     continue to decline in the coming decades.''
       The U.S. government warnings echo the United Nations' 
     Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In October, it 
     released a report that represented the work of 91 scientists 
     from 60 countries. It describes, in the words of the New York 
     Times, ``a world of worsening food shortages and wildfires, 
     and a mass die-off of coral reefs as soon as 2040.''
       The wildfires are already here. The Camp Fire blaze this 
     month is the most destructive in California history, charring 
     153,000 acres, destroying nearly 19,000 structures, and 
     killing at least 85 people. The second-most destructive fire 
     in California history was the one last year in Napa and 
     Sonoma counties.
       The Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies notes 
     that climate change has contributed to these conflagrations 
     by shortening the rainy season, drying out vegetation and 
     whipping up Santa Ana winds. Massive hurricanes are 
     increasing along with wildfires--and they too are influenced 
     by climate change.
       It is time to sound the planetary alarm. This is likely to 
     be the fourth-hottest year on record. The record-holder is 
     2016, followed by 2015 and 2017. A climate change website 
     notes that ``the five warmest years in the global record have 
     all come in the 2010s'' and ``the 10 warmest years on record 
     have all come since 1998.''
       Imagine if these figures reflected a rise in terrorism--or 
     illegal immigration. Republicans would be freaking out. Yet 
     they are oddly blase about this climate code red. President 
     Trump, whose minions buried the climate-change report on the 
     day after Thanksgiving, told Axios: ``Is there climate 
     change? Yeah. Will it go back like this, I mean will it 
     change back? Probably.'' And, amid a recent cold snap, he 
     tweeted: ``Brutal and Extended Cold Blast could shatter ALL 
     RECORDS--Whatever happened to Global Warming?''
       By this point, no one should be surprised that the 
     president can't tell the difference between short-term 
     weather fluctuations and long-term climate trends. At least 
     he didn't repeat his crazy suggestion that climate change is 
     a Chinese hoax. Yet his denialism is echoed by other 
     Republicans who should know better. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) 
     told CNN on Sunday: ``Our climate always changes and we see 
     those ebb and flows through time. . . . We need to always 
     consider the impact to American industry and jobs.''
       We do need to consider the impact on U.S. jobs--but that's 
     an argument for action rather than, as Ernst suggests, 
     inaction. The National Climate Assessment warns that global 
     warming could cause a 10 percent decline in gross domestic 
     product and that the ``potential for losses in some sectors 
     could reach hundreds of billions of dollars per year by the 
     end of this century.'' Iowa and other farm states will be 
     particularly hard hit as crops wilt and livestock die.
       Compared with the crushing costs of climate change, the 
     action needed to curb greenhouse-gas emissions is modest and 
     manageable--if we act now. Jerry Taylor, president of the 
     libertarian Niskanen Center, estimates that a carbon tax 
     would increase average electricity rates from 17 cents to 18 
     cents per kilowatt-hour. The average household, he writes, 
     would see spending on energy rise ``only about $35 per 
     month.'' That's not nothing--but it's better than allowing 
     climate change to continue unabated.
       I've owned up to the danger. Why haven't other 
     conservatives? They are captives, first and foremost, of the 
     fossil fuel industry, which outspent green groups 10 to 1 in 
     lobbying on climate change from 2000 to 2016. But they are 
     also captives of their own rigid ideology. It is a tragedy 
     for the entire planet that the United States' governing party 
     is impervious to science and reason.

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I note that my distinguished colleague from 
Massachusetts has arrived. We have an order in place in which the 
Senator from Massachusetts is to be recognized at the conclusion of my 
remarks and that the distinguished Senator from New Hampshire, Mrs. 
Shaheen, is to be recognized at the conclusion of Senator Markey's 
remarks.
  With that, I yield the floor to the coauthor of the Waxman-Markey 
legislation, the person who had done the most successful work to try to 
solve this climate problem at a time when the situation was slightly 
less desperate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Rounds). The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I thank Senator Whitehouse, who has been 
out here on the floor, week after week after week, sounding the 
warning, like Churchill, that there is danger ahead, that there is a 
gathering storm. Yet it is not metaphorical as it was for Churchill. It 
is real. There is a gathering storm. What Senator Whitehouse has been 
doing, year after year after year, is coming out on the floor to 
document this gathering storm and to warn that we have to take action.
  I thank Senator Whitehouse for his incredible, historic leadership 
because, between the U.N. and the U.S. scientists, all of the evidence 
is now there. My belief is, the failure that he talked about to heed 
the dire warnings on climate change is much more now than that 
figurative gathering storm; it is literally gathering much fiercer 
energy in super-charged storms that will bear down on our shores as a 
result of our warming crisis.
  Scientists have shot off the warning flare. In the last 2 months, we 
have received two of the most alarming reports to date on the threat 
that climate change poses to our country, our economy, our security, 
and to our planet. It questions the morality of our country because 
ultimately that is what it is. It is a moral issue of whether we are 
going to leave this planet better than we found it.
  Are we going to be the stewards of this planet and pass it on to 
future generations better than we found it? Right now, the gathering 
evidence from the United Nations and from our own U.S. Government's 
scientists is that we are not.
  The Federal Government's National Climate Assessment that was 
released last week as well as the recent United Nations 
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report are clarion calls. The 
science in these reports is clear. If we fail to act now, storms will 
grow more frequent and more powerful. Extreme weather events, like 
Hurricane Michael, which grew more quickly this October than any storm 
we have seen, will continue to cost the United States hundreds of 
billions of dollars in damage. The National Climate Assessment--the 
congressionally mandated report issued by 13 Federal agencies--
underscores the specific impacts we are facing now and will continue to 
face in the future.
  In our home region of the Northeast, which Senator Shaheen and 
Senator Whitehouse and I have the privilege to represent, the impacts 
are going to be truly devastating. The Northeast region will surpass 2 
degrees centigrade of warming beyond preindustrial levels by as soon as 
2035--not 2050, not 2100 but by the year 2035--if emissions continue at 
their current pace. That would be the quickest warming in the 
contiguous United States and would occur as much as two decades before 
global average temperatures reach a similar point.
  The real-world effects of this warming trajectory are shocking. Sea 
levels

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in the Northeast could rise upward of 11 feet by the end of the 
century. Almost one-third of the sandy shorelines along the Atlantic 
coast could erode inland at rates of at least 3.3 feet per year. We 
will feel the impact on our economy, which is so strongly tied to 
fishing, to our beaches and tourism, and to our natural environmental 
resources.
  In 2012, a 2-degree centigrade water temperature increase boosted 
lobster landings to high summer levels a month earlier than usual. The 
result was an early supply glut and a collapse in prices to the lowest 
level in almost two decades. This type of negative impact on our 
fishing industries will become more commonplace as the climate 
continues to warm and our marine life is forced to move to new areas.
  Outdoor recreation in the Northeast, which will suffer the 
consequences of climate change, contributes nearly $150 billion in 
consumer spending and supports more than 1 million jobs across our 
region. Climate impacts, like beach erosion, are an imminent threat to 
this economic powerhouse. Yet perhaps most devastating will be the 
impacts on the public's health. According to estimates, up to 10,000 
people in Massachusetts could, by the end of the century, visit the 
emergency room annually due to the rising heat.
  Despite these generational warnings from both the United Nations and 
the scientists in our own country, President Trump has continued to 
dismiss the impending disaster from our dangerously warming planet.
  How did President Trump respond when asked about the conclusion that 
climate change could devastate the American economy?
  His answer: ``I don't believe it.''
  Well, it doesn't matter, Mr. President, if you don't believe it 
because the world's leading scientists have shown it to be true, and 70 
percent of Americans believe it. They believe global warming is 
happening.
  President Trump may deny climate science, but there is no denying the 
consequences of climate change. Yet the Trump administration will not 
stop at climate denial. It has a much more insidious scheme to block 
action on climate--deny, delay, and defund. The list of its climate 
sins is long, with each action more egregious than the last one.
  First came the appointment of an all-star Big Oil Cabinet--Scott 
Pruitt at the EPA, former Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson at the State 
Department, and former Texas Governor Rick Perry at the Department of 
Energy.
  Since Mr. Pruitt's ouster after numerous ethics violations, the Trump 
administration has nominated king coal's favorite son, Andrew Wheeler, 
to head the EPA. Mr. Wheeler is a former coal industry lobbyist and has 
downplayed the recent science on the devastating impacts to come from 
climate change. After these reports came out, he said: ``I have some 
questions about the assumptions.'' These are assumptions that have been 
vetted by 300 leading scientists in the United States and across the 
planet.
  The only question, I believe, is why someone like Andrew Wheeler was 
put in charge at the EPA. A coal lobbyist is now the head of the EPA. 
The EPA just turned into every polluter's ally. That is the net result 
of what Donald Trump has done at the Agency.
  The Trump administration is also moving to freeze fuel economy 
standards rather than pushing for the historic and technically 
achievable goal of 54.5 miles per gallon by the year 2025. I am the 
author of the 2007 law that required the first fuel economy increase in 
32 years. Increasing our fuel economy standard to 54.5 miles per gallon 
is the single largest action that any nation has ever taken on 
climate--that one law. Yet the Trump administration is trying to make a 
U-turn on those standards that are saving customers money at the pump 
and reducing the emissions we pump into the air.
  The Trump administration is also trying to repeal President Obama's 
Clean Power Plan. Turning our back on this roadmap for reducing 
pollution in the electricity sector will result in at least 12 times 
more carbon dioxide emissions over the next decade.
  Why is the Trump administration taking us backward on climate in the 
face of these dire warnings? Just follow the money.
  Yesterday, during the weekly Senate Climate Change Task Force 
meeting, Senator Whitehouse, Senator Cardin, other colleagues, and I 
heard about the complex funding behind the climate countermovement, 
which the fossil fuel industry has funded and used to mislead the 
American people and to hold this administration hostage.
  The ``web of climate denial'' is nothing more than dirty energy 
corporations and their shady front groups spending over a quarter of a 
billion dollars each year to deceive Americans about climate change. 
These corporations distort scientific consensus and turn it into an 
artificial political debate. They produce sham scientific documents, 
such as ``Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warning,'' a report 
published by the Heartland Institute and sent to over 300,000 science 
teachers across the country. Funding 300,000 documents to be sent to 
every science teacher in America over science that is patently untrue--
that is how much money the fossil fuel industry has. That is how high 
they try to send up a smoke screen around this issue to terrify 
teachers that they might be getting in trouble if they actually teach 
accurate science rather than the bogus documents that are sent to them 
by the fossil fuel industry, by their handmaidens, the Heartland 
Institute.
  These fossil fuel phonies are on a mission to sow doubt, and their 
efforts seem to be bearing fruit in this administration. The web of 
denial messaging strategy is highly sophisticated, disciplined, and 
politically controlled. Conferences, advertisements, websites, talking 
heads--this fossil fuel-funded farce may be a well-oiled machine and 
well funded, but they are wrong.
  What do we do in the face of this web of denial? We need to look at 
the dollars and cents of it all--not the Big Oil and King Coal 
greenbacks but the success of green energy.
  We are ushering our power sector into a clean energy future that is 
good for our environment and good for our economy. Coal cannot compete 
against wind, solar, and other renewables and natural gas in the free 
market. By the early 2020s, it could be cheaper to build new renewables 
from scratch than to continue operating old, dirty, coal-fired 
powerplants. That is not a conspiracy; that is called competition. Adam 
Smith is smiling in his grave, watching this market force begin to take 
over. And that is why this renewable revolution has become unstoppable. 
It is because the cost of renewables is plummeting. The cost of solar 
has fallen 50 to 60 percent over the last 5 to 6 years. In fact, wind 
and solar are generally cheaper than coal and nuclear energy right now. 
Coal is losing the war against wind and solar in the free market. That 
is what we call it--the free market. The War on Coal is a war that has 
been declared by the free market on coal, and it lost that war.
  It is not just happening here in the United States; it is happening 
all around the globe. Mexico had a power auction at the end of November 
2017 where the average price for solar was 1.9 cents per kilowatt hour. 
In 2017, solar in Saudi Arabia came in at 1.8 cents a kilowatt hour. In 
Dubai, it is 2.4 cents a kilowatt hour.
  Half of all electricity installed around the world last year was 
renewable. Let me say that again. Half of all new electrical generation 
capacity in the world that was installed last year was renewable. So it 
is not just the United States; this is happening globally. The 
revolution is on.
  Renewable energy deployment around the world has increased by 8 
percent a year for 7 years in a row. Globally, more than $330 billion 
was invested in clean energy last year. This is a global clean energy 
race. It is a global job-creation race. It is a global clean energy 
investment race. We are going to save all of creation by engaging in 
massive job creation, as we have all of these people who are hired in 
order to install these new technologies.
  Right now, we have more than 50,000 megawatts of solar installed here 
in the United States. By 2020, we are projected to have more than 
90,000 megawatts of solar. Solar is projected to add another 35,000 
megawatts combined in 2021 and 2022. That means that by the end of 
2022--4 years from now--we are going to have 250,000 megawatts of wind 
and solar in the United States.
  If you think of a nuclear powerplant having 1,000 megawatts--the 
Seabrook

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nuclear powerplant, the Diablo Canyon nuclear powerplant--think of 250 
solar and wind facilities. That would be the equivalent of each one of 
those nuclear powerplants. That is what we are talking about.
  By the year 2020, we will have 500,000 people employed in the wind 
and solar industry. Contrast that with the 50,000 people in the coal 
industry. By 2020, there will be 500,000 in wind and solar. Who are 
they? They are roofers. They are electricians. They are engineers. They 
are people who are working with their hands to install all of this 
equipment.
  The President doesn't seem to really care about those blue-collar 
workers--upwards of 500,000 by the year 2020--but they are working 
hard, they are working for good wages, and they are also not running 
the risk of inhaling dangerous air that can be dangerous to their 
health. That is where we are. We have this incredible opportunity that 
is before us. It is already happening. The President is in denial.
  The climate change fight is not just a question of job creation or 
economic imperative; it is about the moral imperative we have to act. 
We know climate change will get worse. We know lives will be lost. We 
cannot sit back and do nothing.
  In 2015, Pope Francis came to Capitol Hill, and he delivered his 
environmental ``Sermon on the Mount.'' He told us that mankind created 
this problem of climate change and now mankind must fix it. With the 
world's poorest and most vulnerable suffering the worst consequences of 
climate change--extreme poverty, famine, disease, and displacement--we 
have a moral obligation to act.
  I agree with Pope Francis that the United States and the Congress 
have an important role to play. We have a responsibility to help those 
less fortunate amongst us who will be harmed the most by rising seas, a 
warming planet, and more pollutions spewing into our air and water. 
That is why, right now and in the next Congress, I am standing here 
with my colleagues in this fight to ensure that we take climate action, 
for a price on carbon, for investment in clean energy, for resilient 
infrastructure, for 100 percent renewable energy in our country.
  If there is a tax extenders bill, we will be fighting for clean 
energy tax credits and for extenders to help reduce our carbon 
emissions, including for offshore wind, for storage of electricity, and 
for clean vehicles. We will be standing side by side in that fight in 
2019 on the Senate floor so that we continue this revolution.
  If there is an infrastructure package, we will be fighting for 
aggressive renewable energy standards for utilities and the Federal 
Government and for coastal infrastructure needs.
  As we work on appropriations, we will fight for more funding for 
energy efficiency and programs that protect the health of children and 
families from climate change.
  The climate challenges facing our Nation and the entire world are 
indeed great, but the United States has the technological imperative to 
lead on solutions. We have the economic imperative to create 
opportunities and jobs for all people, and we have the moral imperative 
to protect our planet for future generations.

  The rest the world will not listen to us and follow us if we do not, 
in fact, take these actions. You cannot preach temperance from a 
barstool. You cannot ask other countries to act when we ourselves are 
walking away from the responsibility. That is the moment we are in.
  By January 1, 2019, this battle is going to be on. We have been given 
the warning, and we are heeding it. We are going to have mighty battles 
up here on the floor to make sure that future generations do not look 
back at us and wonder why we didn't heed all of those warnings that 
were given to us by the smartest scientists on the planet.
  Now I would like to yield to my great colleague from the State of New 
Hampshire, a woman who has dedicated her career to the issues of clean 
energy up in her home State. I give you the great Senator from New 
Hampshire, Jeanne Shaheen.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Tillis). The Senator from New Hampshire.