[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
[[Page S7172]]
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.