[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 35 (Tuesday, February 26, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1468-S1471]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Climate Change

  Mr. CARPER. Madam President, I rise this evening to speak on a 
subject that, with the groundswell of activism, has once again captured 
national attention--and rightfully so.
  Many years ago, I was a young naval flight officer stationed at a 
mock field naval air station in the Bay area out in California, 
preparing for the first of what would be three tours of duty in 
Southeast Asia during the Vietnam war. I joined there with tens of 
thousands of people one day to celebrate our country's first-ever Earth 
Day. I will never forget it.
  This was back when polluters dumped waste into our waterways with 
impunity. Garbage littered our shores, and too many rivers oozed 
instead of flowed. One of them was in Cleveland, OH. The Cuyahoga 
River, north of where I went to school at Ohio State, actually caught 
on fire. Factories spewed toxic fumes, and acid rain fell from the sky. 
The urgency was clear then, and it is even clearer today.
  That very first Earth Day was a transformative experience for me, and 
it will serve as an inspiration for me for the rest of my life.
  As I look at what is happening across our country today, I see the 
movement for bold and transformative action to save our planet. I see 
the faces of those who were there with me that day in Golden Gate State 
Park.
  I have had a lot of different jobs since then, but it is not lost on 
me that I stand here today on the brink of yet another watershed moment 
as the top Democrat on the Senate Committee on Environment and Public 
Works--the committee that oversees our Nation's environmental laws--to 
talk about climate change.
  In the days and weeks ahead, Senator McConnell intends to engage in a 
ploy to try and undermine the Green New Deal by calling a vote for a 
resolution he does not even support. I believe he hopes that, in turn, 
there may be some disruption and damage inflicted on the Democratic 
Party and the climate change movement.
  To the American people, hear this; it is a simple message: We 
cannot--we will not--allow cynicism to win, not now and not with so 
much at stake.
  When it comes to climate action, there could not be a starker 
difference in this Chamber between the Democratic Party and the 
Republican Party in this debate.
  We, as Democrats, may not agree on exactly how we should address 
climate change, but we all agree it is happening. We agree that human 
activity is the main cause, and we agree that we must act now.
  Democrats know that climate science isn't part of some grand hoax. It 
is not an alarmist prediction. It doesn't come from some left-leaning 
organization. It doesn't come from talk radio. It comes directly from 
our Nation's leading scientists and leading scientists from all around 
the world.
  Just 3 months ago, 13 Federal Agencies released a comprehensive 
climate report that described the dire economic and health consequences 
we face if we fail to take meaningful action to address climate change 
now. I may be mistaken, but I believe those 13 Federal Agencies were 
acting under law signed by a Republican President. I believe it was 
George Herbert Walker Bush.
  This report is the Fourth National Climate Assessment. It was 
developed over a 3-year period by more than 300 Federal experts and 
non-Federal experts who volunteered their time--who volunteered their 
time.
  Here is a brief summary of their report: The science behind climate 
change is settled. Let me say that again. The science behind climate 
change is settled.
  From our warming oceans to our atmosphere, climate change is 
happening, and human activity, such as burning fossil fuels, is greatly 
contributing to this crisis.
  Our Nation's scientists have found a direct link between climate 
change and the extreme weather we experienced in 2017, which altogether 
cost the American economy more than $300 billion--that is $300 billion 
in economic damages, more than any year before.
  Scientists are no longer asking if climate change is happening but 
rather how bad is it going to be. How bad is it going to be? Numbers 
and the facts don't lie. It will only get worse if we do nothing.
  If we don't act on climate change by 2050, wildfire seasons could 
burn up to six times--six times--more forest area every year. If we 
don't act on climate change, we will see more extreme flooding that 
devastates small communities like Ellicott City, MD, not far from here, 
which has been hit by not one 1,000-year flood in the past year but 
two. These are floods that are supposed to occur maybe once every 1,000 
years. They had two of them in the last 2 years.
  If we don't act on climate change, rising temperatures, combined with 
increasingly frequent and severe rain, mean farmers are likely to 
experience a reduction in corn and soybean yields by up to 25 percent. 
If we don't act on climate change, we will see more deadly category 5 
hurricanes and storm surges like the ones we saw with Hurricanes Irma 
and Maria just 2 years ago.
  If we do not act on climate change, we will see economic pain across 
every major sector of our economy in this country. The 2018 National 
Climate Assessment concludes that at the end of this century, climate 
change could slash our gross domestic product by 10 percent.
  How much is that compared to what? Well, compared to the losses we 
sustained in the great recession just a decade ago, 10 percent is more 
than double those losses--more than double.
  It doesn't matter if you are from a coastal State or from a 
landlocked State. I have lived in both. It doesn't matter if you care 
about public health or the environment or if you care about our economy 
or national security. The fact is, every person living in

[[Page S1469]]

this country will eventually see or experience the effects of climate 
change if they haven't already done so today.
  We have two options. We confront this challenge head on--reduce 
carbon emissions, enhance resiliency, and support millions of new clean 
energy jobs--or we could choose to ignore the problem and pass the 
buck. To whom? To our children, to their children, and to their 
children.
  Senator McConnell, President Trump, and Andrew Wheeler at EPA want to 
pass the buck. They prefer to walk away from the growing threat we 
face. Instead of pursuing any ideas to address climate change and 
protect Americans from its effect, sadly, the Trump administration has 
promoted policies that increase our dependency on dirty energy.
  President Trump has even said he doesn't believe in climate change. 
He doubts the credibility of his own scientists at NASA and at NOAA, as 
well as 97 percent of the global scientific community. Continuing to 
misinform the American people and delay real climate action puts 
American lives and our economy at risk.
  It doesn't have to be this way. As Democrats, we choose to confront 
climate change. We choose to do so now. We know our communities are 
feeling the pain now from the climate crisis because we see the effects 
of climate change every day across this country.
  We may not yet agree on exactly how we must address climate change, 
but we all agree on three things. Here they are. One, we agree climate 
change is real; two, human activity during the last 100 years is a 
dominant cause of the climate crisis we face today; and three, the 
United States, and especially the Congress, that is us, the House and 
the Senate, and the administration should take immediate action to 
address the challenge of climate change.
  That is why I will be introducing a resolution that says just that. 
Democrats know we can have a healthy climate and a strong economy. They 
are not mutually exclusive. Anyone who says otherwise is preaching a 
false choice.
  Democrats know this because of the work we started with President 
Obama in the White House, where we accomplished real actions to put 
this Nation on a path of net zero emissions. Our Republicans friends 
across the aisle should know this because of the work done by the 
former President, the late George Herbert Walker Bush, years earlier 
that I just alluded to a minute ago.
  During the Obama administration, starting with the Recovery Act, the 
Federal Government provided economic incentives, environmental targets, 
and supported market developments to encourage investments in the clean 
energy of the future.
  Thanks to the investments during the previous administration, 
consumers are paying less for energy, and more than 3 million people in 
this country went to work today in the clean energy sector--3 million 
and growing.
  Democrats know we must build on this progress, and that is why we 
continue to support policies that reduce our Nation's carbon footprint, 
help create a fair economy, and support those most vulnerable to 
climate effects, but in the U.S. Senate, as in most places, it takes 
two to tango, and for over two decades Democrats have put forth 
different policies that use market forces, make big investments in 
technology, or set strict standards. We have done them all, and we 
don't seem to get very far with our friends on the other side of this 
aisle. I know because I have cosponsored many of these efforts.
  Let me just say this. We are not going to give up. We are going to 
keep on trying. We will not back down. We are going to stand our 
ground.
  Let me leave our colleagues with this message today. This should not 
be an issue. Climate action should not be an issue that divides us as a 
body. It shouldn't divide us as a country or as a world. It should 
unify us.
  I thank Senator McConnell in advance for allowing the Senate to 
devote a fulsome period of time to this important discussion. How we 
choose to act today will not decide our fates. How we choose to act 
today will decide the fates of generations of Americans--not just our 
fates but generations of Americans that will be on this Earth long 
after the rest of us are gone. So let's get to work. Time is wasting. 
Let's get to work.
  I yield the floor to the Senator from Massachusetts, who has done 
great work on this for as long as I have been alive--almost as long as 
I have been alive, my friend and my colleague who has been a giant on 
these issues for a long time and continues to be.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. MARKEY. Madam President, I thank our great leader on the 
Environment Committee for his visionary work on this issue. I am here 
for the same purpose today. I am here to talk about climate change, 
about our climate crisis, and about the mistake it would be to put 
Andrew Wheeler in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency.
  Climate change is an existential threat to our country and to the 
planet. We know this because the world's leading scientists, the United 
Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, just made that 
warning late last year. It is an existential threat to the planet.
  The U.N. report told us we have very limited time until we are past 
the point of no return, and the most catastrophic impacts of climate 
change are irreversible.
  Our own Federal scientists across 13 Agencies also just warned in the 
National Climate Assessment that the impacts of climate change are not 
in the future, but they are happening in our communities right now.
  Here is what all 13 U.S. Federal Agencies said. They said our efforts 
do not yet approach the scale necessary to avoid substantial damages to 
the economy, environment, and human health. These are Earth-shattering 
reports about the state of our Earth. These are the doomsday reports 
about what happens if we do not take bold action.
  The dire consequences of climate change, in fact, are arriving. A 
tenfold increase in ice-free summers in the Arctic, 99 percent loss of 
coral reefs, and a doubling of species lost around the world. In the 
Northeast, in worst-case scenarios, by the end of the century, both the 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Logan Airport will be under 
water, and over 20 percent of Boston's population will face flood risk.
  The climate emissions are not slowing down. In 2018, emissions 
increased 2.8 percent. We have the ``Denier in Chief'' in the White 
House, and this week Republicans in the Senate are poised to confirm a 
coal lobbyist to head the Environmental Protection Agency.
  During his confirmation hearing, when I asked whether he agreed with 
the conclusions of the National Climate Assessment report, Mr. Wheeler 
said he still needed additional briefings before he could make a public 
comment on it. Let me repeat that. The nominee of Donald Trump to run 
the Agency charged with protecting the planet from climate change had 
not even sufficiently reviewed the climate report from our own Federal 
Agencies before his confirmation hearing. He also said he considered 
the report to be a representation of the worst-case scenario and that 
what we face is ``a climate issue.''
  Well, the worst-case scenario is one in which the Republican Senate 
will confirm a former coal lobbyist to head the Environmental 
Protection Agency. The worst-case scenario is the Trump 
administration's plans to roll back the Clean Power Plan and the fuel 
economy emission standards, the single largest steps we have ever taken 
to address climate change. We are in a worst-case scenario, and we need 
to dramatically change course.
  That should start by not confirming Andrew Wheeler, a coal lobbyist, 
to run the Agency charged with protecting our planet. Andrew Wheeler's 
answers on the climate crisis should be disqualifying. His record as a 
coal lobbyist should be disqualifying. We should come together and 
reject Andrew Wheeler as the head of the EPA.
  The impact of climate change on ordinary families on their health, on 
our Nation, on our security, and on our future is too urgent. We must 
be bold. We must be ambitious.
  That is why I have introduced the Green New Deal resolution. It lays 
out a serious, bold, aspirational set of goals

[[Page S1470]]

that meet the scale of the threat we are facing. It is a set of 
principles, not prescriptions. The Green New Deal will allow us to 
engage in massive job creation to save all of creation. It calls for a 
massive 10-year mobilization to transform our climate, our economy, our 
democracy. It is about jobs and justice.
  An overwhelming number of Americans support climate action, and a 
majority of Americans support a Green New Deal. Never in our history 
have the interests of all Americans been so united in a single issue: 
climate change.
  From the air we breathe to the jobs that employ us, to the 
neighborhoods we live in, to the economy we operate within, climate 
change defines our existence. This is the time for serious solutions. 
Global temperatures are the highest in recorded history. Wealth 
inequality is at its highest point since the era of the Great 
Depression. The erosion of our coastlines, the erosion of earning power 
of workers, the pollution of our planet, the pollution of our democracy 
by Big Oil and Koch brothers financing, the relationship between these 
ills and injustices is undeniable, but the challenge is not 
insurmountable.
  It will only be through a historic intergenerational commitment to 
end climate change that we create the kind of democracy that works for 
all Americans. This Green New Deal mobilization will make the United 
States the global leader on clean energy and climate action.
  This mobilization will be the greatest blue-collar jobs program in a 
generation. This mobilization will be an opportunity to repair the 
historic oppression of frontline and vulnerable communities that have 
borne the worst burdens of pollution from our fossil fuel economy--
these communities that also will be the most affected and the least 
able to respond to the impacts of climate change. The Green New Deal 
represents an opportunity to lift up all workers and all communities.
  President Roosevelt was right when he said about the New Deal that 
``statesmanship and vision, my friends, require relief to all at the 
same time.''
  We are talking about a historic, 10-year mobilization that will 
mitigate climate emissions and build climate resiliency. We have acted 
on this scale before, and we must do it again.
  We have already laid the foundation for our climate future. In 2008, 
we had only 1,200 megawatts of total solar capacity in the United 
States. Today, we have 65,000 megawatts. In 2008, we had only 25,000 
megawatts of total wind capacity. Today, we have 98,000 megawatts of 
wind capacity. In 2008, there were only 2,500 all-electric vehicles in 
our country. Today, we have 1 million, with 500,000 new all-electric 
vehicles to be sold this year. Most of all, what we have seen over the 
past 10 years is a growing movement for climate action. In wind and 
solar, we now have 350,000 people who are employed. That didn't happen 
10 years ago; it is happening today.
  The Green New Deal is not just a resolution; it is a revolution. 
Republicans and climate deniers are taking mathematical liberties to 
say it would cost too much to act, but the cost of inaction on climate 
will be far higher. Over just the past 2 years, the cost of storms and 
the cost of fires in our country created over $400 billion in damages. 
By the end of this century, it will be tens of trillions of dollars 
that we will lose. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. If 
we start today, we can avoid the worst, most catastrophic consequences. 
For those who say we can't afford to act to address this crisis, I say 
we can't afford not to.
  The question is, Will any Republican stand up to fight for these 
goals? The Republican Party is about to confirm a coal lobbyist to run 
the Environmental Protection Agency. That is where we are in 2019, with 
the worst scientific reports coming from the U.N. and our own 
scientists--a threat of an existential risk for the planet--and we are 
about to confirm a coal lobbyist.
  Ladies and gentlemen, we have to be bold the way President Kennedy 
was in 1962 when he called for a mission to the Moon to be accomplished 
within 10 years. He said it would not be easy. He said we would have to 
invent metal that did not exist and propulsion systems that did not 
exist. He said we would have to bring that mission back safely through 
heat half the intensity of the Sun, and we would have to do so safely 
within 10 years so that we could control outer space. We did that, 
ladies and gentlemen, and we can do it again.
  We have to accept this challenge. We can do it. We can unleash an 
innovation revolution in our country, and again we will do it to save 
all creation by engaging in massive job creation, a blue-collar 
revolution hiring millions of workers to do this job.
  I thank you, Madam President. This is a very important week before 
us.
  I yield back to my colleague.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I am honored to follow the 
distinguished ranking member on our Environment and Public Works 
Committee and one of the coauthors of the Waxman-Markey bill--the one 
significant piece of climate legislation that has passed a House of 
Congress--and to add my voice.
  Mr. MARKEY. Would the Senator yield?
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Gladly.
  Mr. MARKEY. I just want to say that there is no climate warrior like 
Sheldon Whitehouse from Rhode Island. He is up every day of his life on 
this issue, and when he speaks, he speaks with authority. I just want 
to say what an honor it is to be here today.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. It goes the other way.
  Sometimes it seems that our friends on the other side of the aisle 
think that the only people who are watching this conversation are 
fossil fuel industry lobbyists and CEOs and electioneers.
  So we are going through, shortly, a truly preposterous exercise on 
the floor of the Senate, which is that a party that has brought up no 
significant legislation in the time that Leader McConnell has had the 
floor is now going to bring its first measure related to climate for a 
floor vote, and it is something they intend to vote against. It is 
something they intend to vote against. When you bring a measure to the 
floor that it is your intention to vote against, that is not 
legislating. Something else is going on.
  Now I think this was a very clever stunt. We don't know quite where 
it was cooked up, but we have observed that the Wall Street Journal 
editorial page is a relentless mouthpiece for the fossil fuel industry, 
having published climate denial articles literally within the last 
year. The Wall Street Journal editorial page called for this stunt 
vote, and it was less than 24 hours before the Republicans in the 
Senate jumped up, scampered out, and did exactly what they were told to 
do by the fossil fuel industry's mouthpiece, the Wall Street Journal 
editorial page.
  I am sure there were champagne corks banging into the ceilings of the 
boardrooms for ExxonMobil, Americans for Prosperity, and the Koch 
Industries as all of these fossil fuel executives and lobbyists cheered 
this stunt. But in the Senate, we actually have a larger audience than 
just fossil fuel donors; the country is watching and the world is 
watching, and what they are seeing right now is, frankly, an 
embarrassment.
  It is not just this stunt that reflects a broken Senate; it is a much 
larger problem of a Senate that cannot deal with the climate change 
issue in a bipartisan fashion.
  I would state that when I got here in 2007, the Senate could deal 
with climate change in a bipartisan fashion. In 2008, the Senate could 
deal with climate change in a bipartisan fashion. In 2009, the Senate 
could deal with climate change in a bipartisan fashion. The reason I 
know that is because I was here then, and I saw as many as five 
bipartisan efforts to deal with climate change during that period, with 
different Republican and Democratic Senators. Then along came the 
Citizens United decision in January 2010, and from that moment after, 
it was like watching a patient drop dead in the emergency room. The 
heartbeat of activity on climate change just flatlined on the 
Republican side of this Chamber.
  I think the fossil fuel industry--I know the fossil fuel industry 
asked for that decision from the Supreme Court and the five Republican 
Justices. I think they anticipated what the decision was going to be, 
and they immediately went to work to squelch and crush any dissent from 
their orthodoxy

[[Page S1471]]

on that side of the aisle. The result has been that there has been no 
significant piece of climate legislation to reduce carbon dioxide 
emissions and to deal with this problem since Citizens United that any 
of our colleagues now will cosponsor or support. It has just been 
silent, and it is a dramatic failure in this greatest deliberative 
body.
  I will state, as others have stated, as Ranking Member Carper and 
Senator Markey have said, that the science on this is now beyond 
dispute. The science on this is irrefutable. If we fail to deal with 
this problem, the consequences will be catastrophic and irreversible.
  ``Irrefutable science.'' ``Catastrophic and irreversible 
consequences.'' I am actually quoting somebody when I say that. Do you 
know whom I am quoting? I am quoting from 2009 Donald Trump--Donald 
Trump, Donald Trump, Jr., Eric Trump, Ivanka Trump, and the Trump 
Organization signed this full-page advertisement in the New York Times 
in 2009. ``If we fail to act now,'' they said, ``it is scientifically 
irrefutable that there will be catastrophic and irreversible 
consequences for humanity and our planet.'' So as much as the fossil 
fuel-funded mockery in which the Republican Party has engaged, 
challenges these facts, even the Trumps knew this a decade ago.
  In trying to describe the Green New Deal, one might describe it as 
something that, if you invested in it, would ``drive state-of-the-art 
technologies that will spur economic growth, create new energy jobs, 
and increase our energy security all while reducing the harmful 
emissions that are putting our planet at risk.'' That is a pretty good 
capsule of the Green New Deal.
  Guess what Donald Trump and his family said in the same 
advertisement.

       Investing in a Clean Energy Economy will drive state-of-
     the-art technologies that will spur economic growth, create 
     new energy jobs, and increase our energy security all while 
     reducing the harmful emissions that are putting our planet at 
     risk.

  All you have to do is listen to the 2009 Donald Trump to understand 
that the science of climate change was then irrefutable and it is even 
stronger now and that the consequences of our failure to act and our 
obedience, our adherence to fossil fuel-funded propaganda and orthodoxy 
will lead to consequences that are catastrophic and irreversible--said 
a decade ago. We have had 10 more years of unrestricted emissions since 
then.
  Just the basic tenets of the Green New Deal are ``a clean energy 
economy [that] will drive state-of-the-art technologies that will spur 
economic growth, create new energy jobs, and increase our energy 
security.''
  With the words of Donald Trump, I rest my case and yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. BROWN. Madam President, think about what we just heard, first 
from Senator Markey talking about a fossil fuel lobbyist in the year 
2019 being chosen to head the EPA--a fossil fuel lobbyist--when there 
has not been a bill on this floor or any motion coming from Senator 
McConnell to deal with climate change, to deal with one of the greatest 
if not the greatest moral issue of our times--nothing on this floor. 
You heard what Senator Markey said. This administration has done 
nothing to address this issue, and President Trump selects a fossil 
fuel lobbyist to be head of the EPA. It is the same thing over and over 
again.
  We have to take aggressive action to protect our planet and protect 
our future now. That means accelerating our transition to carbon-free 
power. It means investing in technologies that make our manufacturers 
the most energy efficient in the world. It means creating jobs in clean 
energy all around the country.
  I have always, as a House Member living in Lorain, OH, and as a 
Member of the Senate--for years, I have always refused to accept the 
idea that you have to choose between good environmental policy and 
good-paying jobs. We have proved that is simply not true. We have 
proved it in my State, where we have lots of wind turbines, made 
usually with American-made steel. We have proved it in Toledo, where we 
have one of the biggest solar energy manufacturers in the country. We 
proved it in the auto industry, where the auto industry has generally 
had a pretty good decade making more fuel-efficient cars. We put 
Americans to work, and we can change course on climate change before it 
is too late.
  Mitch McConnell and President Trump seem to think climate change--
that is notwithstanding what Senator Whitehouse said--is a joke. I have 
news for them. Climate change is not something to play political games 
with; it is a crisis we need to confront and set an example around the 
world. It is a crisis we need to confront and to set an example for our 
partners around the world.

  It would be shameful enough to have no ideas and no plan to confront 
our biggest threats. But not only do President Trump and Leader 
McConnell have no plan, not only are they denying the problem, and not 
only are they standing in the way of solutions, but they are actually 
working to make climate change worse. It is just despicable.
  They are spreading lies and stacking the administration with shills 
for the fossil fuel industry. They stacked the administration with Wall 
Street cronies to do bank regulation. They stacked the administration 
with fossil fuel cronies and shills to do energy and climate and 
environmental regulation.
  We got news this week that the White House is going to use your 
taxpayer dollars to set up a panel to promote junk science and spread 
the debunked conspiracy theory that climate change is a hoax.
  This week we will vote on the President's nominee to head the EPA, a 
lobbyist who would be overseeing the same special interests who have 
paid his salary. Andrew Wheeler is just the latest in a long line of 
cronies from the fossil fuel industry who President Trump has put in 
charge at the EPA and the Department of the Interior.
  Climate change is not a future problem. It does damage to this 
country right now. It is threatening thousands of Ohio workers who rely 
on Lake Erie for their livelihood, whether it is tourism or other 
industries that rely on clean water.
  Climate change makes algal blooms worse. Off the shores of Toledo, it 
contaminates our lake, threatens our drinking water, and hurts small 
business. Nobody on that side of the aisle seems to give a darn.
  I have talked to farmers who have been farming in the Western Lake 
Erie Basin for decades. They tell me they are experiencing heavier rain 
events more often and with greater intensity compared to even 15 years 
ago. Hotter summers and shorter winters will only make this problem 
worse.
  It is time for the President of the United States to stop sabotaging 
the country he is supposed to lead. It is past time to rejoin the Paris 
Agreement, to restart the Clean Power Plan, and to implement aggressive 
fuel economy standards for cars and trucks. It is time to create new 
jobs in clean energy and energy-efficient manufacturing. It is time for 
the United States to be the leader the world looks to. It is time to 
take this threat seriously to preserve our country for our children, 
and their children, and their children's children before it is too 
late.