[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 37 (Thursday, February 28, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1559-S1564]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                      Nomination of Andrew Wheeler

  Mr. President, second is the nomination of Andrew Wheeler to be the 
next Administrator of the EPA--a question currently before the Senate. 
I opposed Mr. Wheeler's nomination to be the Deputy Administrator, and 
I will oppose his nomination to be Administrator as well.
  I opposed Mr. Wheeler initially because I thought his career as a 
lobbyist working on behalf of big polluters and climate deniers was 
exactly the wrong kind of experience for a job at the EPA, the 
Environmental Protection Agency. He spent most of his career lobbying 
against the same environmental protections he now oversees, and his 
time at the EPA has done little to assuage my original concerns.
  Mr. Wheeler has failed to take meaningful action on toxic chemicals, 
including the chemical PFAS, which has plagued my home State. He has 
downplayed the severity of climate change and undermined several EPA 
programs that seek to address it, including the regulation of poisonous 
mercury from powerplants, efforts to reduce carbon emissions from cars 
and trucks, as well as replacing the Clean Power Plan.
  At a time when climate change is the No. 1 threat facing our planet, 
installing a man such as Mr. Wheeler as permanent Administrator of the 
EPA--the Environmental Protection Agency--is the wrong thing to do.
  So as I said earlier this morning, Leader McConnell's move to bring 
the Green New Deal forward is nothing more than a stunt, but one of the 
great and positive ironies is that, finally, folks are talking about 
climate change again, more than at any time I can think of under this 
Republican majority.
  If and when Leader McConnell brings his version of the Green New Deal 
forward for a vote, we will demand that Republicans first answer the 
core questions on climate change.
  Again, three simple things: Do you believe climate change is real and 
happening? Do you believe human activity contributes to it? Do you 
believe Congress must act to address this pressing challenge?
  If Leader McConnell and my Republican friends can't answer those 
three questions--run away from them--the American people will see right 
through the ploy. The American people will see that Leader McConnell 
and his party stand against science and against facts, ostriches with 
their heads buried in the sand as the tide swiftly comes in.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island is recognized.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, our Democratic leader has set three 
plain and very obvious questions about fossil fuel-burning carbon 
emissions and climate change that should be easily answered by every 
single Member of the Senate, and the fact that this is a problem is a 
clear indication of fossil fuel influence in this body--the regrettable 
extent of fossil fuel influence in this body.
  It was not always this way. Here is a letter that a number of us came 
to the floor to talk about yesterday. The letter was written December 
23, 1986. There had been hearings on climate change in the Environment 
and Public Works Committee, and a bipartisan group of Senators wanted 
some answers. They wrote this letter to what then existed, an Office of 
Technology Assessment for the Congress, inquiring about how serious 
they felt this was and what could be done about it, signed by Senator 
Stafford, Senator Chafee, Senator Durenberger, and three Democrats in 
1986. I do not believe that a Republican Senator could be found to sign 
this letter today.
  I got here in 2007, and for that year, and in 2008 and 2009, we had 
multiple bipartisan climate bills being discussed in this body. Over 
and over again, there were a Democrat and Republican who got together 
and worked to try to solve the climate problem--more than a decade ago. 
We have seen bipartisanship on this issue.
  We have even seen, in 2009, this New York Times full-page 
advertisement signed by Donald J. Trump, which said that the science of 
climate change is ``scientifically irrefutable.'' Those were his words, 
not mine, in 2009, which said that if we don't act there would be 
``catastrophic and irreversible consequences for humanity and our 
planet''--his words, not mine. That was 1986, that was 2007, and this 
was 2009.
  Then something happened. Citizens United got decided by the Supreme 
Court or, to be fair to the Supreme Court, Citizens United got decided 
by five Republican appointees on the Supreme Court.
  In my view, the fossil fuel industry asked for that decision, 
predicted that decision, and they were off like a sprinter at the gun 
when they got that decision. From that moment, all of that bipartisan 
activity on climate change here in the Senate ended, and it ended 
because the fossil fuel industry was allowed to spend unlimited money 
in politics. They found out how to spend unlimited dark money in 
politics. It is politically obvious that if one can spend unlimited 
money in politics, one can also threaten to spend unlimited money in 
politics. So between the unlimited spending and the unlimited, 
anonymous dark money spending and whatever they did in the way of 
threats and promises, it has been like a heart attack--flatlined--here 
in the Senate, since that moment. It is a tragedy.
  In fact, if you go back to this letter for a minute, there were six 
signatories. We couldn't get six States to come to the floor yesterday 
because one of these States has two Republican Senators, and we 
couldn't get either of them to come to the floor.
  I don't know what has happened to the Republican Party that they 
can't take this seriously even now--even as States like Florida are 
flooding on sunny days, even as States see wildfires they have never 
seen before, even as farmers are recording drought and flood conditions 
that are unprecedented, even as my State looks forward to 5 or 6 feet 
of sea level rise.
  And then we got a clue as to what goes on here. This is a letter that 
was written on behalf of Andrew Wheeler, who is the slightly cleaned-up 
version of Scott Pruitt and who is pending before us to lead the 
Environmental Protection Agency. It ought to tell us a lot that the 
Republicans put up a coal lobbyist to represent the people of America 
leading the Environmental Protection Agency.
  What tells you a lot also is this letter of support for this guy. Who 
is on it? These are these phony-baloney front group organizations 
funded by the fossil fuel industry that got together to write this 
letter:
  The Heartland Institute. Koch-affiliated groups gave it $7.18 
million, and $730,000 came from Exxon. Heartland is such a slippery, 
slimy group that they compared climate scientists to the Unabomber. 
That is the company that they travel in.
  The Cornwall Alliance. Secret funding--we don't know, but they are 
always in this climate-denier fringe crowd. The founder doesn't believe 
in evolution. He said that tornadoes are a punishment from God, and 
that AIDS is punishment for being gay. You are running in great company 
with them, guys.
  FreedomWorks is next. They received $2.5 million from Koch-affiliated 
groups, and at least $130,000 from the American Petroleum Institute.
  The Competitive Enterprise Institute is next, with at least $2 
million given from Exxon, and Koch-affiliated groups gave at least $5.2 
million.

[[Page S1560]]

  Americans for Prosperity. This is basically the hit squad for the 
Kochs in politics. It is one of the largest dark-money election 
spenders, spending more than $70 million since Citizens United on 
Federal elections. They received a minimum of $12 million, that we know 
of, in funding from the Kochs and more than $23 million from the Koch-
linked Donors Trust. Donors Trust, by the way, is a big enterprise 
whose sole purpose is to launder away the identity of big donors so 
that their money can flow without people knowing who is behind it.
  Americans for Limited Government received at least $5.6 million from 
Koch-affiliated groups.
  Freedom Partners is described as ``the Koch brothers' secret bank.'' 
It has spent more than $55 million in dark money on Federal elections 
since Citizens United and received at least $3 million from the Kochs, 
but, as usual, its funders are shrouded in secrecy.
  Americans for Tax Reform. The American Petroleum Institute gave at 
least $525,000, and Koch-affiliated groups gave at least $330,000.
  The Energy and Environmental Legal Institute received at least half a 
million dollars from Koch-affiliated groups.
  CFACT received at least $580,000 in funding from Exxon and more than 
$8 million from Koch-linked groups.
  Then, at the bottom is this little Caesar Rodney Institute, which is 
part of the larger State Policy Network, funded by the Kochs to spread 
their propaganda and poison into State legislatures.
  This crew of fossil-fuel-funded, climate-denying front groups have 
received a minimum of more than $63 million from the fossil fuel 
industry, and this is why we have Andrew Wheeler, a coal lobbyist, 
lined up to run our environmental agency in this country.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, I rise today to state the obvious--to 
state in clear terms what scientists have been warning us about for 
decades. The scientific data couldn't be any clearer. Climate change is 
real. Climate change is here, and we are causing its devastating 
impacts and disruptions. Unless we start to implement policies to curb 
our carbon emissions and to mitigate its impacts, climate change will 
continue to wreak havoc upon communities across the Nation and around 
the world.
  These are facts. These facts present us with the greatest and most 
existential global challenge humanity has literally ever faced. There 
are not two sides to these facts. The Earth's five warmest years on 
record happened since 2014. It is not a coincidence. It is not an 
unexplained phenomenon. It is the direct result of both our actions and 
our inactions. Only the willfully ignorant refuse to acknowledge these 
facts and the gravity and urgency of what we face because of the fact 
of human-caused climate change.
  Unfortunately, the current occupant of the White House and too many 
here in Washington can be counted in that camp. President Trump's 
decision to upend the Clean Power Plan and pull us out of the Paris 
climate accord was perhaps the most consequential representation of his 
inward-looking, isolationist view for America. It was a dangerous 
abdication of our Nation's leadership role on the international stage, 
and if we choose to accept his failure to lead here in Congress, we 
will continue down a path toward a very real and very costly climate 
disruption.
  In the coming weeks, Majority Leader McConnell says he plans to call 
a vote here on the Senate on the Green New Deal resolution. I wish this 
were a genuine effort to address our climate challenges. Clearly, it is 
not. It is a political stunt by the majority leader to divide those who 
actually want to rise to the occasion and who actually want to address 
this crisis, rather than offer up any substantive solutions of his own.
  The majority leader would have you believe that solutions to climate 
change are too costly or they are just too impractical to be taken 
seriously. I don't know about you, but to me, it is that view that is 
wildly out of touch and, frankly, dangerous.
  President Trump and Republicans love to talk about the cost of 
climate action. What we should be focusing on is the much steeper cost 
of inaction and the economic benefits of America's leading the clean 
energy transition.
  As an engineer, I am certain that our capacity to confront the 
challenges that we face, large and small, rests heavily on our ability 
to make policy that is actually driven by facts, by data, and by the 
best available science.
  The latest data on climate change should be deeply alarming to all of 
us. Last fall, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 
released a report based on the research of thousands of our planet's 
leading climate scientists. It laid out in stark terms how critical it 
is for us to find a way to limit the planet's warming. Unless we can 
reduce global carbon emissions by 45 percent by 2030 and reach net-zero 
emissions by 2050, it will be nearly impossible to keep global 
temperatures below a rise of 3 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the 
century.
  I know that is a lot of numbers, but what those numbers mean in terms 
of real ecological, economic, and humanitarian costs is incredibly 
important. Global average temperatures have already risen by nearly 2 
degrees Fahrenheit, and that change is wreaking havoc on communities 
around the world.
  One month after the U.N. released its landmark report, 13 Federal 
Agencies finalized the ``Fourth National Climate Assessment,'' a report 
mandated by Congress to study the evidence and the impacts of current 
climate change. That report provided clear, indisputable evidence that 
the destructive wildfires, the catastrophic hurricanes, and the extreme 
flooding that we have seen in just the last couple of years is directly 
linked to human-caused climate change. These disasters are costing us 
billions of dollars each and every year.
  The Pentagon has correctly called climate change a threat multiplier, 
meaning that climate impacts will amplify the existing threats to our 
national security. These are massive problems today--right now--not in 
some far off future. We need to recognize what the science is telling 
us. We need to recognize that the impacts and the disasters that we 
have seen so far are just the beginning.
  Things are only going to get more chaotic, more unpredictable, and 
more expensive unless we change our trajectory. That is going to 
require global cooperation. It is going to require scientific 
ingenuity, and serious, sober policymaking based on the facts in front 
of us to put us on a better path.
  I am proud that a number of my colleagues are stepping up to think 
through what those actions, what those solutions, and what those 
policies should be. We can have a healthy debate about the best ways to 
achieve these reductions in our emissions, but we can't credibly 
dispute the science, what it is telling us, and the urgency of the need 
to act. These are facts. It is chemistry. Yet, instead of allowing us 
to productively debate those solutions, Majority Leader McConnell is 
planning to waste our time on a political stunt.
  Since Republicans took control of the Senate, they have not brought a 
single bill to the floor that would address emissions--not a single 
one--and they have taken many actions that have actually made the 
situation worse. This is not the serious legislating that we were sent 
here to do. This is not problem-solving.
  The Senate is supposed to be the world's greatest deliberative body. 
We are supposed to come together here on the Senate floor and in our 
committees and think through the greatest issues and challenges of our 
time. We are supposed to propose and debate policies to meet those 
challenges. I would welcome a long overdue debate on what policies 
would most efficiently and most effectively address our challenges.
  I know that climate change often feels too big and too hard to fix, 
but, frankly, we all need to get out of that mindset because climate 
change is a problem we can solve. In fact, climate change is a problem 
that we must solve.
  The good news is that we already have the technologies and the people 
to do it. Clean energy technologies have been evolving rapidly in 
recent years, and many of the clean energy technologies that seemed 
absolutely unrealistic only a decade ago have become

[[Page S1561]]

the new normal. I see a future where my two boys will use a reliable, 
cheap, resilient electrical grid that is 100-percent powered by clean 
energy because of the technologies invented in this country and because 
of the technologies built and installed with American labor. We need to 
invest in actually deploying these technologies with the urgency 
necessary to make real progress. This should be a bipartisan priority, 
not only for its impact on curbing carbon emissions but because it will 
create millions of jobs in communities across this country.
  Some States are already moving in this direction. In my home State, 
new wind farms and new solar generation are bringing in billions of 
dollars of private investment. They are creating thousands of new jobs. 
Without aggressive, forward-looking national policies, we will not move 
fast enough. The scale of this transformation will be gigantic. There 
is no doubt about that. But this great Nation is up to the challenge.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I thank the gentleman from New Mexico for 
his comments. I couldn't agree more wholeheartedly with the sentiments 
that the gentleman from New Mexico just uttered and the others, the 
Senator from Rhode Island and the Senator from New York.
  This is an emergency situation for the planet. How do we know? We 
know because the U.N. scientists at the end of 2018 issued a report 
saying that climate change is an existential threat to our planet. Our 
own U.S. scientists in the end of 2018 issued their own report. This is 
the Trump administration's scientists, much to his chagrin, who said: 
``We must act to avoid substantial damages to the U.S. economy, 
environment, and human health and the well-being over the coming 
decades.''
  These are earth-shattering science reports about the state of our 
planet. These are doomsday reports, which the scientists of our own 
country and the world are giving to us. Yet just 3 weeks ago, the 
``Denier in Chief'' stood before the Congress and delivered a message 
to the American people--not by his words but by the words he did not 
utter, because in an hour and 20 minutes, President Trump did not even 
mention the words ``climate change.'' He did not even mention the words 
``clean energy revolution.''
  President Trump, further, has sent to us a new person to be the head 
of the Environmental Protection Agency. Who is Andrew Wheeler? He is a 
former lobbyist for the coal industry. That is what this Senate will be 
voting on--a coal lobbyist to take over the environment of our country, 
as the scientists of our country tell us that we are facing an 
existential threat if we do not take urgent actions today.
  Our majority leader yesterday called the Green New Deal ``foolish and 
dangerous.'' Well, with all due respect to my Republican colleagues, 
the only thing foolish and dangerous about the Green New Deal is to 
ignore the $400 billion in damages over the last 2 years from 
supercharged storms and wildfires, to ignore the tens of trillions of 
dollars in the damage that we will see from climate change in the 
United States by 2100 if we do not act, and the hundreds of trillions 
of damage across the entire planet if we are not the leader in creating 
a clean-energy revolution.
  What is dangerous, I say to the leader, is sending our men and women 
in the military overseas to protect tankers of oil that are coming into 
our country from the Middle East. Superstorms, wildfires, rising seas, 
and other extreme weather events are the impacts of climate change if 
we do not act boldly to stop it. It isn't just dangerous; it is an 
existential threat to our planet, not from politicians or political 
scientists but from real scientists--``the'' scientists--the Nobel 
Prize-winning scientists of the whole planet and in our own country. 
They are telling us we are in danger, and this body has to take 
positive action to deal with it.
  We have a ``Denier in Chief'' in the White House. We have a 
Republican leader who has brought climate bills to the floor while he 
has been leader, but they have been bills to make the climate even more 
dangerous--the Keystone Pipeline bill and drilling in the Arctic 
National Wildlife Refuge for oil. The Republicans are today going to 
confirm a coal lobbyist to head the Environmental Protection Agency, 
which is the Agency charged with protecting the planet.
  The reality is that the Republicans have no plan to deal with the 
climate crisis. That is why they want to short circuit this debate on 
the Green New Deal. Let's have a hearing. Let's hear from experts. 
Let's hear from scientists. Let's have the evidence in the U.S. Senate. 
Then we can decide--but, no, there will be no debate in the Senate on 
science. There will be no debate on the harm that is going to be done 
if we do not act. Instead, in the same period, there will be just an 
attempt to confirm a coal lobbyist to take over the Environmental 
Protection Agency and to derail any real debate on the Green New Deal. 
That is who they are.
  Why is that? It is that the Green New Deal is dangerous. It is 
dangerous for the status quo to just continue to remain in place on 
climate change. It is dangerous for the Koch brothers and those who are 
used to killing every climate debate before it gets a chance to start. 
It is dangerous for those who want us to limp into a frightening future 
with no plan and no protections in place. It is dangerous for those who 
benefit from the continued devaluation of our workers, from the 
historic oppression of vulnerable communities, and from the continued 
destruction of the environment. That is who would think the Green New 
Deal is dangerous.
  The Democrats want to support working families and support a safe 
climate future in which all communities are protected. We welcome 
debate on proposals for how to get there, but the science is clear on 
what we need to do and the magnitude of the response that we have to 
unleash in this country.
  The Republicans may think the Green New Deal is just a resolution, 
but it is more than that. It is a revolution, and it cannot and will 
not be stopped. The science is driving this. It is an intergenerational 
concern that we are heading toward a catastrophe on this planet that 
could have been avoided, but we as a nation have stood on the sidelines 
and have allowed it to happen.
  Ladies and gentlemen, this vote that we take as to whether Andrew 
Wheeler, a coal lobbyist, should be the head of the Environmental 
Protection Agency goes right through the heart of whether we are going 
to respond to the magnitude of this challenge. I do not know how anyone 
can vote for Andrew Wheeler given the science that has been presented 
to us, given the danger that we now know, given the catastrophe that is 
going to be created if we don't change course. This is just doubling 
down on a disaster. Andrew Wheeler is going to be the architect of the 
Republican plan to ensure that we do nothing about this climate 
catastrophe. The consequences could not be greater, but the political 
ramifications in the 2020 elections are going to be great as well. We 
will see a revolution that rises up across this country.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, Henry David Thoreau asked: What is the 
use of a home if you don't have a tolerable planet to put it on?
  We are here at a unique moment in human history when the planet is 
threatened. It is not just our local stream that has been polluted by 
some factory. It is not a river that is so toxic that it catches on 
fire. It is not just a small section of my home State that has been 
afflicted by some new disease in the forests. It is our entire planet 
that is at risk. So any Member of this Chamber who is not coming 
forward to help figure out how to address that is guilty of vast 
malpractice, legislative malpractice, and moral malpractice and 
incompetence because that is what a legislature is about. When there 
are big problems that we face, we come together. We don't ignore them. 
We wrestle with the best way to take them on. That is what this 
conversation is about.
  Senator Carper's resolution says three things, the first of which is 
we have a real problem, and it is easy to demonstrate that. We can take 
a look at all of the information we have coming from every major 
scientific organization that tracks increasing heat on

[[Page S1562]]

the planet, but maybe that is a little too complicated. Let's just ask 
a simple question. What have been the hottest years in human history? 
When have they been? Were they in the 1700s, in the 1800s, in the 
1900s? When were those 5 hottest years? They were the last 5 years--
2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018. This is no coincidence because that would 
be an astronomically unlikely thing to occur. We have enough science to 
know why this is occurring, not just that it is occurring.
  It is occurring because we are generating carbon dioxide, and we are 
generating methane. They trap heat. We have been told, for the better 
part of a century, that this was going to be a problem, and the problem 
has arrived. It is not some theory. It is not some computer model. It 
is not some ivory tower. The facts are clearly evident. They are 
evident in our forests with longer and hotter fire seasons. They are 
evident in more powerful hurricanes than we have seen before because 
they draw so much more energy from an overheated ocean. We see it in 
the spread of diseases, like Lyme disease with the spread of tick 
populations. We see it with changing species. We see it with glaciers. 
We see it with melting permafrost. We see it with rising sea levels. We 
see it everywhere unless you are blind to the facts. We are not here to 
be blind. We are here to act. So we know the problem is real. That is 
the first point.
  The second point is we know what is causing it--human activities, our 
putting methane into the air and putting carbon dioxide into the air. 
Therefore, we know the third point, which is our responsibility to act.
  So many of us have come forward and have said: Here is an idea. How 
about this? This will completely change the amount of carbon dioxide 
from the transportation sector. Here is an idea. This would really 
change the carbon dioxide generated by power generation, electricity 
generation. How about this? This would greatly reduce the carbon 
dioxide generated from heating buildings.
  Yet, in that conversation, there is the sound of silence from the 
right side of the aisle. Do we hear multitudinous ideas? No. We hear 
none. That is where the legislative malfeasance and where the moral 
irresponsibility lies--in pretending that you can be a leader in this 
country, in this Senate Chamber, and not address this major challenge 
that is afflicting our planet. That is unacceptable. We don't need fake 
and phone debates on the floor of a resolution that hasn't gone through 
committee. We need real discussion and real engagement.
  It was not that long ago that Republican leaders across this Nation 
were taking on this issue. H. W. Bush ran for the Presidency to take on 
climate change. When he got into office, he didn't end up doing a lot, 
but he ran on it and campaigned on it. Other leaders have said we have 
a responsibility to be good stewards of our resources. I have heard 
that from the Republican side of the aisle for my entire lifetime--good 
stewardship. So why the silence now? Why the failure to look at the 
facts? Why the failure to bring forward ideas? This is not OK. We need 
real debate, real discussion.
  I have put forward ideas I would love to see debated, one being that 
we need to dramatically reduce the fossil fuels, which we own as a 
public, coming out of the ground. We have to lead the world, and we 
can't ask the rest of the world not to extract and burn fossil fuels if 
we are still profiting from doing so.
  I laid out the vision--the 100-percent mission in all sectors--and 
how we can get there over the coming decades. It is a 300-page bill 
that is full of ideas. Maybe they are not all the best of ideas, but I 
encourage my colleagues to read them, to find ones they like, and to 
bring forward their ideas. Where do tax credits play in this 
conversation? Where do limits play on pollution? Where do incentives to 
transition to renewable energy come in? Let's have that debate as 
serious policymakers and leaders of this country who are responsible 
for our Nation and for the future of our planet.
  Henry David Thoreau lived a long time ago, but he laid out the point 
that we are responsible for the health of our planet. Let's take that 
responsibility seriously. Let's engage. Let's debate every single idea. 
There are hundreds of them out there. Let's go through them. Let's 
forge a bipartisan plan. Let's not let any industry in America 
contaminate the process, the political process, through these dark 
donations. Let's not, any party in this country, be misled from 
addressing the serious issues before us because they are blinded by the 
hundreds of millions of dollars falling on their campaigns. Let's do 
what we have to do, what we have a responsibility to do. History will 
judge whether we have done that which cannot be delayed. That is our 
responsibility.
  I thank the Presiding Officer.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.
  Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, as of now, there are zero climate 
proposals coming from Senate Republicans--none. So it becomes 
extraordinarily difficult to debate climate change when only one 
political party is committed to fixing it. I can't underscore this 
enough. I don't know if I can sort of stage direct the C-SPAN cameras, 
but if I can--if they would pan out--they would see an empty Chamber on 
the other side.
  Look, if you don't like our proposals--if you don't like the 
investment tax credit or the production tax credit, if you don't like 
planting trees, if you don't like fuel efficiency standards, if you 
don't like mercury and air quality standards, if you don't like 
investing in high-tech research to find that next breakthrough or if 
you think climate change is a hoax, come down to the Senate floor and 
make your argument. Yet they are not even doing that. This is a 
planetary emergency--the most important moment in human history as it 
relates to the planet Earth--and the party in power is doing its best 
to make the problem worse.
  Democrats want to invest in clean air, clean water, and smarter 
infrastructure. We have taken every chance we can to talk about climate 
and how to fix it. Senator Whitehouse alone has given 200 speeches on 
the Senate floor about the climate crisis.
  The Republican response has been to try to make this silly, to score 
points about something that was posted on a Congresswoman's website and 
promptly removed and to make false statements saying Democrats want to 
ban cheeseburgers or whatever. That is because they don't want to 
debate this issue seriously because they don't have ideas on climate. 
Their only plan is to actively, aggressively make things even worse.
  They need to make this debate about something--anything--other than 
what it is, which is a planet in crisis; weather getting weirder and 
worse, wildfires, coastal flooding, fisheries crashing. Pennsylvania 
farmers say they had the worst season they have had in 30 years because 
of all the rain they got last year, while farmers in the Midwest didn't 
get near enough. It is a rolling disaster happening right now.
  In response, here is what the Republicans have done. They have put 
people who make their money from pollution in charge of regulating 
pollution. They have given oil and gas companies access to millions of 
acres of land and water that are supposed to be protected for things 
like conservation, hunting, hiking. They pulled the United States out 
of the Paris Agreement, which means we are the only country on the 
planet not at the table when it comes to figuring out what to do about 
this problem.
  They have made it easier for companies to put methane in the air or 
make cars that pump pollution into the air, and instead of just leaving 
coal companies alone, instead of saying, hey, let's let the market 
decide, they are actually looking to subsidize coal because now it is 
noncompetitive with wind and solar, in a lot of instances, but they 
actually want to subsidize coal so they can get another 10 or 20 years' 
worth of fossil fuel pollution. This is not what you would do if you 
were trying to stop climate change. This is what you do if you are 
trying to make it worse.
  So let's take a closer look at some of the worst things on their 
list. First, you have to look at the people they have put in charge of 
conserving public lands and keeping air and water clean. This week, the 
Senate is voting on Andrew Wheeler to run the EPA. He is a coal 
lobbyist, and I know politicians are prone to sort of overstatement, 
rhetorical flourishes, but this guy is actually a coal lobbyist. He 
made his living working for coal.

[[Page S1563]]

  I don't know him. I presume he is an honorable fellow, but now we are 
supposed to believe he is the best person to keep coal companies in 
line, to make sure they follow the rules and don't hurt the air people 
breathe or the rivers they fish in.
  If this were a movie about corruption in politics, this script would 
be thrown out because it was too obvious.
  Then there is Ryan Zinke, who was supposed to protect public lands 
but instead opened up oil and gas leases at the Department of Interior, 
or the guy regulating Federal energy who denies that climate change is 
real, even though we can all see it with our own eyes. If you don't 
believe the science, you can at least believe your own experience. The 
weather is getting worse and weirder and more severe. He says carbon 
dioxide really isn't a pollutant at all.
  So the nominees have been awful, but the policy is bad too. 
Republicans are trying to pull us out of the Paris Agreement that every 
other country in the world is part of. We are not even trying to lead 
on this planetary emergency, and it means that we give the leadership 
mantle to China to take the lead on how the world is going to fix this 
problem or make it worse, as if Americans should trust China to do what 
is best for our country.
  Then there is the Republican effort to let polluting companies keep 
polluting. The whole reason the EPA exists is to make sure the air we 
breathe, the water we drink and swim in, the land we farm on and live 
on doesn't get polluted, but Republicans have taken control of the EPA 
to get rid of these protections, and they are telling the auto industry 
they no longer need to make cars that put less pollution in the air. 
They have gutted the Clean Power Plan so carbon pollution could be 12 
times worse in the next decade--12 times worse in the next decade.
  Researchers have found it would be better if we had no policy at all 
than if we do the things the Republicans want to do.
  They have let energy companies off the hook for leaking methane and 
made it easier for super pollutants to leak into the air. Again, this 
is the kind of thing you might hear from a politician who is a little 
overheated, a little overly angry, maybe taking a few liberties with 
the truth.
  This is literally what is happening. They literally put a coal 
lobbyist in charge of the EPA. That should be enough for someone on the 
other side to say: Gosh. I can't vote for a coal lobbyist to run the 
EPA. Now, I don't agree with the Democrats about climate change, but I 
can't pretend this thing doesn't happen to my home State. I can't 
pretend Alaska isn't melting or the fisheries aren't crashing or our 
farms aren't having great difficulty or that the floods in South 
Carolina and North Carolina and Florida aren't real, and so we can't 
put a coal lobbyist in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency.
  There was a time when the EPA and environmental protection itself was 
not a partisan issue. Here we are in the U.S. Senate--which is the 
place to solve these kinds of problems over the course of this 
country's great history--and every time we come to the floor to talk 
about climate change, it is an empty Chamber on the Republican side. We 
have to do better as a country. We have to do better as a Senate. We 
have to solve climate change together. Future generations are counting 
on us to transcend partisanship and to have this great debate.
  If Leader McConnell wants to bring a resolution, which he thinks is 
clever, to sort of divide Democrats, fine. We are not particularly 
worried about that. We are taking this opportunity to say: Great. Let's 
talk about climate change.
  The first question to ask--the first question to ask--is, what is the 
Republican plan for climate change? Right now, the answer is very 
simple. They have no plan.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Fischer). The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. CARPER. Madam President, today I am pleased to join with Senators 
Schatz, Merkley, Markey, and others who have spoken to highlight the 
need to act on climate change.
  I said on the floor earlier this week that the Democrats may not yet 
agree on exactly how we must address climate change, but we all agree 
on at least three things: One, climate change is real; two, we as human 
beings are the primary cause of the climate crisis we face today, and 
it has been building for the last almost 100 years; and, three, the 
U.S. Congress--us, the House--should take immediate action to address 
the challenges of climate change.
  That is why I am introducing a resolution today that says those three 
things: Climate change is real. Humans are leading to this crisis we 
face. We have an obligation in this body and the House to do something 
about it.
  Democrats believe in our hearts and our minds that it is possible to 
have a healthy climate and a vibrant, growing economy, and anyone who 
says otherwise is preaching a false choice.
  Sadly, with President Trump in the White House and this 
administration, many of our Republican friends across the aisle have 
chosen to ignore the clear science and threat that climate change poses 
to our children and to their children.
  As we speak about climate change today, this Senate is considering 
the nomination of Andrew Wheeler to lead EPA. Under Mr. Wheeler's 
leadership, EPA is rolling back climate regulations that will lead to 
more carbon pollution in the air while increasing other air pollution 
that triggers asthma, lung disease, and, in some cases, death.
  Mr. Wheeler claims these actions are needed to provide more business 
certainty. He believes industry is stuck in on old world order. I would 
just say to Andrew Wheeler, as Bob Dylan once said, ``the times they 
are a-changin.''
  Things have changed a lot in the last 15 years. Industry knows where 
the future lies, and that future is in cleaner technologies. Companies 
are making investments now for the next 10 and 20 years down the road. 
They see where the global markets are going. They need to invest in 
clean energy or be left behind.
  Yet, even when industries ask this administration to support climate 
policies that will help the bottom line of those businesses, in too 
many instances, Mr. Wheeler seems to turn a blind eye. In fact, there 
are policies that this administration could support today, right now; 
policies that would dramatically help our climate and our economy.
  One of those policies is the ratification of something called the 
Kigali amendment to the Montreal Protocol. You say stuff like that, and 
my colleagues' eyes glaze over. So I want to take a minute to talk 
about what they mean.
  The Montreal Protocol, ratified by the United States in 1988, is a 
global environmental agreement mainly focused on phasing down emissions 
that contributed to the hole in the ozone layer. It was not that long 
ago--about the time our pages here were born--that it was a burning 
issue.
  Ozone-depleting substances such as chlorofluorocarbons--we call them 
CFCs for short--were often found in the coolants used to cool food in 
household refrigerators and the air-conditioners in our homes and in 
our cars. CFCs are also found in foams and solvents used in industrial 
processes.
  If there was a poster child for a successful global agreement, I 
think the Montreal Protocol--which most people never heard of--has to 
be that poster child. This agreement has led to a 97-percent reduction 
in the global consumption of ozone-depleting substances with little, if 
any, economic disruption. Think about that.
  Over the years, every administration since the Reagan administration 
has supported the Montreal Protocol and the four amendments associated 
with it.
  However, it turns out a majority of the ozone-depleting substances 
are actually being replaced by something called HFCs, 
hydrofluorocarbons. Those HFCs are easy to use. They are efficient. 
They are safe for the ozone layer. That is good.
  Unfortunately, there is a catch. The HFCs have a global warming 
potential that is thousands of times greater than carbon dioxide. On 
the one hand, they are good for the ozone layer; on the other hand, 
they are a killer when it comes to carbon dioxide. So some really smart 
people decided to see what they could do about this, and what those 
smart people did is they came up with a follow-on product to HFCs.
  It is estimated that left unchecked, HFCs could account for 
approximately

[[Page S1564]]

20 percent of greenhouse gas pollution by 2050, and that ain't good. So 
by using HFCs, we are fixing one global environmental problem--the hole 
in the ozone--but we are contributing to another, and that is just as 
serious.
  To address this negative side effect, on October 15, 2016, in a place 
called Kigali, which is in Rwanda--that is why they call it the Kigali 
amendment or Kigali treaty--more than 170 countries agreed to amend the 
Montreal Protocol, including ours.
  The goal of this agreement is to achieve more than an 80-percent 
reduction in global HFC production and utilization by 2047. It doesn't 
say you have to stop using it tomorrow. This is a phaseout and a 
phasedown. If we don't do anything by 2047, we will see an increase of 
about half a degree Celsius--that is almost a full degree Fahrenheit--
in global warming by the end of this century. We can't afford to do 
that. Our planet can't afford to do that. Our kids, our grandchildren 
cannot afford for us to do that.
  U.S. industry strongly supports the Kigali amendment because U.S. 
companies have already invested billions of dollars in order to be able 
to produce the next-generation technologies that are going to replace, 
over time, HFCs. Phasing down HFCs allows U.S. companies to capture a 
large portion of a global market that is--listen to this--$1 trillion 
in size, which will create 150,000 new direct and indirect American 
jobs in less than a decade.
  These new jobs are expected to generate close to $39 billion 
dollars--$39 billion--in annual economic benefits for our country; 
again, in less than a decade.
  Industry also believes ratification of the Kigali treaty will 
mitigate unfair Chinese dumping of HFCs in the United States, hurting 
our businesses.
  Ratification of the Kigali amendment is a no-brainer, and even those 
who are skeptical about climate change ought to be able to admit that 
it would be great for U.S. competitiveness and good-paying American 
jobs.
  This is a real win-win situation. If we don't seize the opportunity, 
we should have our heads examined. That is why we have some pretty 
strange bedfellows supporting the Kigali ratification.
  There is a chart behind me. Among others, we have the National 
Association of Manufacturers, Natural Resources development folks, the 
spirit of enterprise, FreedomWorks, the American Chemistry Council, 
Business Roundtable, and Sierra Club.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. CARPER. They are not all wrong. They are right. I say to my 
colleagues across the aisle: Listen to these folks, and let's use our 
heads and our hearts.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.