[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 37 (Thursday, February 28, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1577-S1578]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Climate Change

  Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to talk about 
climate change--to talk about something that is a pressing and real 
problem that affects everyone in this country, and, in fact, in our 
world. It is a challenge that we can't afford to ignore any longer 
because the health of our families, our economy, our environment, and 
even our national security, quite literally, depend on our ability to 
address it and address it promptly.
  After a year of recordbreaking extreme weather in 2018--when we saw 
rising average temperatures fuel California's deadliest wildfire season 
on record, when Florida was faced with the strongest hurricane ever to 
reach that State's panhandle, and when farmers in Delaware and across 
the country faced challenges due to severe flooding and drought--it is 
clear that we can't afford to sit back and do nothing about climate 
change while the American people pay the price.
  The costs of our inaction are real--real in human suffering, real in 
disaster recovery spending, real in lost economic opportunity, and real 
in the burden borne by our Armed Forces around the world.
  Yes, there is a clear link between climate change and national 
security. The Pentagon has consistently pointed to climate change as a 
real national security threat that will make the military's job around 
the world harder. National security leaders from across 
administrations, both Republican and Democratic, have warned that 
climate change acts as a ``threat multiplier,'' increasing global 
instability and weakening fragile States as climate change leads to 
more extreme weather events and scarcer food and water resources.
  In many ways, these findings echo themes about climate change that we 
already know--that it is already happening, that it continues to get 
worse, that it is going to cost us dearly, and that we can do something 
about it. It is that last point that I want to focus on. We can do 
something to stop the disastrous impacts of climate change, so long as 
we recognize it and work together in a bipartisan way to develop, take 
up, debate, and pass meaningful legislation that can make a difference.
  Democrats have a broad range of bold and new policy proposals and of 
tested and fully developed policy proposals to address climate change. 
Many of them are bipartisan.
  I wanted to come to the floor today to talk through 4 different bills 
that I have cosponsored--some that are relatively new and some 
considered across several Congresses--that are positive, constructive 
steps forward we can take to address climate change.
  The first, and probably my oldest bill in this field, is called the 
MLP Parity Act--a catchy name, I know. It has five Republican 
colleagues who have cosponsored it now over three Congresses. This bill 
expands to renewable forms of energy, to carbon capture and 
sequestration, and to renewable and so-called clean energy a popular 
and long-established tax tool for financing energy projects that the 
oil and gas and pipeline sectors have enjoyed for decades. It would 
level the playing field. It would stop picking winners and losers in 
terms of energy tax policy. It would be, literally, an ``all of the 
above'' energy financing strategy. If enacted, it would be the first 
permanent change for the financing of clean energy projects in the U.S. 
Tax Code--potentially, worth billions of new private investment in 
renewable forms of energy.
  It is also cosponsored by the Republican chair of the Energy 
Committee, Senator Murkowski, the Republican chair of the Banking 
Committee, Senator Crapo, and three other colleagues from across the 
country. We have five Democrats and five Republicans. It has had a 
hearing in front of the Energy Committee and a hearing in front of the 
Finance Committee in previous Congresses. This is the sort of solid, 
scored bipartisan bill that would be a meaningful step forward in 
addressing climate change.
  Senator Lindsey Graham and I have introduced the IMPACT for Energy 
Act to create a private foundation to support cutting-edge energy 
research and technology commercialization. Why would we do this? What 
am I talking about?
  Well, a guy named Bill Gates, one of the greatest inventors and 
innovators in American history, wants to deploy private investments and 
foundation investments alongside the Department of Energy, in 
partnership with a lot of other individuals, to significantly 
accelerate the cutting-edge research being done at our National 
Laboratories through the Department of Energy.
  This is a tool that several other Federal Agencies already have. It 
is a so-called private foundation that allows them to marry up private 
sector dollars--foundation dollars--with Federal dollars to leverage 
greater impact. This private foundation can go out and raise that 
additional money and add it to the energy R&D already being funded by 
the Federal Government.
  I also want to applaud the hard and bipartisan work of my colleagues, 
led by Senators Murkowski and Cantwell on the Energy Committee, on a 
comprehensive energy bill with a wide range of policy ideas that can 
move us forward. It has several components that I contributed and that 
would help to address climate change. I very much hope that in this 
Congress we can finally take up this bipartisan bill and see it signed 
into law.
  Last, but in some ways most importantly, I want to mention a bill I 
offered at the end of the last Congress with my friend and former 
colleague, the Senator from Arizona, Jeff Flake. Despite our very 
different ideological, cultural and contextual backgrounds--we are from 
different States, from different faiths, and from different 
perspectives on the role of government and society; he is a real 
conservative, and I am a progressive Democratic--we still managed to 
come together and introduce a bill that addresses the cost of ignoring 
climate change and the impact it will have on the people in our home 
States.
  We offered the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act. It is a 
commonsense bill to achieve significant and sustained emissions 
reductions and to help to mitigate the worse impacts of climate change. 
Our bill would accomplish this by using a free-market approach to 
pricing carbon pollution that would spur economic growth and put money 
back in the pockets of American taxpayers. Similar legislation has been 
introduced in the House of Representatives by a bipartisan coalition. I 
look forward to reintroducing this bill in this Congress.
  The Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act should be the 
centerpiece of a robust, bipartisan climate agenda because it 
aggressively tackles emissions while optimizing economic growth and 
income for working families. We estimate that our bill would reduce 
emissions by 90 percent by 2050, while creating as many as 2 million 
net new jobs in the next decade.
  I believe this is an efficient way to use market forces to address 
the very real problem of climate change while creating jobs and 
opportunities for American workers. Frankly, an outright ban on 
nonrenewable sources would be inefficient and disruptive to workers 
from all sectors, but, in particular, across the building trades and 
other vital sectors of employment. In contrast, sending a strong market 
signal in favor of lower carbon or carbon-neutral energy would spur 
investment and growth in these technologies by the private sector and 
lead us toward a lower carbon future through competition.

[[Page S1578]]

  We don't need to choose between clean energy and economic growth or 
between combating climate change and creating jobs. These two goals are 
not permanently and mutually exclusive. They can go hand in hand if we 
craft the right policies. Still, we cannot move abruptly away from an 
economy that relies heavily on fossil fuels without having a real and 
coordinated plan for the very people--the millions of Americans--whose 
jobs will ultimately be impacted by that transition.
  Fortunately, a gradual transition to a clean energy future can also 
be an effective job creator. In 2017, the renewable energy and energy 
efficiency sectors alone employed 2.8 million Americans. If we place a 
price on carbon and then let the market work, we will create jobs 
across a wide range of industries, occupations, and geographies.
  As we work to deal with the effects of climate change by moving to a 
cleaner energy and infrastructure economy--an economy that is more 
resilient--we will need to rely on workers who are already in place in 
many of these industries. We will need building trades professionals to 
construct and maintain our new resilient and clean energy 
infrastructure. We will need manufacturing workers to build these more 
energy-efficient products. We will also need scientists and engineers 
to help research, develop, design, and deploy these new technologies. 
These workers bring real experience and skills to the table, and we 
must ensure that these skills translate into new, good jobs and that 
the workers in these new jobs are able to organize for fair 
competition, for fair compensation, and for fair work conditions.
  We can't tackle climate change alone. The United States is the 
largest historic emitter of carbon dioxide, but our emissions have been 
declining in recent years. Meanwhile, China has whirred past us, and 
China and India and other countries are rapidly catching up in their 
carbon emissions. We need an approach that incentivizes these countries 
to reduce their emissions as well. The United States is a world leader 
in science and technology and innovation. We need to develop and 
advance new technologies--carbon-neutral technologies like small, 
modular nuclear reactors and carbon capture and sequestration--that we 
can export. Then we need to find ways to encourage countries like China 
and India to modernize and industrialize while also reducing their 
emissions.
  There is good work taking place in this area, and there are good 
solutions we can act on together. We need to reduce greenhouse gas 
emissions in a serious, thorough, deliberate, and thoughtful way. We 
need to be prepared to adapt to the ongoing impacts of climate change. 
We need to make sure American workers and families aren't left behind 
or are burdened by Federal climate policy.
  This administration, unfortunately, strikes me as taking us backward. 
We are voting on an EPA Administrator in this Chamber who is failing to 
take action on climate, even on action that is widely supported by 
industry. Our President just proposed a National Security Council 
initiative to counter the consensus around climate change and refute 
the idea that greenhouse gases are harmful to the environment. I 
shouldn't even need to say this, but that just isn't how science works.
  That is why, here in the Senate, we need to take the opportunity to 
lead and to have voices from both parties in Congress and in this 
country who want to take bold steps to address the climate. The hard 
part is going to be squaring these big, bold ideas with political 
reality. That is hard, but there are ways we can do it. Instead of 
being silent, we should bring this conversation to the forefront. 
Instead of debating whether climate change is real, we should be 
passing bipartisan bills, like the ones I have mentioned today, that 
can meaningfully address climate change and improve our economy.
  Climate change is a serious threat to our economy, to our security, 
and to our way of life. We need leadership from all parts of our 
society and government to tackle it, and we must do our part in the 
Senate. I look forward to having conversations across the aisle, to 
working together, to identifying real solutions to the challenges 
before us, and to creating new opportunities for America's workers.
  I thank the Presiding Officer.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.