[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 62 (Wednesday, April 10, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2363-S2365]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Climate Change
Mr. President, now let me talk a little bit about climate change and
why it might be of some interest to us in Delaware. Delaware is the
First State--the first State to ratify in the Nation, on September 7,
1787. Before any other State had ratified the Constitution, we did. For
1 week, Delaware was the entire United States of America. We let in
Maryland, and we let in Pennsylvania and about 47 others. I think it
has turned out all right, until now. We will see. Hopefully, it will
turn out for a much longer period of time.
But the First State is also the lowest lying State in America. Think
about that. It sits right on the Atlantic ocean, halfway between Maine
and Florida. Our State is sinking and the oceans are rising. That is
not a good combination, especially if you are as small as we are. So we
have a personal interest in climate change, global warming, and sea
level rise.
We don't believe it is esoteric. We don't believe it is scientific
dogma. We think it is real, and it faces--maybe not my generation so
much, although we are seeing bad things happen because of sea level
rise and climate change--my kids and their kids someday. The chickens
will come home to roost.
The question is, Can we do anything about it? And the answer is yes,
we can do a lot.
Where should we start?
Well, we should start on a lot of places where carbon comes from. For
me, one of the things we do is to make sure that we protect, if you
will, the carbon-free sources of electricity generation to the extent
that we can. As it turns out, 60 percent to 70 percent of the
electricity in this country that is generated without creating carbon
is from nuclear powerplants.
There is technology and research going on--advanced technology and
advanced nuclear reactors--to see if there are ways we can build on
nuclear power and reduce the amount of spent fuel. Some people call it
waste. I call it spent fuel rods.
What can we do through new technology? There is actually reason to be
encouraged. There is a lot we can do and we need to do.
What else can we do? Well, we can pass our Diesel Emissions Reduction
Act and build on the legacy of the last 13 or 14 years. I am encouraged
that we are going to do that.
We have nascent technology. I think that Europe is a little further
ahead on this than we are, but we have the ability to not just take
carbon dioxide out of a smokestack--say, out of a coal-fired plant
generating electricity--but to literally pull carbon dioxide out of the
air. It is ambient carbon dioxide, out of the air--to pull it out of
the air and turn it into something useful.
While those are, I think, promising technologies, there is something
else that is right before us that is a lot more effective, and that is
our cars, trucks, and vans. Why do I mention them? The greatest sources
of carbon dioxide emissions come from our mobile sources--our cars,
trucks, and vans. It wasn't always that way. It used to be coal-fired
plants, utility plants. It could have been cement plants or other
manufacturing plants that emitted emissions, including carbon dioxide.
Today the largest source of CO2 emissions on our planet
are mobile sources--cars, trucks and vans. That is the bad news. The
good news is that we can actually reduce that.
I was at the Detroit Auto Show. I have been going to the Detroit Auto
Show for a long time. There was a time not that many years ago--a
decade ago--when Delaware actually built more cars, trucks, and vans
per capita than any other State. We had a huge interest in making sure
our GM plant stayed in business and a huge interest in making sure that
our Chrysler plant stayed in business.
As the Governor of Delaware, I worked hard to make sure that those
plants stayed in business. We had 3,000, 4,000 employees in each of
those plants. For a little State like Delaware, that is a lot. At the
bottom of the great recession, GM went into bankruptcy. We lost them
both. Thousands of jobs were gone just like that.
In any event, I still have a huge interest in automotives. One of the
reasons I have a huge interest in the automobile industry is because of
carbon dioxide emissions, and the largest source is in our cars,
trucks, and vans--the automotive industry.
I went to the Detroit Auto Show again this past January and the
January before, and I was there 11 years ago. Eleven years ago at the
Detroit Auto Show, the Car of the Year was a car called the Chevrolet
Volt, a hybrid. The first 30, 40 miles ran on battery, and after that,
it was a gasoline engine.
It was the Car of the Year. It got only about 38 miles on a charge of
electricity--a fully charged battery. Fast forward 10 years, and about
a year ago, at the Detroit Auto Show, the Car of the Year was a
Chevrolet Bolt. It got 140 miles on a charge. It was all electric, not
a hybrid. The Chevrolet Volt went from 38 miles on a charge 11 years
ago, and 10 years later, the Chevrolet Bolt goes 140 miles. That is
pretty good progress.
I was at the Detroit Auto Show this year, and I saw close to a dozen
different vehicles and manufacturers from this country and around the
world that have all-electric car vehicles, and they are getting about
240 to 250 miles on a charge. Think about that. Eleven years ago, the
Chevrolet Volt was getting 38 miles on a charge; a year and a half ago,
the Chevrolet Bolt was getting 140 miles on a charge. This year, there
are a number of cars getting 250 miles on a charge--off their battery.
It is only going to get better.
We have the ability to create propulsion for our vehicles by using
hydrogen in conjunction with fuel cells to create electricity to power
our vehicles. What is the waste product? Let me see--water. The waste
product of the hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicles is H20. It is so
clean, you can drink it. That is where the future is for automotive
transportation in this country--battery-powered vehicles and those that
are powered by hydrogen in conjunction with fuel cells.
In our committee, Senator Barrasso, some of our colleagues, and I are
getting to work on the highway bill. It is not just the highway bill;
it is roads, highways, bridges, transit. We do this about every 5
years. We are starting to work on the next follow-on reauthorization of
the transportation bill. The current bill expires on September 30 of
next year.
We are getting a head start on it this year. We want to make sure, as
we prepare for the next 5 years in transportation, that we build roads,
highways, bridges, and transit systems in ways in which we realize we
have a real challenge on this planet with too much carbon in the air
and make sure we build into our roads, highways, and bridges the
ability to recharge batteries.
Come 2030, half of the vehicles that are expected to be built and
sold in this country will be battery-powered electric vehicles or they
will be hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicles. If we are smart about it,
when we take up and legislate and build on past legislation to build
roads, highways, bridges, and transit going forward, we will do it in a
way that creates corridors where people traveling major roads in our
country can easily stop and recharge their vehicle's battery or refuel
hydrogen. That has to be part of our legislation.
Since much of our carbon dioxide is coming from mobile sources, we
want to make sure that, when we build roads, highways, and bridges, we
do it in a way in which we reduce emissions in smart ways, if you will,
and the infrastructure is more sustainable. These are some of the
things we need to do.
The other thing I want to say is that, for me, the Holy Grail of
public policy right now, given the threat we face from climate change,
extreme weather--I will give you a hint. We had too much rain in
Delaware. We raise a lot of soybeans, a lot of corn, a lot of lima
[[Page S2364]]
beans, and a lot of chickens. If you asked a lot of farmers in Southern
Delaware last year how things went, they will tell you that they got a
whole lot of rain. We got a whole lot of rain last spring. You don't
want to have too little rain, but you don't want too much. A lot of our
farmers planted their crops last spring, and it rained, and it rained,
and it rained. The crops did not come up. They plowed under and
replanted, and it rained, and it rained, and it rained. Too many of our
farmers didn't get a crop.
The folks in the Midwest--Nebraska, South Dakota, and other places--
right now are going through even more extreme weather than that because
they are getting a lot of rain all at once. I talked to one of our
colleagues here in the Senate about his State this morning, and this is
happening again, I think, maybe this week. That extreme weather is
caused by too much carbon in the air. There is a great need to do
something about it.
The good news is this. We can do something about it and create jobs.
How would that work in the automotive area? Right now, our friends in
the automotive industry would like to build a lot more fuel cell-
powered vehicles and a lot of electric-powered vehicles. They plan to.
They want to make sure that, when they do that and they are on the
roads and highways across the country, people get their electric
vehicles recharged and their hydrogen vehicles refueled.
We need to put into our transportation legislation provisions that
make those charging stations and those fueling stations a reality. Our
auto industry needs certain predictability. Most businesses will tell
you that, of all things, they need certainty and predictability. It is
at the top of the list. Right now, the current administration is not
interested, unfortunately, in providing the certainty and
predictability that folks need in the auto industry.
There is a 50-State deal to be made in terms of fuel efficiency
standards going forward. It looks something like this: The Trump
administration wants to have almost no increase in fuel efficiency
standards between 2021 and 2025--almost nothing, almost flatline, and
absolutely nothing beyond 2025. The current regulation in place by the
last administration--the Obama administration--calls for, between 2021
and 2025, annual increases in fuel efficiency standards by roughly 5
percent. That is pretty steep. That doesn't sound like much, but after
5 years in a row, it is a big increase.
The auto industry is saying that they would like to have some near-
term flexibility between 2021 and 2025 in fuel efficiency standards.
They are ready to ramp it up going forward.
I think the current administration might be willing to agree on a
compromise of fuel efficiency standards going up 1 percent a year
between 2021 and 2025, but they don't want to do anything more after
2025. We will be making a bunch of vehicles that get maybe 300, maybe
400 miles on a charge. I think there might be a number between a 1-
percent increase in fuel efficiency standards between 2021 and 2025 and
a 5-percent increase. There may be some middle ground between a 1-
percent-a-year and a 5-percent increase in what the Obama rules call
for. Maybe it is 3 percent. So rather than making no progress in fuel
efficiency standards, you have a 3-percent increase. The auto industry
may not be crazy about it, but they can live with it. They can live
with a good deal more than 3 percent after 2025. We ought to do that.
If we do that kind of thing, we will make sure we don't spend the
next 5, 6 years with the auto industry in legal battles in California
and 13 other States, including Delaware and Rhode Island. The auto
industry has a certain predictability that they need. If they build
these vehicles, we will be competitive on the world stage and have a
strong economy as a result, and we will have done good things for our
planet. Why wouldn't we do that? Really, why wouldn't we do that?
My dad was a big ``common sense'' guy. We can all probably remember
things our parents said to us from time to time. Among other things,
after my sister and I had done some bone-headed stunt, my dad would
say: Just use common sense. He was an old chief petty officer in the
Navy--tough as nails. He didn't say it that nicely, but he said ``just
use common sense'' a lot.
We need to use some common sense. In doing that, we will create a
great bunch of jobs and make ours a competitive nation on the world
stage in one of the most important industries we have; that is, the
building, design, and development of vehicles. We will do good things
for our planet and for those who are going to inherit this planet from
us.
That is pretty much what I wanted to say today.
I want to take a minute to say something as a bigger State talking to
another big State--I like to tell people Delaware is the 49th largest
State. We are about a couple of acres larger than Rhode Island. These
are two States that I think the Senator from Rhode Island will agree
with--I will say this to our pages here. I don't know if you have heard
the term used in boxing when you have a smaller fighter fighting
against a bigger fighter. When the little boxer wins over the much
bigger boxer, you say the smaller boxer ``punches above his weight.''
When it comes to climate change and trying to figure out the right
thing to do for our planet, our country, our people, I would like to
say that in Rhode Island and Delaware, we punch above our weight. This
may not be a heavyweight title bout, but this is a big one. Where they
have world championships, in terms of issues, this is a world
championship issue. This is one we can win.
I want to thank my friend Senator Whitehouse for taking a great
leadership role in all of this, including today. He knows, as most of
us on this floor and I think on our planet know, that it is time to
wake up, or as my friend Congresswoman Lisa Rochester likes to say:
Stay woke.
Thank you, sir.
I yield the floor.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Thank you very much. It is not often that the
distinguished ranking member on the EPW Committee gets to say he is
from a bigger State and give his advice in those terms. I appreciate
that we from Rhode Island were able to give him this moment.
I also want to thank him for his leadership in trying to fight for
strong fuel economy and greenhouse gas emission standards for our
automobiles.
The story of what is going on cannot be properly understood without
understanding the oil industry's role in all of this. They are up to
their usual mischief.
Our offices obtained a draft letter to the Deputy Administrator of
the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, urging her to
weaken the auto emission standards. Well, we were able to look at the
metadata on this document, and guess who wrote it. It was written by
one of Marathon Petroleum's in-house lobbyists.
Marathon shopped this letter, which their lobbyist wrote, around to
Members of Congress, convincing several to send similar letters in
favor of weakening the standards. We took those letters, and we ran
them through plagiarism software, and this is what we got. The red text
is the text that is identical to the language of the Marathon
lobbyist's letter. The black is where, in this case, Members of the
Pennsylvania delegation added a little local information about
Pennsylvania. It is an 80-percent match in the plagiarism software to
the letter written by the Marathon Oil company lobbyist.
Marathon and the oil industry weren't just recruiting Members of
Congress to copy their lobbyist language into letters to the Trump
administration; they got their trade associations involved as well. The
American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers Association lobbied, for
instance, to weaken the standards, according to their lobbying
disclosure reports. It is always better to have your trade association
do your dirty work. What company really wants the public to know it
lobbied to lower fuel economy standards so that consumers could pay
more at the pump? It is not a good look.
In addition to cranking up its trade associations, the fossil fuel
industry also cranked up its constellation of front groups that it has
developed and funded over the years to kill laws and regulations that
would reduce the carbon pollution that is driving climate change. The
industry launched those front groups against the fuel economy and
greenhouse gas emission auto standards. These front groups provide a
veneer of fake public support for the oil industry's anti-climate
campaign.
[[Page S2365]]
Take Americans for Prosperity, for instance. It is a lovely, benign-
sounding name. Who could possibly be against prosperity? Yet, in
reality, Americans for Prosperity is a front group that is funded by
the fossil fuel billionaire Koch brothers, whose company, by the way,
also lobbied against the standards. Americans for Prosperity doesn't
disclose its donors. It is a secretive organization. So what little we
know about its funders comes thanks to the hard work of a few
muckraking, investigative journalists.
We do know that both ExxonMobil and the fossil fuel industry's
flagship trade association, the American Petroleum Institute, give the
AFP money, and they give them big money. Since the Citizens United
decision, the AFP has spent about $70 million on Federal elections. It
is throwing its weight around.
To oppose the auto standards, the AFP created an elaborate online
deception campaign that was centered on this petition against the
standards. Unfortunately, for them, the public was not buying its
nonsense. Despite an onslaught of online advertising, only 231 people
signed up. It looks like no one wanted to spend more on gas and that no
amount of fossil fuel lies could convince them otherwise.
FreedomWorks is yet another front group that has received millions in
funding from the Koch brothers and fossil fuel interests like the
American Petroleum Institute. It also started an online campaign
against the standards, and that, too, bombed. There is a word for this
stuff. It is called astroturf. It is fake grassroots. Real grassroots
organizations don't need tens of millions of dollars from fossil fuel
front groups. Real grassroots organizations thrive on the engagement
and the passion of citizens, not on millions in special interest, dark
money.
In having flopped at astroturfing, the oil industry organized its
front groups to write directly to Trump administration officials and
lobby them to repeal the standards. Here is one of these letters, and a
dozen phony front groups signed it. Like I said, they built a
constellation of these phony front groups, and a dozen signed this
letter. These groups together have received--like I said, mostly of
secret money--a minimum of $196 million from fossil fuel industry
interests, including from the Koch brothers, API, ExxonMobil, and
Chevron.
This $196 million did a lot of talking, for this letter found its way
to an eager audience in the Trump administration, which is stuffed with
fossil fuel lobbyists and flunkies. So they gave the oil industry
exactly what it wanted--a proposal to freeze the auto emission
standards and to challenge California and other States, like mine, our
authority to set our own standards.
What is strange about this is that this proposal isn't what the auto
industry says it wanted. Once the oil industry jumped into the fray,
the auto industry let Big Oil take over, or it got shoved aside by Big
Oil. Big Oil barged in and got exactly what it wanted--weakened
standards that would allow it to sell--hold your breath here--up to $1
trillion in extra gasoline. For a mere expenditure of $196 million
through these 12 phony front groups, they got to sell $1 trillion in
extra gasoline. That is how you make big money--by renting out the U.S.
Government. That, by the way, is $1 trillion that comes out of
consumers' pockets and goes into Big Oil's. No wonder Big Oil is hiding
behind front groups.
In the press, unnamed auto industry lobbyists have complained that
the proposed freeze isn't what they asked for. Well, that is not good
enough. Auto industry executives need to step up and tell President
Trump and Secretary Chao and Administrator Wheeler that their oily
proposal is not acceptable.
This car rule saga that we have seen play out is a microcosm of the
climate change problem that we face. The fossil fuel industry, through
its armada of phony front groups, fights to defend its own massive
sales and massive, massive taxpayer subsidies for its product. The IMF
has estimated that the fossil fuel industry receives a $700 billion--
with a ``b''--annual subsidy in the United States alone. So it has
every incentive to spend whatever it takes to control things in
Washington, like giving $196 million to these front groups. Meanwhile,
the rest of corporate America, including car companies that claim to
support reducing carbon pollution, just don't show up.
One side lobbies Congress against climate action, and the other side
doesn't show up. One side spends tens of millions on attack ads against
candidates who support climate action, and the other side doesn't show
up. One side pours hundreds of millions of dollars into trade
associations and phony front groups, and the other side doesn't show
up. The result is entirely predictable--money talks, unfortunately,
around here, and big money commands.
Things would change a bit if the rest of corporate America would
challenge the fossil fuel industry's money and influence to help our
colleagues on the other side get something done on climate change.
I close by pointing out that democracy and the free market are the
twin pillars of our American example. What does it say for them as
institutions when one industry--the fossil fuel industry--can
simultaneously capture our democracy and pervert the free market with
its massive subsidies? It is not a good story.
America's strength has always been our example. Our inaction on
climate change--one of the foremost challenges of the world--sullies
our American example. For the good of our country, for the good of
those institutions, for the good of our American example, it is time to
wake up.
I yield the floor.
Mr. MORAN. Mr. President, I know of no further debate on this
nomination.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cotton). Is there further debate?
If not, the question is, Will the Senate advise and consent to the
Brady nomination?
Mr. MORAN. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker)
and the Senator from California (Ms. Harris) are necessarily absent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 56, nays 42, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 73 Ex.]
YEAS--56
Alexander
Barrasso
Blackburn
Blunt
Boozman
Braun
Burr
Capito
Cassidy
Collins
Cornyn
Cotton
Cramer
Crapo
Cruz
Daines
Enzi
Ernst
Fischer
Gardner
Graham
Grassley
Hawley
Hoeven
Hyde-Smith
Inhofe
Isakson
Johnson
Jones
Kennedy
Lankford
Lee
Manchin
McConnell
McSally
Moran
Murkowski
Paul
Perdue
Portman
Risch
Roberts
Romney
Rounds
Rubio
Sasse
Scott (FL)
Scott (SC)
Shelby
Sinema
Sullivan
Thune
Tillis
Toomey
Wicker
Young
NAYS--42
Baldwin
Bennet
Blumenthal
Brown
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Coons
Cortez Masto
Duckworth
Durbin
Feinstein
Gillibrand
Hassan
Heinrich
Hirono
Kaine
King
Klobuchar
Leahy
Markey
Menendez
Merkley
Murphy
Murray
Peters
Reed
Rosen
Sanders
Schatz
Schumer
Shaheen
Smith
Stabenow
Tester
Udall
Van Hollen
Warner
Warren
Whitehouse
Wyden
NOT VOTING--2
Booker
Harris
The nomination was confirmed.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that with
respect to the Brady nomination, the motion to reconsider be considered
made and laid upon the table and the President be immediately notified
of the Senate's action.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
____________________