[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 113 (Monday, July 8, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4689-S4692]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           ORDER OF PROCEDURE

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that 
notwithstanding rule XXII, the postcloture time on the Bress nomination 
expire at 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, July 9 and that, if confirmed, the 
motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the 
President be immediately notified of the Senate's action. I further ask 
unanimous consent that following disposition of the Bress nomination, 
the Senate vote on the pending cloture motions on the following 
nominations in the order listed: Executive Calendar Nos. 47, 51, and 
52; that if cloture is invoked, the confirmation votes occur on 
Wednesday, July 10, at a time to be determined by the majority leader 
in consultation with the Democratic leader.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.


              American Opportunity Carbon Fee Act of 2019

  Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, last year, the United States weathered 14 
different disasters costing $1 billion or more, including 2 hurricanes 
that cost more than $25 billion in damages. Just in the past 3 years, 
the annual average of billion-dollar disasters has doubled compared to 
what it has been over the long term. These numbers give us a sense of 
what extreme weather and climate inaction will cost us, but the 
hundreds of billions of dollars of damages we have seen from extreme 
weather over the past few years do not capture the full costs.
  An economist named Gary Yohe recently pointed out in a Washington 
Post article that extreme weather doesn't simply damage or destroy 
property. These events require people, businesses, and government to 
take money they would have spent elsewhere and put it toward 
rebuilding. So instead of promoting growth or investing in business or 
communities, we are treading water by putting billions of dollars into 
just rebuilding the status quo. Yohe calculates that if we have similar 
extreme weather events over the next 10 years, the U.S. GDP will be 3.6 
percent lower. So, in 2029, our economy will be $1 trillion poorer 
because of extreme weather and climate change. This is why actuaries 
have named climate change the No. 1 risk to North American insurers. 
This isn't the Conservation Council for Hawai'i. This isn't the Sierra 
Club. This is not the League of Conservation Voters. These are 
actuaries. They named climate change the No. 1 risk to North American 
insurers. That is why insurance executives are warning that the world 
will be uninsurable if climate change accelerates.
  Risks that come with climate change--extreme fires and droughts, sea 
rise and hurricanes--threaten economic growth and financial instability 
across sectors. This is no longer in the future tense. This is no 
longer hypothetical. Climate change is happening right now and is 
forcing businesses to change their approach right now. In Europe and 
the United States, insurance companies have publicly announced they 
will no longer do business with mining and coal companies. Alliance, 
Chubb, AXA, Zurich, Swiss Re, and others have all decided they can't 
insure coal anymore. They can't underwrite or invest in the industry 
without taking on too much risk.
  This is part of a trend across the private sector and across the 
world. Farmers, private equity groups, shareholders, and regulators are 
all looking at the economic risks of climate change and changing their 
strategies to mitigate these risks. They are worried about the cost of 
goods, the profitability of businesses, the stability of the market. 
They are worried about the new and growing risk of droughts, floods, 
storms, wildfires, and sea level rise because these events reduce the 
value of assets. They decrease investment income. They increase insured 
and uninsured losses. In other words, they are disrupting our financial 
institutions. The health of our financial system is at stake, and the 
cost of inaction is higher than the cost of action.

[[Page S4690]]

  The U.S. Government cannot be alone. Like the private sector and 
other countries, it is in all of our best interests to deal with 
climate change and to invest in an energy system for the future. The 
best thing we can do that will make the biggest difference is to put a 
price on carbon.
  The carbon fee is straightforward and it is simple: unleash the 
markets to tackle climate change by requiring companies to pay for the 
emissions they are responsible for. Senators Whitehouse, Heinrich, 
Gillibrand, and I have introduced a carbon pricing piece of legislation 
that will allow us to address nearly all greenhouse gas emissions.
  Our bill establishes a set of incentives for businesses to stop using 
dirty fuels so the free market can compete, innovate, and make money 
building the energy future we need.
  We also give businesses something they say they crave, which is 
certainty. It is challenging to make investment choices when the 
private sector is subjugated to the idiosyncrasies of politics. The 
last administration had a Clean Power Plan and Paris Agreement and now 
there is no Clean Power Plan and no Paris Agreement. In the meantime, 
companies are trying to plan a business strategy beyond an election 
cycle. A price on carbon put in place by Congress is much more certain 
than an Executive order and cannot be overturned or not enforced.
  You don't have to take my word for it. The business community is 
organizing for a carbon fee for this very reason. Oil companies with 
big name brands have joined together to support a carbon pricing 
proposal by something called the Climate Leadership Council. One of the 
top benefits they cite is predictability.
  There are many other things we can do about climate. We can invest in 
clean jobs. We can invest in nuclear. We can work on carbon capture. We 
can certainly fund innovation. We can do solar and wind. I am for 
conservation and efficiency. The point is there is no silver bullet, 
but there is silver buckshot. In other words, we are going to have to 
do all of these things, and the best way to get all of these things 
done is to simply assign a price to carbon and let the market take 
over. That is why we should move forward with our legislation.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, a new generation of young leaders in my 
home State of New Mexico and all around the world recognizes that the 
climate crisis is not just urgent, it is literally existential. These 
young students and activists are demanding that their elected leaders 
get to work on implementing solutions to limit its devastating impact.
  I heard from many students in New Mexico about how we should confront 
the climate crisis. Earlier this year, I sat down with students in 
Santa Fe to hear their ideas on how we should confront this crisis. 
These students showed an incredible depth of knowledge on climate 
science and on their changing atmosphere. They are observing how the 
climate crisis is already impacting their daily lives. Talking with 
young people who are calling on us to save their future drives home how 
urgent this issue is for our next generation.
  It is not just high school or college students. I want to read to you 
from a couple of handwritten letters I recently received from 
elementary school students in New Mexico.
  Brook is 9 years old from Albuquerque. She wrote to me: ``The Earth 
is important to me because if we don't take care of earth now things 
are going to get much worse, please do something.''
  Orla, age 10, from Rio Rancho, wrote:

       The Earth is important to me because Earth is the only 
     planet perfect for us. Earth is the place we live, plants 
     live, where other creatures big and small live. And if we 
     don't do something about this now, our Earth will not be 
     Earth, but Junk. We will have no place to live. Please do 
     something. NOW!

  If these children can see so clearly how important it is, how 
desperately urgent it is to fight for the future of the planet, why on 
Earth can't our Nation's leaders here in Washington? I think it is long 
past time for us to listen to our children who are pleading for us to 
take action and to leave them with a better world in which to live. It 
is long past time for us to think through substantive solutions that 
can move us away from carbon pollution that is causing this crisis.
  That means we should refuse to continue down the climate deniers' 
desired path of inaction. That will only keep us moving toward more and 
more costly disruptions for our children. I am focused on implementing 
real and pragmatic solutions to eliminate this pollution. That is why I 
was proud to join with Senator Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Senator 
Schatz of Hawaii to introduce legislation this year that will finally 
put a price on carbon. The scientific consensus is clear--the 
destructive wildfires in my home State, the catastrophic hurricanes, 
and the extreme flooding we are experiencing are all directly linked to 
our pollution.
  When we look at the climate modeling, one of the surest and, for that 
matter, one of the cheapest ways we can move the needle is by finally 
putting a price on carbon pollution because the truth is carbon 
pollution isn't free. We are all paying the price for carbon pollution 
in the billions of dollars we are spending each and every year to 
recover from climate disruptions of more extreme wildfires, floods, and 
storms. We need to stop socializing the cost of that pollution and ask 
those who produce it to bear its true costs. In other words, we need to 
internalize the price of carbon pollution at the source.
  Our legislation, the American Opportunity Carbon Fee Act, would 
collect a fee from carbon polluters. It would also include a border 
adjustment provision to ensure that American manufacturers would still 
be able to compete on a level playing field and that international 
carbon polluters would pay a price. The fee for carbon pollution under 
our bill would start at $52 a ton, and it would rise 6 percent each 
year. This matches the midrange of the estimated cost of carbon that 
researchers at the Office of Management and Budget, under the previous 
administration, determined in 2016. Roughly translated, this is the 
cost that carbon pollution is already costing you and your neighbors 
because of its devastating effects. This is the cost that pollution 
producers should be paying, and we can put the revenues raised by this 
fee on carbon pollution directly to work helping American households.
  Our legislation would raise a projected $2.3 trillion over 10 years 
that would be returned directly to American families in the States to 
transition us toward a clean energy economy. States would receive $10 
billion a year to help pay for their transition toward clean energy and 
a clean energy workforce. This transition represents our greatest 
opportunity to create millions of new jobs all across our Nation and 
particularly in our rural communities. Wind technology and solar are 
already two of the fastest growing jobs in the Nation. States need to 
put real resources into training our workers for these clean energy 
jobs, and our legislation would make that happen.
  The rest of the revenue from our legislation would be delivered 
directly to American families in the form of tax credits and Social 
Security and veterans' benefits. This is the responsible way forward. 
This is the type of market-based climate policy that should have the 
support of both Democrats and Republicans.
  We know that to meet our climate goals and to limit the damage 
wrought by the climate crisis, we must immediately change our 
trajectory. We must move toward an economy that is run entirely--yes, 
100 percent--on clean, pollution-free energy.
  Our proposal is just one way to take a major Federal action that 
would move us quickly in that direction--and I would welcome a full 
debate in the Senate on the best way forward--but what is abundantly 
clear is that we can no longer afford to debate whether to move 
forward.
  Our climate crisis often feels too big, too complex, too hard to fix. 
However, the scientific fact is, we have created this problem, and we 
possess the creativity and the tools and the technology to fix it. Our 
kids understand better than even most of us do that we need to act 
urgently and decisively. That is what leadership is all about. That is 
our job.

[[Page S4691]]

  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, we have just heard two colleagues make 
convincing and compassionate arguments for putting a price on carbon, 
the central protection from climate crisis.
  A price on carbon like we propose would dramatically lower emissions 
and put us on a net-zero-by-2050 path, the path necessary to avoid the 
worst climate chaos. Because it is a price on pollution, we can dial it 
up or dial it down as climate chaos worsens or abates. Because our 
proposal is border-adjustable, it would let American industry compete 
even in countries without a price on carbon. Because our plan is 
revenue neutral, all the funds go back to the American people in the 
form of payroll tax credits, Social Security or VA benefits, or grants 
to States to navigate this transition.
  If our plan is so good, you might think it would already be on its 
way to becoming law. You might think there would be Senate hearings on 
it or bipartisan negotiations. Well, none of the above. To understand 
why that is taking place, you have to look at who is supporting carbon 
pricing and who is opposed.
  Let's start with the good news. Who is supporting it? Earlier this 
year, 27 winners of the Nobel Prize in economics--27 Nobel prize-
winning economists--15 former Chairs of the President's Council of 
Economic Advisers, more than half of them marked here in red are 
Republicans; 4 former Chairs of the Federal Reserve, half of them 
Republicans; and 2 Treasury Secretaries, including a Republican, in the 
Wall Street Journal, no less, endorsed a border-adjustable price on 
carbon with revenues returned to the American people--in other words, a 
carbon price very like our bill.

  Even the patron saint of conservative economists, Milton Friedman, 
himself a Nobel Prize winner, made the case that it is proper under 
conservative economics for government to put a price on pollution.

       [T]he best way to do it is to impose a tax on the cost of 
     the pollutants . . . and make an incentive for . . . 
     manufacturers and for consumers to keep down the amount of 
     pollution.

  Four former Republican Administrators of the Environmental Protection 
Agency--for President Nixon, President Reagan, and both President 
Bushes--advocated for a price on carbon in the New York Times.
  There is burgeoning support in the business community. In May, dozens 
of companies, with a combined market cap of nearly $2.5 trillion, came 
to Congress to advocate for a price on carbon. CEOs of 13 major 
corporations recently announced the formation of the CEO Climate 
Dialogue to do the same. All these CEOs and corporations may be 
responding to an explosion of warnings coming from economic regulators 
here and abroad, national banks here and abroad, government agencies 
here and abroad, and risk analysts, who do this kind of thing 
professionally, that we are headed for economic perils if climate 
change is not addressed with an effective, predictable remedy, like a 
price on carbon emissions.
  Last month, even Pope Francis convened a 2-day summit at the Vatican 
on climate change, where he urged governments, businesses, and oil 
companies to get serious about climate change and to follow carbon 
pricing as the smart path forward, calling it ``essential.''
  By the way, to do a little moral wander here, Pope Francis is not 
alone among religious leaders in seeing a moral imperative to solving 
this problem.
  The head of the Church of England said that ``[r]educing the cost of 
climate change is essential to the life of faith. It is a way to love 
our neighbour and to steward the gift of creation.'' Two hundred 
thirty-two evangelical pastors from 44 States declared that ``[l]ove of 
God, love of neighbor, and the demands of stewardship are more than 
enough reason for evangelical Christians to respond to the climate 
change problem with moral passion and concrete action.''
  Forty-three rabbis from around the world stated that ``Jewish 
teachings mandate that we do everything possible to help avert a 
climate catastrophe and other environmental disasters and to help shift 
our imperiled planet onto a sustainable path.''
  Likewise, leaders and scholars of the Islamic, Hindu, and Buddhist 
faiths have urged climate action, including pricing carbon.
  With all this support, particularly from so many Republicans, you 
would think that carbon pricing would be a no-brainer and that we would 
be already at work here in Congress doing something. Unfortunately, if 
you thought that, you would be wrong.
  The bad news is who is opposed to carbon pricing and what dirty tools 
they bring to that job. Here is one example: Last month, hints of 
interest in carbon pricing appeared from a few House Republicans, and 
suddenly an ``open letter'' appeared opposing carbon pricing. The 
letter was signed by all these entities with happy-sounding names like 
Americans for Tax Reform, Americans for Prosperity, Citizens Against 
Government Waste. Such nice names.
  You might think this letter represents grassroots popular opposition 
to carbon pricing. You would be wrong. These groups have a common 
identifier: They keep their funding sources secret. But skilled 
investigative journalists and researchers who spent countless hours 
digging through corporate tax filings and other documents have 
unearthed the funders. And guess what. The vast majority of these 
groups are funded with fossil fuel money. They are front groups. They 
are not real.
  We actually added it up. The groups behind this letter received 
collectively over half a billion dollars from groups linked to the 
fossil fuel billionaire Koch brothers, ExxonMobil, the American 
Petroleum Institute, and other fossil fuel interests. It is a complete 
front. Half a billion dollars is a lot. Remember, that is just what the 
researchers could find. Because these front groups hide their funding 
so well, the true number is probably several times that, probably 
billions of dollars.
  It sounds disgusting, doesn't it--an industry hiding behind front 
groups to spend billions of dollars to gum up a remedy to our climate 
crisis? But why wouldn't the fossil fuel industry spend a few billion 
dollars to block climate action here in Congress? The annual U.S. 
subsidy for fossil fuel was most recently estimated by the 
International Monetary Fund at $650 billion. Against that fat annual 
subsidy, spending a few billion is just a rounding error.
  Look at one example from this flotilla of phony front-group 
signatories: Americans for Tax Reform, with its president Grover 
Norquist, which claims to represent the regular taxpayer. Hogwash. 
Americans for Tax Reform has received over $5 million from Koch-linked 
groups--Koch Industries, the big fossil fuel company--and over $800,000 
from the American Petroleum Institute. They are hired guns, and they 
are wearing masks so you don't know who is paying them. That group is 
just one tentacle of the fossil fuel climate denial apparatus. They 
have even taken over the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National 
Association of Manufacturers and turned those business groups into 
fossil fuel zombies on climate change.
  It is time to say enough.
  I ask my colleagues to please take a sincere look at climate change 
and carbon pricing and look at who is saying what. On one side, you 
have the moral authority of the great religions. You have bipartisan 
agreement of the world's best economists. You have lots of 
Republicans--at least ones who don't have to face elections. You have 
lots of tough, smart business leaders. My God, you even have your home 
State universities that teach this stuff. On the other side, you have a 
bunch of hired guns, hiding behind phony front-group masks, funded with 
fossil fuel money that they try to hide. Who are you going to trust? 
Pope Francis or the oily, secretive Koch brothers? Milton Friedman or 
fossil-fuel hit man Grover Norquist? The International Monetary Fund or 
ExxonMobil, the company that has been caught out lying for decades 
about climate change over and over again? Front groups who hide their 
donors--isn't that a clue? Can we as a body, as the Senate, really not 
discern where the conflict of interest lies, where the record of lying 
lies?
  The climate crisis is real, and it is accelerating. Bad as it is 
already, we are just in the opening credits. It is getting worse. The 
pages sitting here

[[Page S4692]]

on the Senate floor know this. The rest of their lives will be spent 
coping with the consequences of our failure, the failure of the 
grownups--the sickening failure of the grownups.
  We have to get going here. We are trying to do it your way. Pretty 
much every Republican who has thought this climate problem through to a 
solution comes to the same place: a revenue-neutral, border-adjustable 
price on carbon. That is what we offered. We can't come much further 
than that. We are reaching out. We are trying to do it your way. But 
the answer back can't be dictated by a fossil fuel industry that has 
spent billions to deny and obscure the facts, an industry that to this 
day fights from behind a facade of lies.
  I tell my Republican colleagues, they have lied to you and lied to 
you, and you should cut them loose. We are all just back from the 
Fourth of July. How about an independence day for the Republican Party 
from the rotten rain of the fossil fuel industry? Just cut them loose.
  Let's do the job we have been entrusted with as Senators. Let's look 
at the facts. Let's look at the reality. Let's look at what our home 
State universities teach and what real businesses in America are 
telling us. Let's do our job.
  On our part, we have reached over as far as we know how. We know 
nothing more that we can offer than the terms that Republicans have 
proposed when they work this problem through to a solution. We said 
yes. Is there really not one of you who will reach back and start to 
solve this problem?
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sullivan). The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________