[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 204 (Tuesday, December 17, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7121-S7122]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CLIMATE CHANGE
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, we are rapidly running out of time
to protect our future and that of our children and grandchildren from
worsening climate upheaval. America ought to be taking every measure
available to rein in greenhouse gas emissions from legislative action
to legal action, to diplomatic action, to regulatory action, which is
going to be a theme of this talk tonight. We are not doing those
things, and, frankly, it is because of corruption, plain and simple.
Regulatory action, that means enforcing the laws on the books. We
have a Clean Air Act that requires the Environmental Protection Agency
to stop dangerous pollutants from fouling our air. The EPA has found
that greenhouse gases are pollutants under the Clean Air Act, and the
Supreme Court has upheld that finding. That means we ought to be
regulating methane. Methane is among the most potent of greenhouse
gases. When released into the atmosphere, it traps about 30 times more
heat than its chemical cousin, carbon dioxide. Oil and gas extraction
releases massive methane pollution. In fact, a growing body of research
suggests methane pollution from natural gas extraction may completely
offset the climate gains of switching from coal to natural gas.
To fulfill its duties under the Clean Air Act, as a matter of law,
EPA needs to prevent methane pollution. It is the law; it is not
optional. But the corrupt Trump EPA won't fight methane pollution. This
corrupt EPA is run by the fossil fuel industry, which could not care
less about methane emissions.
Within weeks of Scott Pruitt taking control of the Agency, the
corrupted EPA withdrew its request that oil and gas companies even
report methane emissions. The industry knew a true report on methane
leakage would damage their case for natural gas as a less dangerous air
pollutant, so they went to a line of attack, taken directly from the
Big Tobacco playbook: Silence the science. The fewer facts the EPA has,
the less action it needs to take under law--the corrupt Trump EPA
deliberately made itself ignorant and stopped the reporting so it could
avoid its duty.
Step 2 came in March 2017 with the corrupt Trump effort to roll back
existing greenhouse gas regulations, including methane regulations.
Trump's Executive order reads like a fossil fuel lobbyist's dream,
probably because fossil fuel lobbyists wrote it. He called on the EPA
to ``review existing regulations that potentially burden the
development or use of domestically produced energy resources and
appropriately suspend, revise, or rescind those that unduly burden the
development of domestic energy resources.''
Regulations to limit methane pollution were among those that Trump's
Executive order singled out, saying, ``As soon as practical, suspend,
revise, or rescind [them].''
Step 3 was to write a do-nothing replacement. After lots of dawdling,
Trump's corrupt EPA decided to draft a fake rule, a rule they could
point to if challenged in court for doing nothing, but a rule that
would conveniently do nothing to limit methane emissions. The fake rule
exempts a huge chunk of oil and gas production from regulation, leaving
the industry with an effective blank check to pollute as much methane
as it likes.
As I speak, the corrupt Trump EPA is preparing to issue its final
rule, and the corrupted fossil fuel industry is poised to grab
everything it wanted. The final rule is one that industry stooges could
have written themselves because, well, it looks like they did write it
themselves. They bought that privilege the old-fashioned way, by buying
it.
Even before Trump took office, the fossil fuel industry began
showering him with money. Trump raised a record amount for his
inauguration--nearly doubling the previous record--and Hess, Chevron,
BP, Citgo, ExxonMobil, Consol Energy, Continental Resources, Murray
Energy, and Valero all made six- or seven-figure donations. The oil and
gas and mining sector was the second largest source of donations,
providing more than $10 million to Trump's inaugural committee. That
money still flows as the 2020 election ramps up.
Fossil fuel companies are among the largest donors to the political
group supporting Trump's reelection. A pipeline company is the largest
single donor to the Trump victory political action committee, more than
$700,000 as of this November. The oil, gas, and mining industries
account for more than $5 million to the Trump Victory PAC.
Fossil fuel executives are some of the largest individual donors to
the Trump Victory PAC. One executive alone gave $360,000. These known
donations likely represent the tip of a big dark iceberg. Dark-money
political organizations accept unlimited donations and provide no
disclosure, and Super PACs accept unlimited donations with little
disclosure. So the bottom line is we cannot tell exactly how much
fossil fuel money is flowing to groups supporting Trump, but it is a
lot. When you consider the $650 billion annual subsidiary the fossil
fuel polluters enjoy, they have every reason to buy control over
government from a corrupt Trump administration.
Money isn't the only way the fossil fuel industry exerts control.
Oklahoma oil king and Scott Pruitt patron Harold Hamm set up a Trump
leadership council to advise Trump. The fossil fuel industry was the
heart of the council, with coal giants Alliance Resource Partners and
Murray Energy, oil services company Baker Hughes, and natural gas
company Devon Energy all active members. Of course, there was the
National Association of Manufacturers, a trade association recently
identified as America's worst climate obstructer.
With all these obstructers and polluters on board, the fossil fuel
friendly
[[Page S7122]]
council fed Trump a steady diet of talking points about slashing
regulations and achieving ``complete American energy independence.''
These fossil fuel industry talking points became the Executive order
I mentioned earlier, an order to kill any environmental protection that
``unduly burdens the development of domestic energy resources.'' Do you
want to know who the winners were from that Executive order? Check the
list of attendees at the signing ceremony: fossil fuel executives and
fossil fuel industry trade association executives, come to celebrate
the freedom to pollute that their influence and money had bought them.
Chevron has recently been identified as one of the companies that has
done the most to damage our oceans. They are one of the top ocean-
wrecking companies on the planet. In February of 2017, Chevron wrote to
the corrupt Pruitt with a list of deregulatory proposals the company
wanted to see implemented at the EPA. Included was a request to
``refocus methane regulations, particularly those that impact existing
sources, to encourage voluntary approaches.'' For sure, you can trust
one of the world's worst ocean polluters with voluntary approaches.
The corrupt Trump EPA was stocked with fossil fuel industry cronies
ready to implement whatever the industry wanted. Pruitt rose to
political power on a wave of fossil fuel money and demonstrated a
willingness to sell his office by putting fossil fuel industry asks
verbatim onto his official letterhead.
Andrew Wheeler, Pruitt's successor as Administrator, had been a
leading lobbyist for the coal industry. The head of the EPA Air Office,
Bill Wehrum, rose to prominence by helping build and run an array of
trade associations and front groups for--guess what--the fossil fuel
industry.
Beyond Pruitt and Wheeler and Wehrum, the EPA's political leadership
crawled with fossil fuel flunkies, like the one who left to set up the
fossil-fuel dark energy group Energy 45 to help promote fossil fuel
energy policies; or the lawyer-lobbyist for energy interests Dominion
Energy, Koch Industries, and TransCanada overseeing Air Office
compliance, of all things. It has been an infestation.
It is easy for the fossil fuel industry to spend big money to corrupt
the EPA because the corruption payback is so big; the dirty methane
work alone is estimated to save oil and gas companies hundreds of
millions of dollars.
Meanwhile, the American Petroleum Institute, the largest trade
association for the oil and gas industry, announced a new seven-figure
ad campaign called ``We're on it.'' ``We're on it.'' These ads--on the
Internet, TV, and billboards--they are all over the Washington, DC,
airport. They are designed to fool the public and to fool policymakers
that the oil industry is ``on its'' methane emissions problem. Of
course, they are not. Of course, they are lying. It is what they do.
Science tells us that methane emissions are far higher than the
estimates out of the corrupt Trump EPA. The investigative journalism
group Unearthed found that leading oil companies are emitting
unprecedented methane pollution. In just three producing basins, in
just 1 year, oil companies emitted methane equivalent to the annual
emissions of 10 coal-fired power plants or 8 million cars.
There is a recent New York Times article that you can link to showing
infrared imagery--it is really impressive to see, actually, if you
click through to it--infrared imagery of methane billowing out of what
they call super-emitter fossil fuel facilities.
A recent article described one methane blowout in Ohio leaking as
much ``methane than the entire oil and gas industries of many nations
do in a year.''
``We are on it.'' Yeah, they are ``on it.'' What they are on is a
binge of lying about emissions, corrupting our politics, and blocking
climate action. These massive polluting industries have a long track
record of climate denial and deceit. It is how they roll.
A top climate obstructer, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, pays for a
phony study, claiming the Paris agreement would cost jobs and economic
growth, and Trump pulls out a pass. Oil companies lobby to gut auto
fuel efficiency standards, and Pruitt and Wheeler gut the standards.
The natural gas industry objects to rules limiting methane emission.
The corrupt Trump EPA rolls them back.
Just now, on the Senate floor, we are looking at a tax extenders
package that wipes out the tax extenders for solar going forward, wind
going forward. They gave us 1 year looking backwards. Great, thanks a
bunch. Electric vehicles, storage, and batteries, all of that had been
in a tentative agreement. The fossil fuel industry and the Trump
administration kiboshed all of it. ``On it,'' indeed.
Will Attorney General Barr look into any of this? Of course not. In
the corrupt Trump administration, fossil fuel money and influence puts
that industry above the law. They can pollute and corrupt more or less
at will. We cannot afford this self-dealing from polluters any longer.
This is flat-out wrong. Indeed, it is flat-out crooked. It is not only
time to wake up, Madam President, it is time to clean up. This behavior
is a disgrace.
I yield the floor.
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