[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 70 (Thursday, April 22, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Page S2138]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          CLIMATE LEGISLATION

  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, now on climate, this year's celebration 
of Earth Day comes with an ambitious new goal from the Biden 
administration: The United States should aim to cut its greenhouse gas 
emissions in half by the end of the decade. It is a great goal. I fully 
support it.
  Not only is President Biden finally returning the United States to a 
position of global leadership in the fight against climate change, but 
he is showing that America is ready to ramp up our climate ambition 
beyond--beyond--the Paris Agreement.
  Now, it will take extraordinary action to meet the marker that 
President Biden laid down, but he was exactly right to do it. If we 
need any reminders about what America can achieve when it puts its mind 
to something, President Kennedy committed to landing on the Moon over 
the course of a single decade. If America could reach that lofty goal 
in the name of ingenuity, in the name of exploration, surely we can 
achieve this goal in the name of saving the planet on which we live.
  Now, I believe the best way to achieve this ambitious goal is through 
bold action by this Congress through legislation to reduce carbon 
pollution while creating millions of jobs and economic prosperity in a 
new clean energy economy. Any legislation without a serious and bold 
climate component will make it much, much harder to achieve President 
Biden's goal, and we must work to have a strong green climate component 
in the American Jobs Plan.
  The Democratic majority here in the Senate is eager to get to work. 
One of the very first things I did when Democrats took the majority was 
to instruct every committee chair--the new committee chairs--to hold 
hearings on the climate crisis to begin preparing for landmark 
legislation. I repeat once again that any infrastructure bill we 
consider here in the Senate must include green infrastructure, create 
green jobs, and make significant progress toward the reduction of 
greenhouse gases.
  Luckily, the Senate will have an opportunity to address another 
serious climate-related issue next week. The Senate will consider a 
Congressional Review Act bill before the end of the work period to 
reimpose critical regulations concerning the release of methane into 
our atmosphere.
  Methane gets less attention than its big bad brother, carbon dioxide, 
but in truth, methane is like carbon dioxide on steroids. Over 20 
years, a ton of methane will warm the atmosphere more than 86 times as 
much as a ton of carbon dioxide, but because it breaks down much faster 
than carbon dioxide, the gains we make in the reduction of methane 
emissions can reduce global warming even faster. Many of the things we 
need to do to reduce methane emissions are fairly cheap and cost-
effective, like plugging leaks in fossil fuel infrastructure. So this 
made common sense, especially when our globe is at risk.
  The Obama administration had instituted these commonsense rules of 
the road to encourage that sort of activity. It was widely supported, 
even by industry. The Trump administration, so typically and so 
unfortunately, reversed those rules in an act of pure idiocy. The 
Senate Democratic majority will soon put a bill on the floor to revert 
back to the original policy, which should never have been tampered with 
in the first place.
  Reducing methane emissions will be only the first of many actions 
this Senate will take to combat climate change.

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