[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 72 (Tuesday, April 27, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2212-S2213]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                Methane

  Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, in Colorado we have come out of one of the 
worst wildfire seasons that we have ever seen. In fact, you can't 
really call it a season, I think, when the fires are still going on 
when the snow falls, but that is what happened this year, incredibly.
  Three of the largest fires in our history all happened in the same 
year, and these fires displaced thousands of people in my State. They 
obscured the views of the mountains for weeks at a time. They forced 
families to pack their entire lives into duffle bags while their homes 
went up in flames. They shut down major highways for weeks and 
paralyzed local economies and blanketed our communities with smoke.
  If you ask anyone in Colorado why this is happening, they will tell 
you it is because our State is becoming hotter and drier each year. If 
you ask farmers and ranchers in Colorado--and a lot of them are 
Republican--they will tell you they are facing drought that is longer 
and more intense than their parents or grandparents ever had to deal 
with.
  Our mountain towns will tell you that they are struggling with ski 
seasons that are growing shorter each year. Our water officials will 
tell you that they are planning for a future with a lot less water to 
go around, and there wasn't enough water to begin with. And the reason 
for all of this is climate change.
  That is why in Colorado, a purple State, a swing State in the middle 
of the country, there is absolutely a consensus that we have a moral 
responsibility to deal with climate change as a threat to our economy, 
to our environment, and to our way of life.
  That responsibility extends to the U.S. Senate, but for most of the 
time I have been here, we have treated climate change like it was going 
to somehow solve itself or, in some cases, that it didn't even really 
exist. And nothing could be further from the truth. This is a problem 
for all 50 States and every American. It is a problem for humanity, and 
we can't deal with it in an enduring way unless the hundred people in 
this body take action, until a hundred people here are willing to lead 
on a challenge that is existential, yes, and also global, yes, and is 
crying out for the leadership of the Senate.
  There is nobody else to ride to the rescue. We have to do this, and 
we can start tomorrow by voting to reverse--and I hope it will be a big 
bipartisan vote tomorrow on voting to reverse--the last 
administration's terrible, counterproductive, self-destructive policy 
on methane pollution.
  Methane is not something people ever think about, and it is one of 
the most powerful greenhouse gases behind climate change. It can be 
over 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide, and it is responsible 
for a quarter of all the warming that the planet has seen since the 
Industrial Revolution.
  Today, one of the biggest sources of methane pollution is the oil and 
gas industry in my State and in the great State of Texas, where the 
senior Senator is from, and all across the country, where methane leaks 
into the atmosphere from old pipes, broken vents, and outdated 
practices like burning excess gas.
  Methane pollution is terrible for the environment because it 
accelerates climate change. It is terrible for our health because it 
puts toxins in the air we breathe, especially for the nearly 10 million 
Americans who live near oil and gas wells or go to school near oil and 
gas wells. It is also terrible for industry because it makes their fuel 
much dirtier and it cuts into their bottom line.
  That is why, years ago--I think it was 2014--in Colorado, under the 
leadership of then-Governor Hickenlooper, now Senator Hickenlooper, we 
adopted as a State the country's first-ever rules to limit methane 
pollution for oil and gas facilities. Governor Hickenlooper worked by 
bringing environmentalists and industry leaders together to craft a 
policy that reflected the consensus in my State around climate change 
and our economy. Our approach worked so well that the EPA and the 
Bureau of Land Management drew on it for methane rules at the Federal 
level.
  When the last administration went after the rules at BLM, our late 
friend Senator John McCain led a bipartisan majority in this body to 
keep them in place. At the time, the Trump administration claimed that 
the Federal methane rules destroyed energy production and killed jobs. 
That was never true, to be polite about it.
  In Colorado, our natural gas production has grown. Our oil production 
has nearly doubled. Our innovation and jobs have increased. Today, 
there are 52 different businesses in my State hiring people to repair 
pipes, to track pollution, and to develop new technologies to reduce 
pollution. This has strengthened our economy.
  Colorado's approach worked so well that we have gone back and 
strengthened--strengthened--our methane rules another three times in 
2017, in 2019, and 2020, each time with support from both environmental 
groups and industry.
  But instead of learning from our example, the Trump administration 
went ahead with its plans to dismantle methane rules at the Federal 
level, and it did that over the objection of leading oil and gas 
operators in my State and across the country. And the result was a 
self-inflicted wound on our economy and our environment, and it 
compromised our leadership in the world.
  Now I hope we will pick up the pieces in a bipartisan way, because 
here is what I think: We are not going to solve climate change until we 
have an American climate policy, just like we once had something we 
called U.S. foreign policy, where every President who was elected, 
whether they were Republican or Democrat, they roughly knew what their 
job was with respect to the Soviet Union, with respect to the 
transatlantic alliance. There were differences, of course, and we made 
lots of mistakes with that organizing principle, but it was an 
important organizing principle--that thing we called American foreign 
policy.
  And we are going to need something called American climate policy. We 
didn't win the Cold War 2 years at a time, and we can't accept the 
politics in here, where I put in my ideas for healthcare and 2 years 
later they get ripped out, and we put in somebody's ideas for 
infrastructure and 2 years later they get ripped out. We can't tolerate 
it for those things--for education, for taxes. People want 
predictability. They don't want us to succumb to the political antics 
of Washington, DC, and this floor.
  But when it comes to climate change, that is really true, because we 
can't fix it 2 years at a time. I often hear people say that we have to 
act urgently on climate change. We do. It is true. But we also need a 
solution that is durable--one that will last through changes in the 
majorities in the Congress and changes with who is in the White House, 
so that we can actually pass off that durable solution to our kids and 
grandkids, who can then pick up the baton.
  So let me say this. You cannot accept, if you want to fix climate 
change, the broken politics that we have here. We can't accept the 
rubble that we sometimes have here. We have to do better, and I think 
we can. I think by starting with this methane rule--and hopefully doing 
it in a bipartisan way--it will be a great beginning.
  Coming together on methane pollution is the perfect place to start. 
In Colorado, 91 percent of the people support limits on methane 
pollution. It has the support of environmental groups and industry, as 
I said earlier, including America's largest natural gas producers. It 
has a record of bipartisan support in this body, and it has the 
potential to create thousands of jobs--

[[Page S2213]]

high-paying jobs--mostly in rural areas, where people are reasonably 
concerned about what this energy transition is going to mean for them. 
Let's pay people to capture methane, to make the industry viable, to 
make the product less harmful, and to create high-paying jobs in rural 
areas in America that need them.
  I know I don't have all the answers for how to build a durable 
climate policy in America, but I know that a sensible approach to 
methane has to be part of the solution, and that approach has to 
address not only new oil and gas facilities but existing ones like we 
have done in Colorado, and that is what this resolution will do. It 
will restore EPA's obligation to regulate all sources of methane 
emissions, including existing oil and gas operations, where there are 
hundreds of thousands of older wells that are responsible for 75 
percent of methane emissions from the industry.
  It will help us protect the environment and create jobs, and it will 
show the world that America can come together and that this Senate can 
come together in a bipartisan way to deal with climate change because, 
when I think about it, I don't want any of us to come back to this 
floor 10 years from now or 20 years from now and describe how we have 
just gone through the worst wildfire season ever or the worst hurricane 
season ever--more likely in the Presiding Officer's State than in my 
State--or the worst drought in our history.
  I want them to come back and celebrate how America led the world to 
overcome the climate threat. I want them to praise the era of 
innovation and job creation unleashed across the country, and I want 
them to point out what we did in this Congress with this vote to put 
America on a path to protect our planet, grow our economy, and fulfill 
our responsibility to our kids and our grandkids.
  So I urge my colleagues, every single one of them, to cast a vote for 
this important methane policy and to set us on the bipartisan course we 
need to create if we are going to have durable climate change policy in 
this country and if America is going to lead the world.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.