[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 21 (Wednesday, February 2, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S472-S474]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Climate Change

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am not very happy to be back with my 
trusty and somewhat battered ``Time to Wake Up'' poster. Almost exactly 
a year ago, I delivered what I hoped would be my last ``Time to Wake 
Up'' speech and took the poster off the floor.
  Things looked good then. The conditions for climate progress were in 
place. Voters had elected a Democratic President and Democratic 
majorities in both Houses of Congress. So the malicious grip of the 
fossil fuel industry on the Republican Party was no longer a stopper.
  President Biden ran on a fact-based, uncorrupted climate agenda, and 
many in our congressional majorities campaigned on climate action. We 
had reconciliation to work with, and work began on a serious climate 
bill.
  Actually, after I stopped these speeches, the Smithsonian asked me if 
they could have this old poster. It is the most used poster in Senate 
history, it turns out. And I came pretty close to turning it over to 
them, but something made me hesitate. And, well, here it is back again.
  We just aren't making progress, not by the only measurement that 
matters: greenhouse gas emissions. We are 1 year in--with no bill, no 
carbon regulation, and no litigation--and look at the climate havoc.
  Scientists reported that global temperatures registered between 1.1 
and 1.2 Celsius above average in 2021. That is among the hottest years 
ever observed by human beings, and it is dangerously close to our 
safety ceiling of 1.5 degrees Celsius. And we are here despite 2021 
being a La Nina year, when cold Pacific water usually cools global 
temperatures. The last 7 years are the 7 hottest years in recorded 
history.
  Republicans may mock and disparage this, but they are paid agents of 
the polluters causing this. And they are wrong.
  In past speeches, I have described how our oceans absorb a massive 
amount of the heat that is trapped by greenhouse gas pollution. It is 
the heat equivalent of multiple Hiroshima-sized nuclear bombs being set 
off in the ocean every second--multiple Hiroshima-sized nuclear 
devices' worth of heat per second that we are adding to the ocean.
  In the last three decades, our oceans warmed eight times faster than 
preceding decades. And it is so massive that it has its own measurement 
term: the zettajoule. The top 2,000 feet of ocean absorbed a record 227 
excess zettajoules of energy in 2021.
  So what is a zettajoule? Well, a half zettajoule--a half zettajoule--
is the total annual energy consumption of the planet. That little line 
right down there represents a half zettajoule--the total energy 
consumption of planet Earth, all humans. And here is the heat that that 
loaded into the oceans because of the amplification of greenhouse 
gases--227, one-half--so about 500 times as much heat going into the 
oceans as our entire energy heat spend as a species.
  And ocean temperatures are, of course, now the hottest ever recorded. 
The excess heat means dying coral reefs and lost fisheries with 
acidified seas. It means higher sea levels, as heated water expands; 
and more severe storms, as heated waters supercharge storm systems, 
including the sort of thunderstorm complexes that spawned Midwestern 
tornadoes in December.
  Republicans may mock and disparage this, but remember: They are paid 
agents of the polluters causing this. And they are wrong.
  This costs lives and dollars. The United States suffered 20 separate 
billion-dollar weather disasters in 2021--almost 700 deaths and $100 
billion of damage. The year before, we had hit $22 billion disasters: 
tropical cyclones, coastal floods, western wildfires. The most 
spectacular fire didn't actually even make it on to this list because 
it ripped through more than a thousand homes and businesses in suburban 
Denver in December. That fire didn't even make it onto this top 
disasters list.
  The Pacific Northwest heat wave of June 2021 smashed all records. A 
town in normally temperate British Columbia saw 116-degree 
temperatures, beating the previous Canadian national record by 3 
degrees. The next day, the thermometer hit 118 degrees; the day after 
that, 121 degrees. And the day after that, a wildfire burned the town 
to the ground.
  In Washington and Oregon, temperatures shot off the charts. These 
graphs show maximum daily temperatures in Seattle and Portland. The 
dots on these charts that form this gray band represent every daily 
maximum temperature reading over the last 42 years--over 15,000 data 
points. The red dots here and here reflect for Seattle and for Portland 
those days--way beyond the norms.
  These temperatures aren't just uncomfortable. They are lethal. 
Research shows more than 600 excess deaths during the June heat wave in 
Washington and Oregon. Those 600 people aren't even counted in that 
storm death toll I mentioned before.
  So why aren't we doing anything about it? Two primary reasons: fossil 
fuel obstruction and corporate indifference. To be blunt, the fossil 
fuel industry controls the Republican Party the way a ventriloquist 
controls a painted wooden dummy, and the rest of corporate America lets 
them get away with it.
  The fossil fuel obstruction isn't new. They have been at it for 
decades. Dozens of colleagues have joined me here on the Senate floor, 
exposing the web of climate denial the industry wove to perpetrate 
their obstruction.

[[Page S473]]

  The fossil fuel industry is still at it. They have just changed it up 
a bit. They can't debate the science anymore, and they can't argue 
against the urgency, but they can still write checks. They can fund 
phony front groups and fill Republican campaign coffers.
  And though they can't sell climate denial, they can buy climate 
delay. They can hire the biggest PR and advertising firms around--like 
Edelman, IPG, WPP--to pollute our minds with slippery greenwashing, 
like they pollute our skies and oceans with their carbon emissions.
  Here is an example of this stuff in action. Type ``fossil fuels'' 
into Google, and this is the slick, phony paid-for result you get--a 
fossil fuel giant saying it is ``already a willing and able player in 
the energy transition, read more.''
  The Guardian and watchdog group InfluenceMap exposed how fossil fuel 
PR companies cook up these ads designed to look like Google search 
results. ``Don't do anything, we've got this'' is their Big Lie message 
of these ads. The watchdogs call this ``endemic greenwashing.''
  The industry doesn't just lie and pay politicians; fossil fuel 
companies also use trade associations and dark money front groups to 
whip up opposition to climate legislation.
  Coal-heavy electric utilities and their dark money cohort mobilized 
against the Clean Electricity Performance Plan that would have helped 
decarbonize the power grid. Republicans did their bidding.
  The American Petroleum Institute and other fossil fuel industry 
groups fight paying a price on methane emissions from their oil and gas 
facilities. They want to pollute for free, knowing full well the harm. 
Republicans do their bidding.
  The CEO of that 800-pound, climate-obstructing gorilla, the U.S. 
Chamber of Commerce, said the group would ``do everything [it] can to 
prevent'' Build Back Better and its climate provisions from becoming 
law. Republicans do their bidding.
  These groups spent millions on political ads. They unleashed a deluge 
of lobbying and campaign contributions. They are almost certainly 
behind big super PAC spending. They pull out all the stops. And against 
them in corporate America to push back against the polluters stands 
who? No one. Corporate CEOs talk a big game about decarbonizing their 
supply chains and transitioning to renewables, and they wield enormous 
influence in Washington when they want to, but here in this building, 
where the legislative rubber hits the road, corporate America has been 
totally, utterly, completely MIA on climate.
  One set of lobbyists even told my staff that once the corporate tax 
stuff they cared about got squared away in Build Back Better and was 
taken off the table, they didn't want to ``rock the boat'' by 
supporting climate provisions, even though they are provisions the 
company publicly claims to support.
  Not one corporate trade group is lifting a finger here in this 
building on climate--not the banks, despite their own warnings of an 
economic crash; not the insurance companies, despite the huge checks 
they write for climate disasters; not Big Tech; not Big Pharma; not 
anyone.
  The fossil fuel industry has its choke chain around the Republican 
Party so tight that industry folks have told me they are scared to 
press for climate measures, that they might be punished by Republicans 
working for the fossil fuel industry--punished on the tax and 
deregulatory and business stuff they really care about. So they are not 
here. They just aren't.
  The frustrating thing is that there actually is a way to get to a 
safe place, to get to where we can hold warming below 1.5 degrees 
Celsius. The key policy is a border-adjustable price on carbon. To get 
to safety, we need to do more than just that, but there is no pathway 
to safety without that. It is the necessary but not sufficient safety 
measure.
  Take a look at this chart. This was prepared in conjunction with the 
White House and the leader's office. A lot of eyeballs have looked at 
this.
  The green line here is business as usual. We do nothing, and carbon 
emissions do mostly nothing.
  This next line down, the orange line, represents our emissions 
trajectory if we pass the Finance Committee's clean energy tax credit 
package. That gets us to here.
  The gray line right below it, the third one down here, is if we could 
pass a clean electricity standard.
  The yellow one here is the emissions trajectory if we do both of 
those things, both the tax credit package and a clean electricity 
standard.
  This one--light blue--is a carbon price alone. By the way, it is a 
modest carbon price that starts at only $15 per ton in 2023 and 
increases to $70 per ton in 2032 and doesn't cover unleaded gasoline at 
all.
  The dark blue line here, the safest line, is all those policies 
together. To get to safety, we must deploy all of these policies.
  The more policies you have, the deeper the emissions reductions, the 
better the chance of safety. But the center pole in the climate policy 
tent is a carbon price. Pricing carbon reaches every corner of the 
economy, which will be all-important when the power sector has switched 
to zero-carbon generation and we need to remedy other polluting 
sectors.
  A carbon price fuels innovation. Suddenly, every carbon-reduction 
strategy has a revenue proposition--no more government-chosen winners 
and losers.
  A carbon price raises investment. Growing a low-carbon economy will 
take trillions in job-producing investment, maybe about $575 billion a 
year from now until 2050. Carbon pricing sends an investment market 
signal and produces revenues to support those billions of dollars in 
private job-creating investment.
  A carbon price is exportable through a border adjust that will keep 
China and others from cheating.
  Last, a carbon price helps to unravel what the International Monetary 
Fund says is a $660 billion annual subsidy propping up fossil fuels in 
the United States. Do you want to know why the fossil fuel industry can 
so easily corrupt American politics? That is your answer. That is 660 
billion answers. A $660 billion subsidy every year is one hell of a 
motive.

  Once your policies are assembled surrounding the carbon price, you 
then need a battle plan and the leadership to carry it out. We cannot 
win legislative victory without setting the conditions for victory. We 
are up against a fossil fuel armada of dishonest PR campaigns, phony 
front groups, co-opted trade associations, fake science, and political 
dark money. We cannot overcome the corrupting forces of the fossil fuel 
industry without sound countermeasures.
  Step one is what I am doing here--call out the dark money mischief of 
the fossil fuel industry. It is a compelling story, actually, and 
people--voters--don't like being lied to, especially not by big, 
corrupt, polluting interests. They have been lied to for decades, and 
they need to know that. If we all exposed the fossil fuel industry 
pattern of deception the way we years ago exposed as fraud the tobacco 
industry's pattern of deception, that would open up real political 
space for the kind of legislative progress the times demand.
  Over in the House, Representatives Maloney and Khanna are on the 
case. They are investigating. Hearings are underway. Let's support and 
amplify them.
  Next, stop the flow of polluter dark money into our politics. In 
politics, money corrupts, and dark money corrupts absolutely.
  Next, rally the rest of corporate America to the banner. If they are 
too chicken to go first and face the risk of Republican punishment on 
the stuff they really care about, join together. They can't punish 
everyone. Corporate America is actually rich enough, if it wanted to, 
to buy the damned fossil fuel industry, fire the crooks and the PR 
firms, shut off the money to the front groups and the trade 
associations, and clean up the industry from the inside. But corporate 
America not only doesn't do that, it does nothing here in Congress.
  However we go, we have to get going. Either we act now or we pollute 
our way to oblivion. Either we summon a serious response or we ``meh'' 
our way to catastrophe. Either we enact a serious effective climate 
bill or we lose our chance at a safe climate pathway. I will promise 
you, that will earn the merited disgust of future generations.
  We have a moment here to measure up to. We are failing 
catastrophically,

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and we are failing for the worst and smallest and most dishonorable of 
reasons. So when we reignite work on a real climate bill, when we are 
starting to see real administration climate progress, I will see about 
sending this battered poster over to the Smithsonian, but if we don't, 
I will be back here again and again and again to call this Chamber to 
wake up.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Rosen). The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. PORTMAN. I ask unanimous consent that Senators Blunt, Blackburn, 
and I be permitted to speak for up to 5 minutes each prior to the 
scheduled vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.