[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 61 (Wednesday, April 6, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2025-S2026]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Climate Change

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I rise again, with my increasingly 
battered poster, to call on this body and in particular on corporate 
America to wake up to the threat of climate change.
  Just this week, the IPCC report came out saying that we are now at 
the do-or-die, last-chance moment. The other interesting thing about 
that IPCC report was that it, for the first time, focused on the role 
of malicious fossil fuel political influence in preventing the 
solution.
  Political influence is actually contributing to the climate change 
problem, and it is the scientists who are now pointing this out.
  Well, one of the worst expositors of that political influence, the 
monster in the middle of that political influence campaign here in the 
United States, is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. And I want to talk 
about them in a minute; but, first, let's do just a quick recap because 
we have known about climate change for a long time.
  Scientists knew about the greenhouse effect back when Abraham Lincoln 
was riding around Washington in his tophat. In the 1950s--in the 
1950s--the oil industry began research on the effects of greenhouse gas 
pollution. In 1977, nearly a half century ago, Exxon's top scientist 
warned management of what he called ``general scientific agreement''--
half a century ago, mind you--``general scientific agreement that the 
most likely manner in which mankind is influencing the global climate 
is through carbon dioxide release from the burning of fossil fuels.''

  A Republican-led committee led by my predecessor, John Chafee, held a 
Senate hearing on climate change in 1986; and in 1989, the Chamber of 
Commerce--one of the most influential forces in Washington and now one 
of the biggest lobbyists for fossil fuel interests--the U.S. Chamber of 
Commerce issued a report for business leaders about the threat of 
climate change.
  We have dug out that report because they entered it into the Record 
in a House proceeding later that day, and here is what that report 
said. I will quote at some length.

       [T]here is qualitative agreement among prognosticators that 
     sea levels will rise . . . wetlands will flood, salt water 
     will infuse fresh water supplies, and there will be changes 
     in the distribution of tree and crop species and agricultural 
     productivity.
       A significant rise in sea levels will flood now inhabitable 
     land in some countries. . . . These same actions will affect 
     wetlands and it may not be possible [to] protect both coastal 
     and wetland areas.

  Georgia, very susceptible to this, as the Presiding Officer knows.

       Flooding will intrude into water supplies, such as in 
     coastal cities (e.g., Miami and New Orleans). . . . Changes 
     in temperature patterns will affect natural ecosystems by 
     altering the distributions of species, and affecting forestry 
     and silviculture. . . . [C]rop lands will change. . . . The 
     stress will depend on changes in precipitation patterns.
       Global warming will affect snowfall patterns, hence melt, 
     and affect water supplies. Most of California's water 
     supplies are from snow melt and if snow is reduced to rain, 
     or melts quickly during the winter, water supplies in the 
     summer will be less than now.

  Does any of that sound familiar? Of course. It is what we are looking 
at around us now, and it is what the U.S. Chamber of Commerce predicted 
in 1989.
  Knowing that, what did the chamber do? I will tell you what the 
chamber did.
  Over the past two decades, every time Congress took up good climate 
bills, the chamber conspired to kill them.
  The reason is pretty simple: The chamber serves as the arm of the 
fossil fuel industry. It takes its money, and it does its dirty work.
  A couple of years ago, a witness at our Special Committee on the 
Climate Crisis explained how big trade groups like the chamber ``adopt 
the lowest common denominator positions on climate of their most 
oppositional members.''
  Fossil fuel pays the chamber to kill anything that threatens what the 
IMF estimates is an over $600 billion annual subsidy for fossil fuel in 
the United States. On climate, it is not the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; 
it is the ``U.S. Chamber of Carbon.''
  Here are some of the corpses in the chamber's legislative graveyard. 
In 2005, the chamber opposed bipartisan cap-and-trade legislation. It 
issued a ``key vote alert,'' a signal that whoever voted in favor of 
the bill could face an onslaught of political attack ads.
  Down the legislation went.
  The chamber used the same playbook to kill cap-and-trade bills in 
2007, including the aptly named Wake up to Climate Change bill that had 
started to gain steam until the ``Chamber of Carbon'' dug in against 
it.
  In 2009, the chamber led the charge against the most promising 
climate bill in decades: the Waxman-Markey bill. The chamber spared no 
effort killing it. It harangued members, issued more vote alerts, and 
published ``How They Voted'' scorecards, with a clear message: Cross us 
and we will come after you.
  Since then, the chamber's axis of influence in Congress has refused 
to hold hearings on, mark up, debate, or vote on any serious climate 
legislation.
  At the same time, the chamber fought climate action in the courts and 
in executive Agencies. Here are a few of their cadavers there: In 2010, 
the chamber sued EPA to overturn the finding that greenhouse gas 
emissions endanger public health and welfare. Disabling that 
``endangerment finding'' would cripple the Agency's ability to regulate 
carbon pollution under the Clean Air Act.
  When courts rejected the chamber lawsuit, the chamber then set up as 
central command for fossil fuel lawyers, coal lobbyists, and Republican 
political strategists, who devised the legal schemes to fight climate 
regulations. This produced another chamber lawsuit to block the Clean 
Power Plan to reduce carbon pollution from powerplants. And on this 
occasion, five Republican appointees on the Supreme Court killed the 
Clean Power Plan using the shadow docket. They didn't even have proper 
hearings on it.

  Once President Trump took office, the chamber began attacking and 
undoing Obama administration rules limiting carbon pollution. The 
chamber even funded the phony and debunked report that the Trump 
administration relied on to justify leaving the Paris accord.
  The chamber's climate obstruction has continued across all fronts 
under President Biden. It released a position paper championing 
``clean'' coal, which is right up there next to dry water and chilly 
heat. And, of course, it led the charge against our reconciliation 
bill, attacking more than $500 billion in climate-related investments.
  To make all this dirty work possible, the chamber weaponized the dark 
money powers afforded by the Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United. 
The chamber knew the power that this decision would grant them. Indeed, 
it filed an amicus brief in that case, telling the Court to knock out 
limits on so-called outside spending.
  And Citizens United then allowed outside groups to spend unlimited 
sums on electioneering activities, which teed up the chamber to funnel 
roughly $150 million into congressional raises. And they bought a lot 
of climate denial with that money. It made them the

[[Page S2026]]

largest spender of dark money in congressional races.
  Dark money talks, as we see every election on our television screens. 
But every bit as important, dark money threatens.
  Republican colleagues have told me how this works. When a Republican 
dares to engage with Democrats to do something about climate change, a 
warning shot flies above their head. Chamber dark money and threats 
killed Republican support for substantial climate legislation.
  When I got here in the Senate in 2007, there was a steady heartbeat 
of bipartisan climate activity, climate bill after climate bill, 
hearing after hearing. John McCain ran for President as a Republican 
with a strong climate platform. That all dropped dead in 2010 with that 
Citizens United dark money power in the hands of the chamber of 
commerce, which brings us to the present day.
  American corporations, today, need to tell consumers and shareholders 
that they care about climate change. They need to for a couple of 
reasons. First, some of them actually are getting hurt by climate 
change--big insurers, the tourism industry, agribusiness. Tropical 
cyclones, more frequent heat waves, floods and droughts, more intense 
wildfires, higher sea levels--these things cost American businesses 
enormous amounts of money. According to NOAA, America sustained over 
300 weather- and climate-related disasters since 1980, where the damage 
in that disaster topped a billion dollars and the total damage among 
all those disasters is over $2 trillion--$2 trillion lost to 
uncontrolled climate change, thanks to dark money efforts by the fossil 
fuel industry and, specifically, its operative, the ``U.S. Chamber of 
Carbon.''
  Of course, consumers expect corporations to face up to the climate 
threat. The public wants us to do something and big brands like Coke 
and Pepsi need to say the right things when it comes to climate. And 
many of these companies have great internal climate policies within the 
corporation. But then--but then--those companies turn around and they 
pay dues to the ``U.S. Chamber of Carbon.'' And the chamber--the 
corporate serial killer of all things climate in this building--goes 
out and kills the things that the companies say they want.
  According to a new report from the watchdog group InfluenceMap, the 
chamber remains one of the biggest impediments to climate action in 
America. They said:

       There has been no material improvement in the Chamber's 
     climate change policy engagement over the past five years, 
     despite its positive ``high-level messaging'' on climate.

  InfluenceMap concluded in this report last month:

       The organization remains a significant blockage to U.S. 
     climate policy.

  And it is supported by a whole swath of corporate America.
  Many of us want a phone call with TechNet, the Silicon Valley trade 
association. Ten of its members are members of the ``Chamber of 
Carbon.'' They fund climate denial. They think they are doing the right 
thing on climate, but they are not. They are paying the biggest monster 
in the middle of a climate denial operation in this country.
  So when Coke and Pepsi pay dues to the ``Chamber of Carbon,'' Coke 
and Pepsi's corporate net effect on climate legislation goes negative. 
The chamber keeps secret how much the fossil fuel industry paid it to 
turn the chamber into a ``worst climate obstructor.'' It has corralled 
its pro-climate members into what it calls a ``climate conversation'' 
that has been going on since 2019. I know that because I kicked it off. 
I thought something good might happen. But what has happened in that 
climate conversation since 2019 is that anything good on climate gets 
routed by the chamber into that climate conversation from which nothing 
serious has emerged in more than 2 years. It is where the good climate 
policy goes to die. It is the black hole of good climate action.
  In the meanwhile, all the climate evil that doesn't get sent to the 
climate conversation goes straight by and out into chamber operations. 
At the end, the effect is clear: The ``Chamber of Carbon'' works the 
will of the fossil fuel industry and blocks climate progress in 
Congress, and it does so with corporate America's acceptance and 
financial support.
  If the IPC is right that this is last call, that this is dangerous, 
that this is our make-or-break, do-or-die moment, then it is time for 
corporate America to tell the ``Chamber of Carbon'' to knock it off or 
to quit and disassociate themselves from the ``worst climate 
obstructor'' in America. We should no longer tolerate this.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.