[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 106 (Wednesday, June 22, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3065-S3066]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          MOTION TO DISCHARGE

  Mr. SCHUMER. Pursuant to S. Res. 27, the Committee on the Judiciary 
being tied on the question of reporting, I move to discharge the 
Committee on the Judiciary from further consideration of Jessica G.L. 
Clarke, of New York, to be United States District Judge for the 
Southern District of New York.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the provisions of S. Res. 27, there will 
now be up to 4 hours of debate on the motion, equally divided between 
the two leaders or their designees, with no motions, points of order, 
or amendments in order.
  Mr. SCHUMER. I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays are ordered.
  Mr. SCHUMER. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.


                             Climate Change

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I rise now for the 284th time with my 
increasingly tattered and battered ``Time to Wake up'' poster to urge 
this Chamber to wake up on the issue of climate change.
  Human beings dumped 36.3 billion tons of greenhouse gases into the 
atmosphere last year--last year. After all our big talk, after all the 
plans and the COPS and the commitments, 36.3 billion tons. That is the 
highest total ever recorded. We are not doing any better. We continue 
to do worse, and here in Congress, we continue to do nothing. We have 
seen this coming for many years. And even with all that warning, 
nothing.
  NOAA reports there is currently more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere 
now than at any time during the last 4 million years. Humankind has 
never experienced what we are putting ourselves through.
  Here is a look at it. Over centuries, wobbling, wobbling, back and 
forth quite steadily. And now--whoops--and all the way up to where we 
are, out of the historic range of this planet back into geological 
time.
  All that carbon pollution has us hurtling toward climate catastrophe. 
With every ton of carbon dioxide we add, comes a higher risk of 
destructive changes to our world: ever-stronger hurricanes, rising 
seas, severe droughts, flooding, heat waves, disease, hunger, and more. 
We have a simple choice: We act swiftly to address the carbon pollution 
scorching our planet or we tip our climate over the edge into a cycle 
of destruction mankind cannot halt.
  As we disrupt essential planetary operating systems, we face another 
problem: American deindustrialization and the offshoring of jobs in 
much of our manufacturing base.
  After China joined the World Trade Organization back here in 2001, 
the United States lost almost 6 million manufacturing jobs. It was a 
complete bloodbath. Communities across America were hollowed out as 
factories closed and workers were laid off losing union jobs that 
helped workers support their families and enjoy a good wage and a 
decent standard of living.
  Our trade deficit blew up, especially for manufactured goods. In 
2001, our trade deficit in manufactured goods topped $250 billion. By 
2020, it had more than tripled to almost $900 billion.
  Then came the COVID-19 pandemic and exposed the fact that we no 
longer make so much upon which modern life depends. First it was the 
masks and the protective gear for medical professionals on the 
frontlines; then shortages came to everything from patio furniture to 
auto computer chips, bicycles, garage doors, and much more.
  Well, what if--what if--it turned out there was a solution to both 
problems, a policy that would simultaneously drive down carbon 
pollution worldwide and help reshore American manufacturing? Well, it 
turns out there is such a solution, and it is called a carbon border 
adjustment. With Senators Coons, Schatz, and Heinrich, I have 
introduced one here in the Senate.

  The fact is that American manufacturers are way less carbon-intensive 
than other competitors. On average, we are nearly 50-percent less 
carbon-intensive than our trading partners.
  Here is a list of some of our majors: China, 3.2 times more 
efficient; Mexico, 1.4 times more efficient; India, 3.8 times more 
efficient. So if we level the playing field about carbon emissions 
economy to economy, we win against carbon-intensive nations like China 
and India. And that is fair. A steel plant in Shanghai shouldn't be 
able to pollute for free and undercut plants in Pittsburgh that make 
better steel with less pollution. My border adjustment fixes that 
problem. Carbon-polluting goods from abroad, fossil fuels, refined 
petroleum products, petrochemicals, fertilizer, cement, steel would be 
tariffed on the carbon intensity of their industries. This means that 
if you are a carbon-intensive cement factory in Mexico, you pay or you 
invest in technologies to lower your carbon intensity to match that 
cleaner plant across the border in Texas.
  That is a powerful incentive to reduce global emissions and a big 
boost to U.S. companies competing against foreign climate cheaters.
  The tariff revenues fund a competitive grant program for carbon-
emitting U.S. industries to help them invest in the new technologies 
necessary to reduce their own carbon intensities.
  Developing countries didn't get us into this mess, and they are 
getting clobbered by climate change, so we also direct some revenue to 
the State Department to support decarbonization projects in those 
countries.
  To make this work, we need to hold American companies to the same 
standard as we do overseas, so we set

[[Page S3066]]

the standard at our U.S. average emissions for the industry. So all you 
have to do to pay nothing is be better than average. And if you are 
below average, all you have to do to pay nothing is to clean up your 
act to where half your industry already is.
  We also give clear targets to industries for future baseline carbon 
intensity because that is what industry wants--clarity, certainty to 
know where the goalposts are.
  Look at an example. Under my bill, the average or better American 
steel mill would pay no charge at all because it is better than 
average. The below average steel mill might pay $5 to $10 per ton of 
steel produced, a $5 to $10 per ton incentive to clean up its mill. But 
here is the really good part: Imports from a Chinese steel mill, more 
like $110 per ton. The below average U.S. steel mill, $5 to $10; the 
Chinese, $110. That will make Americans feel more competitive compared 
to polluting Chinese imports, and then buyers will beat a path to our 
door.
  We might as well get ready with a U.S. carbon border adjustment 
because the European Union Parliament is passing a carbon border 
adjustment of its own. Member states will vote on that proposal later 
this year. When it takes effect, American companies will pay a carbon 
tariff to European governments--unless we have one of our own. Now, 
where we want to be is for the EU, the UK, Canada, Mexico, Japan, 
perhaps South Korea, all with common carbon border adjustments, 
creating a common carbon pricing platform across all those major 
economies so that we move toward decarbonization, and more importantly, 
the rest of the world that wants to trade with the United States, with 
the UK, with the EU, has to clean up its act. They would need to 
decarbonize and fast to have any hope of competing.
  Trying to convince Chinese manufacturers to clean up their act out of 
the goodness of their hearts, perhaps, is a bit of a fool's errand. 
Putting a tariff on their goods so that they have to pay if they don't 
clean up their act? Now, that is how you get things going.
  Unfortunately, this is on us now--on Democrats. There are too many 
Republicans who are just in tow to the fossil fuel industry to help.
  And, of course, you can't talk about anything having to do with 
climate change without the dark money scoundrels, propped up by the 
fossil fuel industry, to come and cause mischief. They are even 
advertising against my bill.
  Here is an advertisement against it paid for by AG Conservatives--AG 
Conservatives. Well, assume that this is a real organization, which it 
isn't. It is a front group paid for by dark money that hides who the 
real donors are--just a mouthpiece for somebody who doesn't want to 
identify themselves.
  But why would an agriculture group want to hurt manufacturing? It 
doesn't make any sense. Why would they not want American manufacturing 
to have that advantage against their Chinese competition? Why would 
they be asking people to vote no on a carbon border adjustment?
  And by the way, there are a lot of products where agricultural 
products form the feedstock for a later manufacturing product. And if 
we are bringing manufacturing to the United States because we are 
favored versus dirty polluting foreign manufacturers, why would they 
not want that to happen?
  And where is agriculture in this fight anyway when this is mostly 
about manufacturing? Where, for American agriculture, is the downside?
  If you think it through, it actually doesn't exist, which helps 
confirm to me that behind this phony front group is probably the fossil 
fuel industry pretending that it is some agriculture group. If that 
were agriculture, that was agriculture from millions of years ago 
before it all went down to the bottom and got compressed and rotted and 
turned, after millions of years, into oil. That is the agriculture.
  So that is what we are up against. That is why Democrats are going to 
have to do this. The fossil fuel money that is driving the other party 
makes it impossible for bipartisanship to work.
  We have a shot in reconciliation to pass a serious climate bill--a 
real one--and we should make a carbon border adjustment a central 
component of that bill. It is a win-win-win. We compete on a playing 
field with a huge built-in advantage for American manufacturing; we 
spare ourselves carbon tariffs from the EU; and we relentlessly, with 
economic pressure and power, drive down carbon pollution across the 
biggest polluters around the globe--a win-win-win.
  The choice is clear. Let's win.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.

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