[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.
____________________