[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 120 (Wednesday, July 20, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3512-S3513]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Climate Change

  Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I have had the privilege of serving with 
Senator Barrasso. For any number of years, we were the coleads on the 
Environment and Public Works Committee. We actually found common ground 
on a whole lot of issues and disagreed on a number of them as well. But 
on a personal level, we have, I think, a very good friendship and have 
had for a number of years good collaboration on Environment and Public 
Works.
  I disagree with almost everything he said--almost everything he 
said--and I am not a disagreeable person, but I always look for common 
ground, and I am sorry to say I didn't hear a whole lot from him today 
to do that.
  The suggestion that somehow we shouldn't be concerned about climate 
change, the climate crisis that has visited our planet--a couple of 
points I just want to share. This is off the news yesterday, the day 
before, Monday, Tuesday of this week.
  The United Kingdom broke its record for the highest recorded 
temperature multiple times on Monday, reaching 104.4 degrees 
Fahrenheit. In Great Britain, for the most part, they don't have air-
conditioning. Record temperature--104.4 degrees just on Monday alone. 
There are airport runways in Great Britain that are melting--that is 
right, melting--because it is so hot.
  The railways in the United States are buckling from the heat, with 
riders warned to stay home--to stay home.
  Over 1,100 people have died in Spain and Portugal just in the last 
week from heat-related causes.
  Wildfires in France have forced 30,000 people--that is about as many 
people as we have in Dover, DE, our State capital--30,000 people to 
evacuate. Organizers plan to pour tens of thousands of liters of water 
onto the Tour de France route--it is a huge, international bicycle 
competition--to prevent the road from melting in the heat.
  More than 40 million people in the United States are under extreme 
heat warnings across the Great Plains and California. Around 60 million 
Americans will likely see temperatures at or above 100 degrees--not 
this year, not this month, this week. Nearly 60 percent of California 
is dealing with excessive drought, while 20 percent of Texas--it is 5 
percent worse than last week--experiences exceptional drought, the most 
extreme level on the drought scale. Firefighters this week are 
currently battling 89--that is right, 89--large fires in 12 States in 
the United States.
  That is just off the news pages of 2 days ago.
  Amid calls to lower the price of gasoline, I rise to speak on the 
news this week regarding climate change.
  There is no doubt that we are living in unprecedented times as a 
nation and as a planet. After an unprecedented pandemic ground our 
global economy to a halt, Americans have been struggling to return to 
``normal.''
  As we saw in the news earlier this year, unprecedented supply chain 
issues from the pandemic, along with Vladimir Putin's unprovoked 
invasion of Ukraine, have caused gas prices to rise until this month--
until this month. We know that this in turn has fueled inflation and 
put economic strain on families and small businesses across our 
country.
  President Biden has responded to this challenge with unprecedented 
action, rallying our global partners and releasing record amounts of 
oil from our Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The result has garnered less 
attention from the media. Over the past 34 days, gasoline prices have 
declined by more than half a dollar per gallon. I will say that again. 
Over the past 34 days, gasoline prices have declined by more than 50 
cents per gallon--the fastest decline in over a decade. More than 
20,000 gas stations across our country are now offering gas for under 
$4 per gallon. Leading economists expect this decline in gas prices to 
continue, maybe even to accelerate.

  In addition, our Nation is on track to surpass our historic, 
prepandemic levels of oil production by 2023. I want to say that again. 
In addition, our Nation is on track to surpass our historic, 
prepandemic levels of oil production by 2023--next year.
  Still, these are short-term solutions that leave Americans 
susceptible to higher gas prices. Why? It is the global market that 
largely determines gasoline prices. That means that as long as our 
economy runs mostly on fossil fuels, energy prices will continue to be 
volatile to the forces outside our Nation. We cannot drill our way out 
of this problem.
  In the long run, the best way to ensure that American families have 
access to lower prices at the pump is by reducing our dependence on 
foreign oil and on fossil fuels. I want to say that again. In the long 
run, the best way we can ensure that American families have access to 
lower prices at the pump is by reducing our dependence on fossil fuels. 
Doing so isn't just critical for protecting Americans from high energy 
costs; it is necessary for addressing the existential threat of climate 
change.
  Make no mistake, the climate crisis is here. It is here. It is in 
Europe. It is in Asia. It is in South America. It is in Africa. It is 
all over the world.
  We see it in the form of unprecedented heat waves currently impacting 
millions of people across Europe, as I suggested, and our country too.
  We see climate change in the form of unprecedented drought, driving 
wildfires across the Western United States that are bigger than my 
State. Currently, firefighters are battling, as I said, 89 large fires 
in 12 States, and it is only expected to get worse. According to the 
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration--we call them NOAA--the 
decades-long megadrought in the American West is not just persisting, 
it is intensifying and expanding east, worsening the threat of 
additional wildfires.
  We see climate change in the form of rising sea levels that produce 
waves able to wipe out weddings in Hawaii just last weekend.
  This event is a real-life consequence of what experts have already 
told us: Sea levels are rising faster than they have in more than 3,000 
years and are expected to rise by an additional foot by 2050.
  We know this firsthand in Delaware. Delaware is the first State. The 
lowest lying State in America is Delaware. Our State is sinking. The 
seas around us are rising.
  Down in Louisiana, a big State in another part of the country, they 
are experiencing sea level rise as well. In the State of Louisiana, you 
know what, every 100 minutes--every 100 minutes--they lose a piece of 
land to the sea the size of a football field in Louisiana. I will say 
that again. Every 100 minutes in Louisiana, they lose a piece of land 
the size of a football field--every 100 minutes.
  We see climate change in the form of sea levels rising all up and 
down the east coast, down to Florida, gulf coast, east coast, west 
coast, everywhere.
  The extreme weather is costing us. According to an analysis of data 
from NOAA and the global reinsurance company Munich Re, severe weather 
caused more than $121 billion--billion with a ``b''--in property damage 
in the United States between 2017 and 2021--$121 billion. That is an 
average of about $940

[[Page S3513]]

per household and business and didn't take into account the property 
losses from the historic wildfires I have just been talking about.
  We continue to see the destruction that accompanies climate change 
happen on a global scale as well, threatening the critical 
infrastructure we rely on for international trade. This week, I 
mentioned the recordbreaking temperatures they are seeing in England 
and in Europe and in Germany and other places.
  Most tragic of all, these climate-induced events are putting people's 
lives at risk. Extreme heat is the leading cause of weather-related 
deaths in our country. According to NOAA, the 12 most costly extreme 
weather events in 2021 alone resulted in the deaths of nearly 700 
people.
  Addressing this crisis is the challenge of our time. It is directly 
tied to the prices we pay at the pump and in nearly every facet of our 
lives.
  Instead of doubling down on policies that continue to fail American 
consumers and the planet, as some of our colleagues have been 
advocating for today, we should focus our attention on passing 
legislation that accelerates our transition to a clean energy future 
and leaves no community behind in the process. It is our ticket to a 
brighter future and one without recordbreaking heat waves, high gas 
prices, and unprecedented devastation.
  Let me close with apologies to Stephen Stills. Stephen Stills is a 
great songwriter and singer with Buffalo Springfield, an iconic group. 
Long ago, he wrote a song that has these words. We have heard them a 
million times. It starts something like this:

       There is something happening here, [just] what it is ain't 
     exactly clear.

  Those are his words, the opening line from one of the great songs of 
all time.
  Well, with apologies to Stephen Stills, there is something happening 
here, and it is exactly clear what is causing it. It is a climate 
crisis. We have way too much carbon in the air. We are producing more. 
That is the bad news.
  Here is the good news: We can do something about it. We can do 
something about it. Part of it is--I will just close with this--30 
percent of our carbon emissions in this Nation come from our cars, 
trucks, and vans--30 percent. More and more, we are seeing automakers 
build cars, trucks, and vans that run not on gas and diesel but on 
electric. We are beginning to install literally thousands of charging 
stations all over the country to help provide an opportunity for people 
to charge their batteries and also to buy hydrogen, when we switch to 
hydrogen, for fuel cell vehicles. Those expansions and those 
investments will put literally hundreds of thousands of Americans--
probably more than that--to work across the country, in every corner of 
the country, to enable us to reduce carbon emissions from our mobile 
fleet.
  Instead of just burning coal and to some extent natural gas, we have 
the opportunity to create clean energy from advanced nuclear. I am a 
Navy guy, 27 years in the Navy all in. We have been doing nuclear 
energy in the Navy for 50 years. Do you know how many people have died 
in the Navy from exposure to radioactive materials? Zero. Fifty years--
perfect record. We are now in the beginning of a new development and a 
new exploration in pursuit of nuclear energy using small modular 
nuclear reactors--a lot safer than the ones we have been building for 
years.
  We are in a position now to have, literally, from Maine all the way 
down to Maryland, offshore wind that creates enormous amounts of 
carbon-free electricity that we can use to charge our cars, trucks, and 
vans and actually put a lot of people to work building those windmills 
and doing good things for our planet.
  The climate crisis is here. The question is, What do we do about it? 
And there is an opportunity to meet it head-on. And it is not like you 
got to eat your broccoli. No, no, no. This is something we can do, and 
we could actually not just do good things for our planet, help us avert 
greater disasters in the days going forward, we could actually create a 
lot of economic opportunity, a lot of jobs and we can do that and we 
can do both. We need to do that. We need to do that.
  I yield the floor to my friend from Texas. I think I will sit here 
and hear what he has to say.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, while my friend, the Senator from 
Delaware, is on the floor, in Texas we are known for oil and gas 
production, but the truth is, and what I think we really should be 
known for, is for an ``all of the above'' energy policy.
  We produce more electricity from wind turbines than any other State 
in the country, and that is a surprise to a number of people.
  But one reason for an ``all of the above'' energy policy is that 
during the current hot spell we are experiencing in Texas--I think we 
have had over 33 days of over 100-degree temperatures in my hometown of 
Austin, TX. It is hot. Some might say: Well, of course it is hot. It is 
July in Texas. But what has happened, we have seen this phenomenon 
where the wind is not producing nearly as much electricity because it 
is not blowing as hard as it might otherwise do.
  So, again, I think if we can encourage an ``all of the above'' energy 
policy, then different segments of the energy picture can fill in at 
different times and satisfy our overall need.
  I thought while my friend was speaking on that topic I would just 
mention that interesting lesson that we have learned here recently in 
Texas.