[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.