[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 152 (Wednesday, September 21, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4898-S4899]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Treaty Document No. 117-1
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, this is a very good day. We have just
passed the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol on a strong
bipartisan basis. This is a win-win-win: win for U.S. jobs, win for
U.S. investment, and win for U.S. leadership in the fight against
climate change.
We have talked a lot about how this amendment will help U.S.
businesses, U.S. jobs, and U.S. competitiveness overseas, but let's
talk about how important this amendment will be for protecting our
planet.
Ratifying the Kigali Amendment, along with passing the Inflation
Reduction Act, is the strongest one-two punch against climate change
any Congress has ever undertaken.
Let me say that again: Ratifying the Kigali Amendment, along with
passing the Inflation Reduction Act, is the strongest one-two punch
against climate change any Congress has ever taken.
In fact--amazing statistic, folks--people don't pay attention to this
one, but it is vital. Experts say that phasing out our use of HFCs will
help prevent up to half a degree Celsius of warming by the end of the
century.
That is worth repeating as well. Experts say that phasing out our use
of HFCs will help prevent up to half a degree Celsius of warming by the
end of the century.
It is an easily overlooked victory, but a massive one, all coming
from eliminating this family of dangerous chemicals, which are a
thousand times more deadly per molecule than carbon dioxide.
And on top of it all, ratifying this amendment will give U.S.
businesses a huge leg up. It will open exports to new international
markets, generate tens of billions in new investments and help create
tens of thousands of good-paying jobs, and we will get a much needed
edge against Chinese businesses that still lag behind in developing
viable HFC alternatives.
Under Kigali, our exports will increase while China will lose out.
So, once again, ratifying the Kigali Amendment is a win-win-win: a win
for U.S. jobs, a win for U.S. investment, and, most of all, a win for
our global campaign to defeat the climate crisis and preserve our
planet for future generations.
I want to thank my colleague from Delaware who has been such a
persistent advocate on this legislation. And there are so many others--
the Senators from New Mexico and Hawaii and Delaware--who have worked
so hard on it as well. I thank them for their steadfastness. The globe,
our globe, is rejoicing today because of this legislation.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I want to thank our leader for his
leadership.
None of this would have happened without your leadership. I want to
thank your staff.
I want to thank the relative respective staffs on our side here and
the Senators especially on the Environment and Public Works Committee.
I want to especially thank our friend John Neely Kennedy from
Louisiana, who has been a great partner, and his staff and other folks
on the other side of the aisle.
My mother used to say to my sister and me when we were kids, she
would say that things happen in threes. I remember she would say things
happen in threes, and given what the leader just said, I am thinking
about threes and especially with respect to making sure that this
planet is going to be around for our children and grandchildren.
But if you go back to the bipartisan infrastructure bill signed into
law roughly 10 months ago by the President, we did a whole lot there,
you will
[[Page S4899]]
recall, with respect to roads, highways, bridges, water, wastewater,
water infrastructure, flood control. But that legislation had the
largest--at that point the largest climate title that we had ever put
in a bill of any consequence here in the U.S. Senate. That is No. 1.
No. 2 would be the IRA, the Inflation Reduction Act, that was signed
into law just last month by the President and championed by any number
of folks, including our colleague from West Virginia, Joe Manchin. I
want to thank him and the majority leader for their good work. That was
No. 2 because the investments, the clean energy investments we make in
the Inflation Reduction Act, are just extraordinary--extraordinary.
Then, today, to pass the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol--
people might be wondering, who are watching, and say: What in the world
is that? And I will just walk you back in time.
People might remember that I was a naval flight officer in the
Vietnam war, and near the end of the Vietnam war, maybe after I had
moved to Delaware, I remember hearing something about speculation about
a hole in the ozone and there might be a hole in the ozone. At first,
people dismissed it. I dismissed it. But over time, the concerns
persisted, and the hole in the ozone grew and grew.
Somewhere along about 1985, some updated scientific information,
evidence, emerged that said there is a hole in the ozone, and it is
big, and it is getting bigger.
Our President at the time, as I recall, was not a Democrat; he was a
Republican--Ronald Reagan. Under his leadership, we as a nation joined
in the Montreal Protocol. It was finalized in 1987, where we actually
say that what is happening here is exactly clear, and what that is, is
there is a hole in the ozone. It was being created by materials that
are in our air-conditioners or refrigerators and our coolers. We call
them refrigerants, and when they leaked out of the air-conditioners,
refrigerators, and coolers, they actually created the hole in the
ozone.
So the question is, Do we have to give up our refrigerators, our air-
conditioners, our coolers, our freezers? Do we have to give those up in
order to take care and address the hole in the ozone? As it turns out,
we did not, but what we had to do was replace something called CFCs,
chlorofluorocarbons, which were refrigerants at the time and
contributed to the hole in the ozone. What we had to do was replace
those CFCs with something new. Science and the scientists came up with
that something new. What they came up with was not CFC plus 2; they
came up with HFCs, hydrofluorocarbons.
What I know about chemistry you can fit on a fairly small thumbnail,
but HFCs came along, and, guess what, the hole in the ozone started
getting smaller. We stayed cool. The air-conditioners worked, freezers
worked, refrigerators worked, and the hole in the ozone started getting
cooler.
What didn't get cooler was our planet because HFCs, as Senator
Schumer suggested, are about 1,000 times worse than carbon dioxide with
respect to global warming. We finally have realized that, and the
question is, Can we do anything about it? If so, can we do it to make
sure we stay cool or cold, if you will, and at the same time address
climate change?
Some people say: You know, we can't do good things for this planet or
we can't clean the air, clean the water, address the climate change,
and create jobs and economic opportunity. But, as Senator Schumer
suggested, that is just not true. This is sort of like having our cake
and eating it, too, because we can create jobs.
A lot of them we are talking about creating with the phasedown of
HFCs and for the next 15 years talking about creating literally tens of
thousands of jobs not in some other country but here. We are talking
about creating these jobs using technology developed here, and we are
talking about the ability to export this technology and sell products
using this technology all over the place.
I forget exactly what the economic value is from these activities,
but it is in the tens of billions of dollars here, with American
technology, created by American workers. Who wouldn't be for that? Who
wouldn't be for that?
Some of our Republican colleagues offered an amendment today. Senator
Lee and, I think, Senator Sullivan joined together on an amendment. I
think most of us voted for that, and it has been adopted and added to
this package.
The other thing I would mention is that about a month ago, you may
recall, we stayed up all night during a vote-arama, working on the
reconciliation legislation that led to the IRA, the Inflation Reduction
Act.
I remember the next day going home. I was just dog-tired. I went home
on the train and got off the train, and before I went home, I drove to
Wawa, which is a convenience store. We love Wawa. They are all up and
down the east coast, especially in Delaware. I stopped at Wawa to get a
cup of coffee. I got a small cup of coffee and went to the cash
register, the cashier, to pay for it, and the lady at the cash register
said: Your money is no good here.
I said: No, no. I want to pay. I want to pay for it.
She said: No, no. I am mindful of what you have been up all night
doing. Your money is no good here.
I said: Could I get a larger cup of coffee?
She said: No, but your money is no good here.
She also went to say--she said: I have a son. I have a daughter. I
want to make sure they grow up on a planet that is fit to grow up on
and that they can grow old on.
I think that is a sentiment that almost any father or mother or
grandfather or grandparent would feel and have. I would just say to
them today: I know sometimes you look at what is going on here and our
inability to work together. We have come together. We have come
together on something that is extremely important for us, my
generation, but even more important, for those who follow us.
Bipartisan solutions are lasting solutions. This is a good bipartisan
solution, and for everybody who has been a part of this, I want to
thank you. I want to convey our thanks as well to the President and his
administration for their help in getting this done.
This is a day, as my colleague from Delaware, Congresswoman Lisa
Blunt Rochester, would say--she would say: This is a day the Lord hath
made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.
Amen.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.