[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 206 (Thursday, December 14, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Page S5971]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Climate Change

  Mr. President, now on one final matter, this week, the United Nations 
wrapped up its latest conference on climate change. World leaders took 
private jets to Dubai, and the Biden administration's Special Climate 
Envoy, John Kerry, returned triumphant with a joint statement 
condemning the evils of coal power.
  Elite liberals sure are obsessed with killing jobs in places like 
Kentucky. But that is only the half of it.
  Yet again, the maximum hardships the Biden administration is happy to 
heap on American workers and consumers are producing no meaningful 
benefits on the world stage. The past 3 years have been an endless 
parade of canceled permits and new regulations that make it harder than 
ever to produce affordable and reliable American energy.
  By canceling the Keystone XL Pipeline on day one, President Biden 
also canceled as many as 59,000 jobs that were needed to build it. And, 
now, the President's envoy has returned with another meaningless pledge 
that doesn't even compel the world's biggest emitters of carbon.
  Just look at the numbers. U.S. emissions are projected to fall by 4 
percent this year. Meanwhile, China's are projected to increase by 
twice as much. Last year, Beijing green-lit four times as much new coal 
power as they did the year before, but the Biden administration 
apparently wants us to believe it is American producers and job 
creators and workers who aren't pulling their weight.
  So the U.N. climate conference is a good reminder that the elite 
leftwing obsession with self-inflicted climate penance is not just an 
American problem.
  Canada's Liberal government, for its part, has a bold new plan: 
paying farmers to make sure their cattle don't burp so much. 
Apparently, Canada's plan is to build around a carbon credit--the 
nebulous commodity that supposedly negates carbon emissions from 
activities like flying private jets, except, in this case, the subjects 
aren't elites looking to ease their conscience on the way to a 
conference in Dubai. They are the workers who put food on the table.
  Canada's so-called ``Reducing Enteric Emissions from Beef Cattle'' 
proposal would grant carbon credits to farmers who feed their cows 
special diets to reduce burping.
  Well, it sounds an awful lot like the way Washington bureaucrats like 
to tell middle-class Americans what kind of car to drive and what kind 
of stove to use. It also sounds entirely ridiculous.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MORAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  The Senator from Kansas.