[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 120 (Wednesday, July 24, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5432-S5433]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

  SA 3116. Mr. CARDIN submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by 
him to the bill S. 4638, to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 
2025 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military 
construction, and for defense activities of the Department of Energy, 
to prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year, and for 
other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:

       At the end of subtitle D of title XII, add the following:

[[Page S5433]]

  


     SEC. 1266. FINDINGS RELATED TO THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF 
                   CHINA'S INDUSTRIAL POLLUTION.

       Congress makes the following findings:
       (1) State-owned enterprises of the PRC are subject to the 
     direction of both the state and the Chinese Communist Party 
     (CCP), and the CCP strives to increase their influence over 
     the global economy by pursuing predatory and exploitative 
     trade, economic, and industrial practices designed to out-
     compete the United States and other market economies.
       (2) The PRC's control of key components of critical global 
     supply chains, including critical minerals, semiconductors, 
     batteries, solar panels, and pharmaceuticals, as outlined in 
     the Office of the Director of National Intelligence's 
     February 2023 ``Annual Threat Assessment'', represents a 
     direct threat to United States national security and harms 
     global economic competition.
       (3) The CCP's industrial strategy, as articulated in the 
     Made in China 2025 plan, aims to dominate global 
     manufacturing in crucial energy technologies, including 
     advanced materials, batteries, and power equipment.
       (4) The PRC, by far the world's largest polluter, accounts 
     for approximately \1/3\ of global carbon dioxide 
     (CO2) emissions according to the International 
     Energy Administration and subsidizes its industries, 
     manufacturers, and exports by neither implementing nor 
     enforcing adequate environmental or labor protection 
     standards.
       (5) The PRC's industrial sectors like agriculture, mining, 
     automotive production, and computer and electronics 
     manufacturing emit 3 times more carbon dioxide as compared to 
     the United States' same industrial sectors, and nearly 2 
     times more carbon dioxide than the global average of the 
     production of comparable goods in other foreign countries, 
     according to industry tracking data from the International 
     Energy Agency.
       (6) The CCP seeks to utilize the Belt and Road Initiative 
     (BRI) and the Global Development Initiative (GDI) to increase 
     the dependence of low-income and lower-middle income 
     countries in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas on the 
     PRC at the expense of trapping such countries in long-term, 
     high-polluting, debt-ridden, low-quality infrastructure 
     projects that undermine developing countries' efforts to 
     sustainably grow and industrialize their economies to 
     maximize benefits and participation for their citizenry, 
     while increasing global pollution.
       (7) The United States--
       (A) has adopted many environmental protections, including 
     the Clean Air Act (42 U.S.C. 7401 et seq.), the Federal Water 
     Pollution Control Act (33 U.S.C. 1251 et seq.), the Toxic 
     Substances Control Act (15 U.S.C. 2601 et seq.), and more 
     than 15 other major environmental protection laws that--
       (i) add costs to the production of goods in order to secure 
     the benefits of environmental protection and conservation 
     efforts; and
       (ii) serve to meaningfully decrease greenhouse gases such 
     as carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), 
     nitrous oxide (N2O), sulfur hexafluoride 
     (SF6), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons 
     (PFCs), and other fluorinated greenhouse gases;
       (B) is the world's largest consumer market and its economy 
     is highly integrated into the world; and
       (C) bears responsibility to ensure that the United States 
     market does not incentivize forum shopping for the production 
     of goods to jurisdictions with low environmental standards to 
     obtain a competitive cost advantage while undermining efforts 
     to address transnational environmental and resource 
     challenges as well as global public health.
       (8) Any realistic pathway to substantially reduce global 
     carbon emissions will require the PRC to be held accountable 
     for its role as the world's largest polluter.
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