[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 14 (Thursday, January 23, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S321-S323]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Climate Change

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I rise now for the 296th time to 
direct our attention to what is coming at us through fossil fuel 
emissions causing our natural systems to be significantly disturbed.
  We are not yet all the way through the first week of the second Trump 
administration, and already Trump has made his priorities clear: 
Looters and polluters reign, and their feeding frenzy comes at the 
expense of the American people. I expect the looting and polluting have 
only just begun. So we have made a new chart that will surely see the 
Senate floor again.

  When President Trump needed cash for his campaign, he knew just whom 
to ask. He convened Big Oil CEOs at Mar-a-Lago. He requested that they 
pony up $1 billion for his campaign. And he promised them he would 
immediately reverse dozens of President Biden's environmental rules and 
policies and stop new ones from being enacted. Giving him $1 billion, 
he said, would be a ``deal'' because of the taxation and regulation 
they would avoid thanks to him.
  Well, he is right about that being a superdeal for polluters. The 
industry benefits from more than $700 billion a year in subsidy in the 
United States alone--$1 billion to Trump to protect $700 billion to the 
industry. That is a pretty good return on investment for fossil fuel.
  Well, Trump won and the billionaires who funded Trump's campaign want 
their payback. Payback began this week with a big score for the leaders 
and polluters. On his first day, President Trump signed Executive 
orders to lay the groundwork for weakening vehicle emission standards, 
raising costs for families--raising costs for families--an average of 
$6,000 to $8,000, while also harming public health from the added 
emissions, and weakening our American automobile industry's global 
competitiveness, a major gift to Big Oil at the expense of regular 
Americans and consumers.
  Review EPA's 2009 finding that the greenhouse gases are a danger, 
even though that finding has been upheld by the Supreme Court. The 
winners? The polluters driving climate change: dramatically reduce or 
eliminate the social cost of carbon to protect the fossil fuel free-to-
pollute business model, made subsidized fossil fuel winners over 
domestic clean energy losers.
  Do you remember when Republicans used to say government shouldn't 
pick winners and losers--until it is the fossil fuel industry.
  Withdrew from the Paris climate agreement, helping fossil fuel 
undermine global efforts to reduce their greenhouse gas pollution; 
stopping offshore wind development, a clean energy competitor to his 
fossil fuel funders, at the expense of American

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consumers, workers, and our own domestic manufacturing base.
  Rhode Island, by the way, is home to the Nation's first offshore wind 
farm and a growing number of good union jobs in the industry.
  Would President Trump say to the country that, on his first day in 
office, it was time to repay his Big Oil donors? Well, that wouldn't 
have gone over well so he had to pretend all these donor handouts would 
benefit the public. His first day Executive order on energy begins by 
stating:

       America is blessed with an abundance of energy and natural 
     resources that have historically powered our Nation's 
     economic prosperity. In recent years, burdensome and 
     ideologically motivated regulations have impeded the 
     development of these resources, limited the generation of 
     reliable and affordable electricity, reduced job creation, 
     and inflicted high energy costs upon our citizens. These high 
     energy costs devastate consumers by driving up the cost of 
     transportation, heating, utilities, farming, and 
     manufacturing, while weakening our national security.

  Virtually none of that is true.
  So let's look at the claims one by one. First, yes, he got this 
right. America is, indeed, blessed with energy abundance. Where it is 
particularly abundant is in wind power. We have the third greatest 
offshore wind power potential of any country in the world. We have the 
fourth greatest onshore wind potential anywhere in the world. Indeed, 
wind resources in the Great Plains States alone could supply the United 
States with 16 times our electricity demand.
  That is energy abundance.
  Then, as this map from our national labs shows, we have amazing solar 
energy resource potential, particularly in the Southwest and through 
the Southeast.
  Now, Trump defines energy as ``crude oil, natural gas, lease 
condensates, natural gas liquids, refined petroleum products, uranium, 
coal, biofuels, geothermal heat, the kinetic movement of flowing water, 
and critical minerals.'' Notice anything missing? That is literally 
every possible iteration of fossil fuel, plus nuclear, geothermal, and 
hydro; everything except wind and solar, which produced more 
electricity than coal last year and could power the entire country.
  Trump next claims regulations have impeded the development of energy 
resources. And by that, as we just heard, he means fossil fuels. Well, 
as he would say, ``wrong.''
  Under President Biden--and, actually, regrettably, from a climate 
point of view--the United States produced more oil than ever before in 
the Biden years, indeed, setting monthly records for oil production. So 
that wasn't true either.
  Well, it is foolish to abandon those enormous wind and solar assets--
not good for our country or our economy, good only for their fossil 
fuel competition.
  And there is an additional big economic danger if we stick with oil 
because the United States is a high-cost oil producer. The average cost 
to produce a barrel of U.S. crude ranges from $50 to $70. In Saudi 
Arabia, the marginal cost of production is around $10 a barrel--$50 to 
$70 for us, $10 for the Saudis. That means our industry will always be 
vulnerable to cheaper foreign producers. And by the way, it has 
happened before.
  In 2015, the Saudis decided they didn't like America producing so 
much, so they turned on their spigots, causing a big hit to American 
oil and gas companies. Once they had tanked American production, they 
reduced their own back to normal levels and the price of gasoline 
spiked for our consumers.
  They can do that again anytime they want. It is basic business and 
economic sense not to put all your eggs in an industry where you are 
the high-cost producer. We have a competitive advantage in wind and 
solar with those massive resources and continent-straddling range that 
spans multiple time zones, allowing wind and solar energy to be sent 
wherever the wind isn't then blowing or wherever the Sun isn't then 
shining.
  We have massive clean energy opportunities.
  Trump claims that existing energy policies have reduced job creation. 
Again, wrong. Oil patch jobs have been reduced, not by regulations but 
by automation. Where the country has seen a job boom is in the low-
carbon energy sectors with more than 400,000 jobs created since the 
passage of the Inflation Reduction Act. Low-carbon energy now employs 
more people than fossil energy. It is where the jobs are--not that Big 
Oil cares about that for 1 minute.
  Trump claims that renewable energy is driving up energy costs for 
Americans. Wrong again. Solar and wind have, for some time, been the 
least expensive forms of energy that there are.
  Wind is the bottom blue line, solar panels are the bottom yellow 
line.
  They have been the cheapest since 2015 or, if you go back further, 
2013. We have had a solid decade of wind and solar being the least 
expensive forms of energy for the American public. But Big Oil doesn't 
care. They just want to sell their dirty product.
  What does actually drive up energy costs for Americans? The greed of 
Big Oil. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, OPEC, the international 
cartel, jacked up prices and U.S. oil producers rode along to epic 
profits off of those events. You just have to look at their sworn 
financial statements filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission 
about what profits they earned. They earned the biggest profits in the 
history of the world. In a nutshell, they gouged.
  Electricity bills also rose when the price of natural gas spiked 
after that Russian invasion. Climate change means Americans are 
spending more to cool their homes because it is hotter than it has ever 
been. If you are living in Phoenix or Houston or Tampa, you are likely 
running your air-conditioner nonstop for months on end, and that is on 
your electricity bill. That is just going to get worse as Trump's 
looters and polluters have their way.
  Climate change-fueled wildfires are forcing utilities in the West to 
spend billions burying transmission and distribution lines to avoid 
sparking more fires. That increases electric bills--another climate 
cost to consumers.
  And, obviously, Trump's decision to let his big LNG donors export 
more LNG will drive up natural gas prices here at home. When there is 
less at home because more is going overseas, prices go up. That is 
supply and demand 101.
  Here, again, under Trump, fossil fuel wins, American families lose 
and Big Oil doesn't care.
  The wind and Sun and flowing water and the Earth's heat are all free 
fuels. Fossil fuels put us at the mercy of foreign petrodictators and 
predatory cartels. Just from a national security perspective, why not 
choose the free fuels that no outside actor controls?
  And then, of course, come the costs of climate change itself 
burdening American families with climateflation, from grocery staples 
to insurance prices, to shipping costs, all rising as the result of 
climate change, disrupting agriculture, weather, and transit--even all 
the gas price-gouging by the industry thrown in.
  That is just the climateflation.
  Then comes the danger to our entire economy. For a look into coming 
attractions, check out what is happening out in Los Angeles, where 
raging Santa Ana winds turbocharged wildfires tearing through American 
families' homes much because of climate change. Climate change is 
perhaps the biggest systemic financial risk to our economy and, thus, 
to families' personal finances.
  And where is this coming true first? In the insurance markets. 
Insurance markets are the leading edge of our time of consequences. The 
L.A. fires, with insured losses in the tens of billions of dollars and 
total economic losses likely in the hundreds of billions, on top of 
last fall's hurricanes--which resulted in hundreds of billions in 
economic losses in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, 
and Virginia--are a dangerous blow to tottering insurance markets.
  In recent years, millions of Americans had insurance policies 
canceled due to rising climate risk. Millions more saw skyrocketing 
premiums, particularly in Florida, that forced families in some cases 
to drop coverage, leaving their families' most important financial 
assets--their homes--exposed. Insurers are pulling out of some markets 
altogether. Insurers are going bankrupt. Insurers are flooding 
mailboxes with price hikes and notices of cancelation and nonrenewals, 
and that all hits property values.

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  So the concern here is cascading failures--cascading failures from 
the insurance market, to the mortgage market, to a property values 
collapse, and that ends in economy-wide catastrophe. Along the way, 
home ownership will move further out of reach for the middle class as 
homes are burdened with more risk and expense. Property owners will 
have homes that they aren't able to sell because they can't be insured, 
so a buyer can't get a mortgage to afford the house. There is a lot of 
pain before the collapse.
  We have been through a long period of climate lies, and now, 
unfortunately, we are entering the period of climate consequences. To 
stave off the worst consequences, we must eliminate the carbon 
pollution that is the root of it all. President Trump's Executive 
orders do exactly the opposite, exposing us to grave economic dangers, 
and for the worst of reasons: to reward wealthy special interests who 
donated to his campaign.
  The American people need to watch their wallets. When President Trump 
says he is fighting for you, think twice. He is actually fighting for 
the Big Oil donors--the fossil fuel billionaires--who got him elected. 
The looters and the polluters are looking to get ever richer, and they 
will loot working families, pollute Mother Nature, and damage our 
families' futures to do it.
  So we fight on.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina.