    [Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 39 (Thursday, February 27, 2025)]
    [Senate]
    [Pages S1413-S1419]
    From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

                              LEGISLATIVE SESSION

                                     ______

      PROVIDING FOR CONGRESSIONAL DISAPPROVAL UNDER CHAPTER 8 OF TITLE 5,
        UNITED STATES CODE, OF THE RULE SUBMITTED BY THE ENVIRONMENTAL
     PROTECTION AGENCY RELATING TO ``WASTE EMISSIONS CHARGE FOR PETROLEUM
       AND NATURAL GAS SYSTEMS: PROCEDURES FOR FACILITATING COMPLIANCE,
                  INCLUDING NETTING AND EXEMPTIONS''--Resumed

      The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the
    Senate will resume consideration of the following joint resolution,
    which the clerk will report.
      The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

           A joint resolution (S.J. Res. 12) providing for
         congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United
         States Code, of the rule submitted by the Environmental
         Protection Agency relating to ``Waste Emissions Charge for
         Petroleum and Natural Gas Systems: Procedures for
         Facilitating Compliance, Including Netting and Exemptions''.

                       Recognition of the Minority Leader

      The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Democratic leader is
    recognized.

                      Department of Government Efficiency

      Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, when Donald Trump and DOGE began their
    work, they kept saying the same thing. Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and
    DOGE said: This is about cutting waste; it is about efficiency; it is
    about meritocracy. Unfortunately, the truth has not been as advertised.
    It has been utter chaos.
      Yesterday, the Department of Veterans Affairs said they were
    reversing course on canceling billions of dollars in contract work
    because, as it turns out, slashing billions in funding that helps
    veterans is extremely harmful for veterans. These VA cuts were lauded
    by DOGE as an example of eliminating waste. The VA Secretary claimed
    these contracts were for consultants ``to make PowerPoint slides and
    write meeting minutes.'' That is not even close to the truth.
      Let me read some examples of what DOGE was actually prepared to cut:
    Funding for chemotherapy and imaging services, those were going to be
    cut--hardly make-work, hardly writing meeting minutes. Funding for
    veterans with disabilities--cut--even funding to help veterans
    suffering from toxic exposure in burn pits. One contract would help
    over 20,000 veterans track down their military service records from DOD
    in order to prove their toxic exposure, as is required. Without these
    records, getting affordable treatment would not likely be possible, and
    DOGE said: Let's cut that, too.
      Even if the VA reverses course, canceling these contracts and firing
    VA staff is still immediately damaging--very damaging. There is the
    risk that you can't rehire workers back in time because they have moved
    on to other jobs or contracts aren't available because they took their
    business elsewhere, and, by then, the damage is

    [[Page S1414]]

    done. Vital services and operations that serve veterans can't continue
    as before. It could take months--maybe even years--to build this back,
    which had been built up carefully to help veterans over the years, and
    many of us in Congress worked for those things; so to cut these
    services and then say ``never mind'' still ends up being very
    destructive. Sadly, this is only one example.
      Yesterday, Elon Musk led his first Cabinet meeting of this
    administration. He admitted that DOGE's approach has led to many
    erroneous cuts to staff and programs that are not wasteful but, on the
    contrary, vital.
      For example, he said:

           With USAID, one of the things we accidentally cancelled
         very briefly was Ebola prevention.

      Those are his words.
      Are you kidding me? Cutting funds to stop one of the deadliest
    diseases in the world is reckless, especially when there is an Ebola
    outbreak in Uganda as we speak, and flights leave Kampala every day and
    go all over the world. When epidemics hit America, they oftentimes
    begin abroad, and U.S. funding is essential to prevent those diseases
    from reaching us here at all.
      I should also note that the claims that Ebola funding is back online
    are false. Reports are out from last night that 95 percent of all USAID
    funding is now being cut. So we are not sure where it all is.
      What DOGE is doing is not what efficiency looks like. If DOGE
    actually cares about efficiency and meritocracy, then it is failing, in
    many ways, its own test. It would be better to look at these programs,
    see which might be wasteful, see which are needed, and then make the
    cuts to the wasteful programs, not take a meat-ax or a blowtorch--call
    it what you will--cut everything, and then say we will restore some of
    the things that we shouldn't have cut, because once you make those
    cuts, it is very hard to put the pieces back together.

                                     Taxes

      Mr. President, on Republican taxes, last month, consumer confidence
    took its biggest nosedive in 4 years--the biggest nosedive in 4 years.
    This is how confident consumers, average Americans, feel about the
    economy. Inflation is trending back up. The price of eggs is sky high.
    The threat of a trade war looms over our country, and Americans are
    fearful that things are not going to get any better anytime soon. And
    what are Republicans doing about all of this? They are trying to cut
    taxes for billionaires--trying to cut taxes for billionaires--and make
    the American people pay for it.

      The Republican agenda is quickly taking shape. Under Donald Trump's
    Republican Party, billionaires win; American families lose.
      It doesn't matter if Republicans go with 1 bill or 2 bills or 50
    bills. That is what they are debating right now. Their endgame--House
    and Senate Republicans--has always been cutting taxes for billionaires
    and forcing American families to pick up the tab.
      Of course, Senate Republicans know that cutting Medicaid by over $800
    billion to lower taxes for billionaires is wildly unpopular. They know
    that increasing the deficit by up to $5 trillion to help the ultrarich
    contradicts everything the so-called party of fiscal responsibility
    stands for. They say they have to cut all this stuff to reduce the
    deficit, and then, with their tax breaks for billionaires, they
    increase the deficit, no matter what sleight-of-hand accounting method
    they use.
      What are Republicans doing about fiscal responsibility? Are they
    admitting that their plans would be a disaster for the deficit? No.
    Instead, Senate Republicans are engaged in budgetary hocus-pocus to
    hide the true cost of their tax cuts for the ultrarich, and there may
    be signs that House Republicans are going along.
      Instead of admitting the truth about the consequences of their plans,
    they are pursuing a gimmick called ``current policy baseline''--a
    gimmick, if there ever was one--which is essentially an attempt to
    magically turn $5 trillion of deficit spending into zero dollars of
    deficit spending. Well, that can't happen and doesn't happen, and the
    economy will realize it doesn't happen. Any junior high school math
    student could tell you this is a bunch of bunk. You can't pass $5
    trillion to cut taxes for the rich and pretend like it doesn't affect
    the deficit.
      The issue isn't complicated. Republicans are trying to hide the true
    cost of their billionaire tax cuts from the American people. Meanwhile,
    they are getting ready to eviscerate funding for healthcare that serves
    over 80 million Americans--kids, seniors, rural communities. These cuts
    to Medicaid will dramatically hurt rural America, people with
    disabilities, and more.
      The only people who seem to be opposing this is the hard-right
    Freedom Caucus, because they seem to really care about the deficit.
    Let's hope they stay strong for the sake of the economy and this
    country.
      Of course, the American people are not going to take these Medicaid
    cuts lying down.
      Last night, I got on a Zoom. Over 3,000 New Yorkers, worried about
    the attacks from Republicans on healthcare, got on the Zoom, many more
    than we expected. These were rank-and-file folks, healthcare advocates,
    union members, and concerned citizens from all walks of life. They were
    all upset about the cuts to Medicaid and putting those cuts in place in
    order to give tax breaks for billionaires.
      It was a great call. It was an energizing call. I urge my colleagues
    to do the same, as many of them are. It is a stark reminder of what is
    at stake but also a reminder that the American people don't like these
    cuts.
      We heard from New Yorkers who are in danger of having their Medicaid
    coverage taken away if Republicans proceed with their actions, on this
    Zoom of over 3,000 people. But we also talked about taking action.
      I urged participants to call their Members of Congress. I urged them
    to mobilize online and to organize in their communities. We urged
    everyone to make their voices heard, like we are seeing in the townhall
    meetings.
      I reminded folks that organizing is not easy, but it works. It
    changes things, and it is going to make a difference in making sure
    Medicaid is protected.

                          Nomination of Linda McMahon

      Mr. President, on our Education Secretary nominee, today, the Senate
    will vote on whether to advance the nomination of Linda McMahon as
    Secretary of Education.
      Mrs. McMahon's nomination comes as President Trump has been clear
    about cutting funding for education and abolishing the Department of
    Education entirely.
      Is Mrs. McMahon going to go along? I hope not.
      Cutting education is not what the American people want. The American
    people don't want a radical, out-of-touch billionaire slashing funding
    for public schools. When you slash Federal funding for education, guess
    what happens. Since so many of our school districts--urban, suburban,
    rural--depend on this Federal money, it leads to higher property taxes
    for people back home.
      If you eliminate the Department of Education as a whole, that means
    local communities are forced to pick up the tab to fund the schools. It
    means that families in these communities will pay in the form of higher
    property taxes to make up the loss of Federal funding. But communities
    will also be forced to slash other programs to make room for funding
    for schools.
      Again, this is not what the American people want. This is not what
    they voted for.
      Mrs. McMahon, in my judgment, is not qualified to lead America's
    public education. She seems not to care very much about it. But that is
    precisely why President Trump nominated her. She is the perfect choice
    to bring our public education system burning to the ground.
      I yield the floor.
      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. THUNE. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call
    be rescinded.
      The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
    ordered.

                       Recognition of the Majority Leader

      The majority leader is recognized.

                                     Energy

      Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, this week, the Senate is focused on
    unleashing American energy. As I have

    [[Page S1415]]

    said before, our country is facing some serious energy challenges. We
    need more power, or we face the possibility of a future defined by
    unreliable and unaffordable energy, which is why President Trump
    declared an energy emergency on his first day in office--to produce
    more energy, build more infrastructure, and ultimately bring energy
    prices down.
      But our Democrat colleagues made it clear, yesterday, they don't
    believe such an emergency exists. The Senator from Virginia called it a
    ``sham.'' Our colleague from New Hampshire said it was ``an emergency
    declaration in search of an emergency.''
      Every Senate Democrat voted to deny the emergency that our country
    faces. I guess they haven't seen the reports of the precarious state of
    American energy.
      Last year, a Washington Post headline read:

           Amid explosive demand, America is running out of power.

      A recent report from the North American Electric Reliability
    Corporation warns of ``mounting resource adequacy challenges'' in the
    next decade.
      Whether Democrats want to acknowledge it or not, the signs of a
    rapidly approaching energy crisis are clear. There is a threat of
    blackouts, not enough power to meet demand, heightened prices for gas
    and utilities. Apparently, Democrats don't think these are cause for
    alarm. But whether they are willing to acknowledge it or not--and
    yesterday's vote, I think, made clear that they are not--we have a
    serious problem, and if we don't do something about it, we face a
    future with an unreliable and unaffordable energy supply.
      Republicans are taking action. This week, the Senate is working to
    prevent two of the Biden administration's anti-energy policies from
    going into effect.
      On Tuesday, the Senate passed Senator Kennedy's resolution to stop
    the Biden administration's marine archeology rule. Offshore oil and gas
    producers have long been required to submit an archeological report
    before drilling if their project area was thought to include things
    like shipwrecks, settlements, or other archeological sites. But last
    year, the Biden administration decided to require archeological reports
    for all offshore projects, even when there is nothing to suggest the
    project will be near an archeological site. It is just another way to
    slow down production and heap more costs on producers--costs that
    consumers eventually pay. And it is another part of the Biden
    administration's efforts to close off America's waters to conventional
    energy production.
      Under President Biden, offshore permits dropped to a two-decade low.
    The administration's offshore leasing plan included only 3 possible
    leases, down from 47 in an earlier draft from the first Trump
    administration.
      And, of course, there was President Biden's last-minute ban on oil
    and gas production in 625 million acres of America's waters. Why we
    would so severely limit the use of our natural resources is beyond me.
    Under Republican leadership, we will be leveraging assets to restore
    American energy dominance.
      Later today, the Senate will also vote on a resolution to block the
    $6 billion natural gas tax that was included in the Democrats' so-
    called Inflation Reduction Act. This tax would increase costs for
    energy producers and limit energy production, leading to higher utility
    bills for many Americans.
      Under the Biden administration's implementation of this tax, it would
    hit smaller operations the hardest. On top of that, the tax puts tens
    of thousands of jobs at risk, including in natural gas-rich States like
    Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Texas, and North Dakota.
      The Senate will vote later today to stop implementation of this tax
    on energy producers. I appreciate Senator Hoeven's leadership on this
    issue. Thanks in substantial part to his efforts, energy producers will
    not have to worry about this unnecessary natural gas tax, and the
    American people won't have to worry about it driving up their utility
    bills.
      It would be nice if Democrats would join us in our efforts, if not to
    avoid our rapidly approaching energy crisis, at least to promote more
    affordable prices for Americans. I have recently been hearing our
    Democrat colleagues express newfound interest fighting inflation. If
    they are serious about that, they should be joining us in blocking
    these anti-energy policies that are driving prices up.
      But with Democrats or without, Republicans will keep working to build
    a more secure and more affordable energy future.
      I yield the floor.
      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. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
    for the quorum call be rescinded.
      The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                               Electric Vehicles

      Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, before coming to the floor each day, I
    try to make sure I go through the morning newspapers, and today I found
    in the Washington Post an interesting column: ``Multi-car pileup as
    electric vehicles collide with reality.''
      ``Multi-car pileup as electric vehicles collide with reality.''
      And the reality is the Democrat electric vehicle mandate is a
    failure. It failed the American people, failed the taxpayers, and just
    plain failed.
      For years, President Biden and Democrats tried to force Americans to
    buy electric vehicles. They tried to do it by banning gas-powered cars.
    They tried to do it by bribing people with taxpayer subsidies.
      President Trump has, rightly, promised to pull the plug on Joe
    Biden's unpopular electric vehicle mandate. People are delighted.
    President Trump fulfilled that promise on day one in office. He ended
    the Biden ban on gas-powered vehicles. In my home State of Wyoming and
    the Presiding Officer's home State of Montana, that is welcome relief.
      The next step is for Congress, for this body, to end the subsidies on
    electric vehicles, and I have introduced legislation to do just that.
    My bill ends the $7,500 subsidy for EVs. It also closes the Biden
    loophole that funnels taxpayer moneys, believe it or not, to communist
    China. Finally, it ends the subsidies for the EV charging stations.
      The EV subsidies were, in essence, a Biden giveaway. He wanted to
    give money away to the coastal elites who drive electric vehicles, and
    it was connected to Biden's unpopular climate dreams.
      The aggressive push for EVs began with Democrats' reckless tax-and-
    spending bill. It included a $7,500 handout for anyone who bought an
    electric vehicle, while not a single Republican in the House or Senate
    voted for that reckless tax-and-spending bill.
      The Joint Committee on Taxation looked at the cost of these EV
    subsidies because there was going to be a mandate attached; you were
    going to have to buy an electric vehicle at some point or other. So
    originally they said it might cost $14 billion. That is a lot of money.
    When they redid the math a year later, they said the cost estimated
    would be $100 billion. Outside analysts estimated the cost even higher.
    Goldman Sachs said that the EV subsidies could cost taxpayers as much
    as $394 billion, which is 28 times as much as the original thought that
    it would be when the Joint Committee on Taxation looked at it.
      These subsidies--this is for a vehicle that most Americans can't
    afford, don't want, and doesn't work for them. It doesn't work in my
    home State of Wyoming. It doesn't work in the Presiding Officer's home
    State of Montana. Most Americans know that EVs are luxury items with
    severe limitations. They certainly can't be the primary source of
    transportation for most Americans.
      The average cost of an EV: $62,000. Well, that is $16,000 more than
    the cost of most gas-powered vehicles. The dealers I have talked to in
    my home State of Wyoming tell me that it takes significantly longer to
    sell an EV than a gas-powered vehicle. And the EVs that they are able
    to sell, they end up selling for a loss. The nationwide sales of EVs is
    also stalling. They actually lost market share in 2024.
      Despite endless subsidies, EVs account for less than 10 percent of
    all car sales in America. Most of these are sold to wealthier
    Americans, people who don't need a subsidy from the government to begin
    with. This is social engineering to benefit the liberal elite. It is

    [[Page S1416]]

    a transfer of money from hard-working American families to the wealthy.
      Every time a wealthy liberal in San Francisco gets a government
    subsidy when they go and buy an electric car, a working-class family in
    Sheridan, WY, ends up paying in their taxes.
      My legislation ends all of that. EVs are a bad investment for
    American people and for American automakers. This month, Ford projected
    that, in 2025, it would lose over $5.5 billion on its electric
    vehicles. In 2024, Ford sold only 21,000 EVs. It lost $5 billion. That
    is a loss of $60,000 for each and every electric vehicle that they were
    able to sell. Now, Ford isn't alone. Major car companies--General
    Motors and others--are also losing money on EVs.
      The transition to EVs is also estimated to kill hundreds of thousands
    of jobs, including in the Midwest, manufacturing jobs of gas-powered
    vehicles. It is already sending thousands of American workers from the
    assembly line to the unemployment line.
      Ending subsidies for EVs is about saving taxpayer money, protecting
    American jobs, but it is also about protecting our national security.
    Initially, only EVs made in America were supposed to be eligible for
    this $7,500 subsidy. But before leaving office, Joe Biden made it
    easier for those tax credits on EVs to go for those made with parts
    from China. It wasn't supposed to happen that way, but Biden and the
    Democrats, so desperate to force EVs onto the American public, they
    created a leasing loophole specifically designed to help China.
      This is how it works. It allows customers who lease EVs instead of
    buying them--but who lease EVs--made with Chinese parts, they could
    still fully receive the subsidy. Well, since 80 percent of the EV
    batteries come from China, they had noted a major problem because they
    weren't going to be able to get the subsidies. That is why they came up
    with this leasing loophole.
      Because in 2022, before they had the loophole, only 7 percent of new
    EVs were leased. Because of this Biden gimmick, that number jumped to
    45 percent--almost half of all the EVs in America then being leased
    rather than bought.
      The American taxpayers are subsidizing technologies controlled by
    communist China. It is wrong. My bill ends that.
      Republicans are focused on what matters: lowering prices, unleashing
    American energy, creating American jobs, and putting Americans back in
    the driver's seat.
      I yield the floor.
      I suggest the absence of a quorum.
      The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
      The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
      Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
    for the quorum call be rescinded.
      The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Mullin). Without objection, it is so
    ordered.

                                  H.J. Res. 35

      Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am here today in opposition to the
    measure that we are about to vote on, which would undo a rule that
    regulates the release of methane into the atmosphere.
      Let's just start with the most basic simple proposition that methane
    is dangerous, it is poisonous, it is explosive. And for those reasons
    alone, it is something that the fossil fuel industry should not be
    leaking. The fossil fuel industry should be responsible about taking
    care of its leaks of a gas that is dangerous, poisonous, and explosive.
      But in addition to that immediate danger, methane is also a really,
    really potent greenhouse gas. If you look at the effect over a 20-year
    period, methane in the atmosphere is 80 times--8-0--times more
    dangerous than carbon dioxide. So we talk all the time about carbon
    emissions, carbon limits, carbon pollution. Methane is actually 80
    times more dangerous.
      So there are two reasons why the fossil fuel industry should not be
    leaking large amounts of methane. First, it is dangerous, poisonous,
    and explosive. And, second, it is an 80 times worse greenhouse gas than
    carbon dioxide over a 20-year period.
      So how much methane is industry leaking, and why did we do this
    measure in the first place?
      Well, industry told the EPA for years that it was leaking about 8
    million tons--8 million tons--of methane, which all by itself is a
    pretty big number, but it turned out that the industry was not telling
    the EPA the truth.
      It turns out that once independent sources got a chance to spot
    methane leaks using, for instance, satellites--this is a satellite
    image of a methane plume that is being released from a leak site--when
    they could find that--and satellites can now do that so we are
    beginning to know how much methane is actually being leaked and
    particularly when you backstop the satellite information with
    information from aircraft where the readings can be more sensitive than
    from a satellite--it turns out that what they were actually leaking was
    more like 32 million tons. They were only disclosing a quarter of what
    they were leaking, and even that 8 million that they disclosed was a
    pretty bad number. When you go to 32 million tons, that is a great deal
    of leakage of a gas that is dangerous, poisonous, explosive, and 80
    times more powerful a greenhouse gas over a 20-year period than carbon
    dioxide.
      Now, you would think that, as an attribute of basic human decency,
    these companies that are leaking methane would go and clean it up. It
    is the decent thing to do, but they didn't, obviously. They didn't even
    disclose truthfully and accurately what they were leaking. So, when we
    were confronted with a 32-million-ton annual leak of poisonous,
    dangerous, explosive methane, and its greenhouse effects on top of
    that, we tried to do something about it.
      So what did we do?
      Well, we did two things: a little bit of carrot, a little bit of
    stick.
      The carrot was $1.5 billion--1.5 billion taxpayer dollars--in flatout
    corporate welfare to the leaking oil and gas companies so that they
    could use taxpayer money to clean up the mess they were making to deal
    with the pipes and the valves and the wells that they weren't properly
    maintaining and that were leaking, it turned out, 32 million tons of
    methane.
      Now, one could argue that that was a pretty poor use of taxpayer
    money; that a basic tenet of corporate responsibility should be: You
    clean up your own mess. You take care of your own equipment. That is a
    basic tenet of human responsibility. I don't know why it shouldn't be a
    basic tenet of corporate responsibility, but the measurement of 32
    million tons of leakage shows that, obviously, those companies were not
    meeting that basic corporate tenet of responsibility.
      So along comes the $1.5 billion of free taxpayer money--corporate
    welfare--to polluters and leakers for taxpayers to pay them to clean up
    the problem that they were causing. I didn't love that, to tell you the
    truth, but it came with an incentive as well, and the incentive was, if
    you are still leaking methane after a certain period and if you are
    still leaking methane above a certain level--you had to be a big leaker
    yourself. It had to be a big leak, like 300 tons per leak, and you had
    to be in the worst sector of the oil and gas industry. If those things
    were true--if you had big leaks and you were a big leaker and you were
    in the worst performing sector of your industry--then you would be
    assessed a fee for the leakage, which would be an incentive, in
    addition to the free $1.5 billion the industry got to go out there and
    fix the darned pipes and valves and wells and stop the leaking.
      What we are doing today is saying to this industry: You can keep the
    $1.5 billion. We gave you that whether you used it to clean up or not.
    I don't know that. I don't think the jury is back on that, but they did
    get the $1.5 billion. But the part where you have to pay if you are
    still polluting, after all of this, beyond industry standards--that is
    what we are stripping out today. This Congressional Review Act measure
    specifically helps the segment of the oil and gas industry that is not
    even meeting oil and gas industry standards for controlling leaks.
      I think it is a pretty reasonable test to impose on industry leakers
    that they at least meet their own industry standard for leaking. This
    isn't some arbitrary standard that government has imposed. This isn't
    something that came out of the Green New Deal. This is the industry's
    own standard for responsibility about leaks, and you pay this fee if
    you don't meet your own industry standard for taking care of your
    equipment properly and avoiding leaks of a dangerous, explosive,
    poisonous

    [[Page S1417]]

    greenhouse gas 80 times more dangerous than carbon dioxide.
      So that is where we are, and that is where we are at today. Today's
    vote only protects those worst industry performers who have not cleaned
    up their act and met their own industry standards. If there were ever
    an undeserving group for Congress's solicitude, that is the group. They
    are not even meeting their own industry standards. They are comfortable
    with dangerous levels of leakage beyond what even their own industry
    recommends as a standard, and on they go.

      This is just a little bit of a piece with the recent designation by
    the Trump administration of what ``energy'' is. The Trump
    administration just put out a definition of ``energy'' that doesn't
    include solar or wind. Most of what came online and is slated to come
    online in 2025 has been solar and wind. It is the booming part of our
    energy economy. It is where the growth is and the jobs are and the
    innovation is. It is also a leading energy source in red States. If you
    look at who is best on solar and who is best on wind, you see States
    like Texas; you see Iowa; you see Wyoming. They have considerable
    investments in solar and wind, but the Trump administration won't even
    call solar and wind energy.
      So we are in this bizarre circumstance in which the fossil fuel
    industry, which drives so much behavior in this body after $100 million
    spent on the Trump campaign that we know of--probably hundreds of
    millions more secretly--has gained two big things: one, a completely
    false definition of ``solar energy'' and ``wind energy'' as not being
    energy despite the fact that it is fully operational, producing
    electrons, and was the largest source of new additions to the grid for
    2025, and they just decree: This is not energy.
      Why the fossil fuel industry would want that is a pretty strong
    signal of how low that industry will go in using its power over
    Congress. They will basically press the Trump administration to claim
    that solar energy and wind energy aren't even energy. It is a
    spectacularly foolish and false proposition, but bending the knee to
    the wishes of the fossil fuel industry appears to have no limits.
      This vote is the second expression of that subservience to fossil
    fuel because of all the things that you could do, of all the things
    that would help grow America's energy markets, of all the things you
    could do to help take care of people who live near energy facilities or
    people who are being subjected to harm from climate change--of all the
    things you could do, probably the worst one would be to take the worst
    performers at leaking, which shouldn't happen in the first place, who
    leak so badly they don't even meet their own industry standards, who
    for years have been falsely saying that they leaked only a quarter of
    what they have actually been leaking, and they are the people whom we
    are going to come to the rescue of.
      They had two choices here so that they didn't have to pay the fee for
    being among the worst leakers and not meeting their own industry
    standards. One is, clean up your darned equipment. Fix your pipes. Fix
    your valves. Fix your wells. Stop the leaking or at least reduce it to
    your own industry standard. If you do that, you don't pay this fee--or
    come to Congress. Use your power, the force of your dark money, of your
    influence, of your super PACs, of your political control, and get that
    requirement removed so that you can continue to leak, continue to leak
    methane--a dangerous, explosive, and poisonous substance--into your
    communities, continue to add this far more dangerous greenhouse gas to
    the atmosphere, and continue to meet no reasonable standard of
    corporate responsibility for taking care of your own gear and quitting
    the leaking.
      And you know what they chose; they chose to come here and get a free
    pass--a hall pass from Republicans in Congress, a hall pass from the
    Trump administration--so that they can continue to leak to their hearts
    content, never mind their culpability of not meeting their own industry
    standards, never mind the harm that it causes.
      This is an industry that lives off a pollute-for-free business model.
    If this industry were not allowed to pollute for free--if it had to
    compete, head-to-head, with hydro, geothermal, solar, wind, without the
    free right to pollute--we would have a very different energy mix, and
    they know that. So they insist on protecting their right to pollute for
    free, but of all the little quadrants of the industry whose pollution-
    for-free we should be coming to the floor to defend, those worst
    leakers who aren't taking care of their own equipment even to industry
    standards are at the bottom of any reasonable person's priority list,
    and yet they are the ones we are here to serve today.
      The backdrop to this is, of course, ``climate change,'' a term that
    the fossil fuel industry has so ingratiated itself with the Trump
    administration that it is able to excise the term--a language attack--
    excise the term from official documents, a little bit like saying that
    ``energy'' is everything except solar and wind. That is obviously
    false--provably false, in fact, and a preposterous assertion--but when
    serving the fossil fuel industry, that is the stuff they make you do,
    and here you go with saying that climate change isn't real when Exxon
    scientists talked about its being real 30 years ago. We are driving
    down a path of polluter-funded falsehood that ends in very dangerous
    places.

      We have a pretty good idea of where it ends because scientists have
    been telling us where this goes for decades now, scientists in our
    major universities. I do not believe that there is a single State
    university, a State university with the name of the State in its name--
    University of Rhode Island, for instance. I don't think there is a
    single State university in this country that does not teach climate
    change. That is how well-established climate change is as a factual
    proposition, and what it is going to do has been known for a long, long
    time.
      The predictions are astonishingly accurate. Here in the Senate, we
    heard all those predictions. The first hearing on those warnings was
    actually by Republican Senator John Chafee of Rhode Island in his role
    then as chairman of the Environmental Public Works Committee. He had a
    senior scientist from NASA, John Hanson, come over and describe what
    the science was, what we knew about what was going on.
      So there is a long, clear, indisputable scientific record warning us
    of what is coming--preview of coming attractions.
      But then it came here, and, here, the fossil fuel industry butted in
    with enormous political force, turbocharged after the Citizens United
    decision allowed that industry to spend unlimited amounts of money. And
    in the enforcement--or nonenforcement--of that decision, allowed that
    industry to spend those unlimited amounts of money secretly from behind
    front groups and through Super PACs and from other devices where the
    public was denied the knowledge of who was trying to influence them.
    The basic right of citizenship is to know who is doing what to whom on
    the field of politics American citizens are supposed to police with
    their votes. That knowledge was denied them, and that flood of industry
    pressure came into this Chamber. And before you knew it, climate change
    was suddenly a partisan issue. If you wanted to be a Republican, you
    had to deny climate change. It was pretty much as simple as that.
      Ask Bob Inglis from the House of Representatives what happened if you
    tried to break that grip of the fossil fuel industry on the House
    leadership, the fossil fuel industry grip on the House leadership on
    the Republican side.
      So the science was right all along. We failed at the politics because
    of improper fossil fuel industry influence, probably the most maligned
    and large-scale political influence campaign in American history. We
    yielded to it. We allowed ourselves to not heed the warnings and take
    the steps that would have put us on a pathway to safety.
      Now, having heard the scientific warnings, having failed at taking
    appropriate safety steps, we are now entering the third era, the era of
    consequences, when the stuff starts to hit the fan. And the warnings
    are coming from all over.
      Just about 2 weeks ago, the chair of the Federal Reserve testified to
    the Senate Banking Committee that in 10 to 15 years, it will be
    impossible to get a mortgage in entire regions of the country. How does
    that relate to climate change? That relates to climate change because
    climate change is creating changes in weather patterns that

    [[Page S1418]]

    make it impossible for the insurance industry to predict risk. That is
    why insurance rates are quadruple the national average in Florida,
    which is first and worst into this insurance crisis because of its
    storm and flooding risk, because it is on the path of so many
    hurricanes, because the Gulf of Mexico is warming so fast that it is
    powering worse storms, more heavily ladened storms, with rain onto
    Florida's coasts. And when you can't get insurance on your home, and
    you go to sell it, you have got a problem because the buyer can't get a
    mortgage if your home is uninsurable.
      What the chief economists of Freddie Mac warned, the mortgage giant,
    is that the climate risk creates an insurance crisis, which rolls over
    into a mortgage crisis, which drives down property values so badly that
    it creates a 2008-style national economic crisis.
      Those aren't the only warnings. Reinsurers look at this climate mess
    as a business proposition. The insurance industry has to get the future
    right in order to do its business, and it knows that what the fossil
    fuel industry is saying about what is going to happen in the future is
    a whole pack of lies. So they are raising their rates. The reinsurance
    companies are looking and saying, wow, this is getting way more
    dangerous. We are not going to reinsure without getting a lot more
    money.
      Reinsurance rates have more than doubled since 2017. They were up as
    much as 40 percent in 2023 alone in some markets.
      So it is not just the voice of the Fed; it is not just the voice of
    the chief economists of Freddie Mac; it is the reinsurance industry.
      Go below the reinsurance industry to the insurance industry and look
    at the first and worst place, Florida. All the major insurers are out--
    pulled the plug. Gone. Done. Pop-up insurers have come to fill the gap.
    Twelve to fifteen of them have gone bankrupt already. And when they go
    bankrupt, they don't pay claims, and Floridians are left stuck behind
    an insurer that was not solvent.
      Florida has had to stand up its own homeowners insurance company,
    which now has a huge share of the market and an even bigger share of
    the risk because they have allowed the other insurers to come in and
    cherry-pick out the lowest risk properties. So Florida is carrying a
    liability right now on homeowner's insurance that is greater than its
    entire State debt.
      If you want to look at the solvency of a State, look at what
    Florida's risk is for its property insurance companies, citizens'
    property insurance, and its backup fund that comes in when the pop-up
    insurance companies go bust and somebody else has to come in and pay
    the claims.
      The insurance industry, which has to look accurately at the future is
    also telling us this is deadly, deadly serious.
      There is an international Financial Stability Board whose job is to
    look at the world banking industry, the world banking sector, and warn
    of risks to the banking sector. They just put out a comprehensive
    report on the danger that climate change poses to the banking sector.
      It comes in a couple of ways. One is the one I just described. When
    banks can't issue mortgages, they lose a huge revenue proposition. So
    they get hurt in the ``insurance to mortgage to market value to
    economic crash'' cascade.
      But, also, as those values fall--let's say you went from carrying a
    $4,000 carrying cost for your property insurance to a $20,000 carrying
    cost. The present value of $20,000 every year into the future as long
    as you are going to own that home, diminishes the value of that home.
    It doesn't just diminish it for you and for the next buyer, it
    diminishes it for the bank that holds your mortgage. It is really
    important to banks that they have enough collateral to back their loan.
    Their loan-to-value ratio is what helps determine their solvency. So
    the International Financial Stability Board is warning banks around the
    world: Look out. The climate crisis is coming at you and for your
    solvency.
      This was, perhaps, said best by The Economist magazine in April,
    which led with a cover article warning of the next housing disaster and
    saying that ``the severe weather brought about by greenhouse-gas
    emissions is shaking the foundations of the world's most important
    asset class''--real estate.
      The number that they put to that risk that is shaking the foundations
    of the world's largest asset class is $25 trillion. A $25 trillion hit
    to the world's largest asset class.
      In the United States, a new report by First Street, which is a
    technical firm that looks at flooding risk for a whole variety of
    corporate clients but also publishes as well--they just published a
    report that climate change could erase $1.4 trillion in real estate
    value by 2055--i.e., in the 30-year mortgage period--a $1.4 trillion
    hit to real estate values here in the United States. While $25 trillion
    dollars was The Economist's global number; First Street's is $1.4
    trillion here in the United States.
      Trillions are big, big numbers. And when it is hitting people in
    their most prized and valuable family asset--their homes--it is a very,
    very dangerous proposition.
      Here is what The Economist said:

           The impending bill--

      For climate harms--

           is so huge, in fact, it will have grim implications not
         just for personal prosperity--

      i.e., the homeowner--

           but also for the financial system.

      Hence the report from the International Financial Stability Board
    about the need to shore up the international financial system.
      Here is how it goes down, they say:

           If the size of the risk suddenly sinks in, and borrowers
         and lenders alike realize the collateral underpinning so many
         transactions is not worth as much as they thought, a wave of
         repricing will reverberate through financial markets.

      Punch line:

           Climate change, in short, could prompt the next global
         property crash.

      Instead of dealing with this--even as Americans are already seeing
    their property insurance prices rise and double, are getting more and
    more nonrenewal notices to get them off the company--what are we doing?
    We are helping out the absolutely worst offenders at climate leakage.
      Here is Deloitte. I will close with this. Deloitte is a corporate
    consultancy. This is not Green New Deal. This is a corporate
    consultancy:

           If we allow climate change to go unchecked, it will ravage
         our global economy. For the United States, the damages to
         2070--

      Which was their prediction date--

           are projected to reach $14.5 trillion, a lifetime loss of
         nearly $70,000 for each working American.

      And we are not even talking about that seriously. We are here,
    instead, to let off the hook that segment of the oil and gas industry
    that is the worst polluters, that doesn't even meet their own industry
    standards, and that can get away from the fee that we will be voting
    down now by simply meeting industry standards. This is a shameful
    moment for the Senate.
      I yield the floor.
      I suggest the absence of a quorum.
      The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
      The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
      Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
    for the quorum call be rescinded.
      The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Hagerty). Without objection, it is so
    ordered.
      Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for a
    little more than a minute.
      The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                                  H.J. Res. 35

      Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, every American should be paying close
    attention to what is about to happen on the floor. In just a few
    moments, the Senate will vote on a Republican resolution that is
    straight from the wish list of Big Oil and Big Gas.
      Instead of spending floor time pushing legislation that will lower
    costs for American families, Republicans are bowing to Big Oil and Gas
    billionaires by trying to reverse the methane waste emissions charge
    which Democrats passed in the Inflation Reduction Act. Donald Trump and
    DOGE claim to care about efficiency, but Republicans are undoing a
    measure to reduce oil and gas waste and are making prices for the
    consumer go up--prices going up--when they are saying they want prices
    to go down. The rule we passed has been one of our most important tools
    to lower energy prices, to hold Big Oil and Big Gas accountable, to
    keep excessive and harmful levels of methane

    [[Page S1419]]

    out of our atmosphere, which my friend Mr. Whitehouse, who has done
    such a good job on this issue, tells me is 80 times as poisonous as
    CO2. Without this safeguard, Big Oil and Gas can waste as
    much natural gas as they like and then pass the cost on to consumers.
      Why are Republicans doing this? Well, it is simple. They are putting
    the needs of Big Oil and Gas companies over the needs of the American
    people, over the health of the American people and the health of our
    environment, our climate, our globe. And the consequences for the
    American people, for their health and their energy bills, are going to
    be very harmful.
      I urge my colleagues to think carefully, one last time, before voting
    to overturn it.
      The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, all time has
    expired.
      The clerk will read the title of the joint resolution for the third
    time.
      The joint resolution was ordered to be engrossed for a third reading
    and was read the third time.

                              ____________________