[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 20]
[Senate]
[Page 27658]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


                          CLIMATE SECURITY ACT

  Mr. BOND. Mr. President, today our friends and colleagues Senators 
Lieberman and Warner are introducing their bill to cap carbon 
emissions. I would like to outline some of the ways their approach will 
unfairly and unnecessarily hurt our most vulnerable families and 
workers.
  To begin with, capping carbon will make more expensive what we all 
depend upon in our everyday lives. Our heating bills in the winter, air 
conditioning bills in the summer, every time we put gas in our cars; 
they will all be much more expensive under their plan.
  While the rich can afford higher power bills, millions of struggling 
families cannot. Will we force them to choose between heating their 
homes or buying school clothes for their children?
  I support higher Federal LIHEAP funding, but almost 30 million 
American families still cannot afford to pay their heating bills. How 
many millions more will suffer under this bill?
  Millions of fixed-income seniors have no room in their budget for 
higher power bills. Will we force them to choose between air 
conditioning in the summer or buying their prescription medicine?
  Blue collar workers supporting middle class families will also suffer 
when their manufacturing jobs flee the U.S. for cheaper energy sources 
in other countries.
  Are we telling millions of auto assembly, steel, aluminum, plastics, 
fertilizer, cement, and lime workers we do not care about them 
supporting their modest families?
  The Lieberman-Warner bill admits it hurts vulnerable families and 
workers and tries to help them through rebates funded by carbon 
auctions. But vulnerable workers cannot afford to pay higher energy 
bills now and wait months later for a rebate check. Where do they get 
the extra money to pay their higher energy bills now? What do they go 
without while they are waiting to get their rebate check later?
  The whole carbon auction and rebate system is inherently unfair and 
unnecessary. Some push it so that companies will not see windfall 
profits. I oppose windfall profits too, but they are only possible in 
14 States, mostly in the northeast and west coast where electricity 
markets are deregulated. In the other 36 states with regulated markets, 
utilities are prevented by law from reaping windfall profits.
  That means a national carbon auction unfairly punishes 36 States in 
the midwest, mountain, west and south where there would be no problem. 
Mr. President, 36 States will pay higher energy bills then needed. 
Families and workers in 36 States will suffer unnecessarily. We must 
find a better way.
  Europe, in their system, made the mistake of passing out more carbon 
allowances then needed. We can easily avoid that mistake.
  As long as the obligation we impose to submit carbon allowances for 
carbon emissions is greater then the amount of allowances we pass out, 
there will be no surplus profits in those 36 regulated States.
  We must address the issue of preemption. We will create havoc with a 
national carbon cap system on top of regional systems.
  We also need to set up a liability system for sequestering carbon 
underground. We do not want to set up an impossible situation where we 
capture all this carbon and have nowhere to put it.
  We need to guarantee that we will not harm low income families and 
vulnerable workers. Protections should kick in automatically at a set 
level, so that our struggling elements of society are not left to the 
whims of a fickle and vague cost containment system.
  We need to calibrate any cap plan to the ability of technology to 
meet that plan'' The welfare of millions are too important to roll the 
dice that low carbon solutions are around the corner. We also cannot 
inflict too much pain on struggling families and workers in the interim 
while we wait for those clean energy solutions to come on line.
  There are many things we can do now to reduce carbon emissions. We 
have on the shelf or stuck in stalled legislative vehicles, measures to 
promote energy efficiency, promote low-carbon biofuels, cut vehicle 
emissions through aggressive but achievable stronger CAFE standards, 
require renewable and clean energy generation, increase renewable 
energy transmission, green buildings, carbon storage research and 
development, and clean energy research, development and deployment.
  That is 8 different ways I am prepared to reduce carbon emissions 
today. So before we go down the road of hurting the poor, hurting 
vulnerable workers, sending jobs overseas, let us take advantage of 
what we have now. Let us get serious about our energy future and fund a 
Manhattan project for clean energy. Let us get to work where we can 
join together and do so now.

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