[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Pages 1923-1924]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             CLIMATE CHANGE

  Mr. SCHATZ. Madam President, the Keystone legislation is likely to 
move to the President's desk this week after the House takes it up, and 
he will veto it. The votes are not there to override a veto, either in 
the Senate or the House. Legislation has a natural lifecycle, and this 
piece of legislation is reaching the end of its lifecycle. This debate 
is almost over.
  So where are we when it comes to American energy policy? The debate 
that occurred on Keystone was no doubt an important one, but it was 
exactly upside down. Congress and the media treated the Keystone bill 
as if it would settle American energy policy once and for all, when in 
fact it was and is a tiny sliver of debate. American energy policy is 
not defined by one project or one piece of infrastructure, however 
contentious it may be.
  In order to have a real energy conversation, we have to agree on the 
facts, and this body cannot be the only place where there is a lack of 
consensus on the basic facts. That is why Senator Whitehouse's 
amendment, my amendment, Senator Hoeven's amendment, and those of many 
others were so important.
  Last month's climate votes were illuminating and encouraging. First, 
Senator Whitehouse's language, which simply stated that climate change 
was not a hoax, received a nearly unanimous vote. Believe it or not, 
that is progress. My amendment, which stated that climate change is 
real, caused by humans, and has real and significant impacts, received 
a bare majority of the votes, with five Republicans supporting it. 
Senator Hoeven's amendment had similar language, as well as some pro-
Keystone language, and it attracted a dozen or so Republican votes.
  What is the significance of all of this? It is very simple. Without 
acknowledging the problem, we cannot even begin to work on it. The wall 
of denial has begun to crack. So now we have a majority--and depending 
on how it is phrased, even a potential supermajority--in the Senate 
saying that climate change is real.
  Now, most every serious person in public life either admits the basic 
facts of climate change or is on their way to getting there, and that 
is a good thing. Now the question is: What should we do? Given our 
regional differences, ideological differences, and the partisan divide, 
what comes next?
  Later this year or next, we will see efforts to repeal a number of 
important environmental rules, especially the administration's clean 
power plan, which will regulate carbon pollution from existing and new 
powerplants, but that too is highly unlikely to result in anything 
other than a Presidential veto.
  So are there any areas for potential common ground?
  I think we saw real glimmers of hope and possibility during the 
Keystone debate. Several of my Republican colleagues made the argument 
during the debate on Keystone that while climate change is a real 
problem, we must be aware of how energy costs influence economic 
activity.
  I could not agree more. We don't hear this often from folks on my 
side of the debate, but price matters. No climate policy is a real 
solution unless it strengthens both the national and global economies. 
As we pursue clean energy, we must understand its impacts on 
consumers--especially individuals and families in lower income 
communities--as well as businesses. We miss an opportunity to find 
common ground if we move too quickly past the questions of cost and the 
social and economic context in which this transition is going to occur.
  We can contend with these challenges in Congress through a 
legislative solution. We can create incentives, create market-based 
mechanisms, look at regional differences, and fund R&D to help develop 
new and less-expensive solutions. EPA certainly has the authority and 
the obligation under the law to regulate carbon and other greenhouse 
gases. I support the President's Clean Power Plan because carbon 
pollution is real and it ought to be regulated under the Clean Air Act. 
If we want to be more comprehensive and if we want to be more nuanced 
and more flexible and more responsive to communities, we need a bill. 
Structured properly, a bill has the advantage of creating economically 
efficient solutions that can reduce carbon pollution from a much wider 
range of sources. That is why a well-designed fee on carbon is critical 
for our economy and our environment.
  I understand the politics are nearly impossible right now, but if we 
think about our ability as legislators to remunerate communities 
struggling during a transition, to ameliorate certain economic 
challenges, we may agree that legislating provides us the tools to 
achieve greater pollution reductions at

[[Page 1924]]

a much lower social and economic cost. So once the Clean Power Plan is 
established, once it is litigated, and once it is full-on reality, I 
believe there may be room for compromise.
  One more point on the issue of price. We have to do our calculations 
on an all-in basis. That includes tax expenditures, environmental 
damage, health impacts, and other so-called externalities. There is 
plenty of good research which indicates that clean energy technology is 
already competitive with fossil fuel technology when all costs are 
added in. Additionally, the cost of solar, wind, and energy efficiency 
is dropping precipitously and in many places is competing successfully 
in the free market, even before we consider the costs of pollution.
  We will have a couple of battles that are unavoidable--on the Clean 
Power Plan and likely another run at Keystone--but there are a couple 
of areas that in my view don't have to be a battle. They are energy 
efficiency and energy research.
  We ought to start with the Shaheen-Portman energy efficiency 
legislation. I have little doubt that Democrats would support this as a 
stand-alone bill. Energy efficiency is just common sense, and the 
energy experts remind us of an idea our mothers and fathers taught us 
growing up: waste not, want not. In other words, the straightest line 
toward saving money for people, businesses, and institutions is to help 
them adopt the latest energy efficiency practices and technologies.
  Even this has unfortunately become a partisan issue in the last 
several Congresses with people worried that light bulb efficiency 
standards were part of some Orwellian plot. But that is not what these 
Department of Energy standards do, and it is not what Shaheen-Portman 
does.
  At its core, energy efficiency is simply this: Use less but get the 
same result. Using less means paying less. Getting the same result 
means not having to sacrifice our way of life. The idea is not to ask 
people to do without, the idea is to just get more for our money. It is 
an old-school, conservative idea. Of course the Shaheen-Portman bill 
doesn't cost the taxpayers a dime, and projections are that it will 
create nearly 200,000 jobs.
  I also think there is a lot of room for good bipartisan work in 
advanced technology research in the energy space--the kind the 
Department of Energy did for the State of Hawaii in developing a grid 
system that can accommodate unprecedented levels of intermittent 
renewable energy, the kind that made major advances in hydraulic 
fracturing, the kind that has helped the price of solar panels drop 80 
percent since 2008, the kind that is making breakthroughs in battery 
storage, which has fallen in price by 40 percent since 2010, and the 
kind that is working on carbon capture and sequestration.
  America must lead on energy, and that requires us to do the kind of 
basic research that private companies can eventually use. A relatively 
small increase in research funding--both on the fossil and renewable 
side--has been shown to make an enormous impact on our economy. 
Investments in renewable and fossil fuel electricity generation, 
distribution, and transmission systems, grid stability and security, 
and fuel systems will enable America to lead in energy for decades to 
come.
  These are the kinds of investments we would see in a comprehensive 
energy bill. I was so encouraged last week that the chairwoman of the 
Energy and Natural Resources Committee, the Senator from Alaska, has 
indicated her desire to pursue comprehensive legislation this Congress. 
The Senator from Alaska is a very skilled bipartisan legislator, and I 
am looking forward to working with her on these issues. I am especially 
encouraged by her openness to climate provisions as part of that bill, 
something she mentioned as recently as last week. Just as she has 
listened to the concerns I and others have raised about climate change 
during the Keystone debate, so should we listen to her call for 
reliable, affordable, clean, and diverse energy supplies.
  Several energy proposals contained within the President's fiscal year 
budget could become a part of a bipartisan bill, including ideas to 
more fully promote carbon capture and sequestration technologies and 
protect coal workers and their communities as we transition. The 
concerns of communities that have coal-based economies are real and 
legitimate and I believe any true climate solution must prioritize 
solutions for every American. The President recognized that and 
proposed $55 million next year to help affected communities diversify 
their economies, offer job training, and ensure a good transition.
  This will require compromise. It will require those of us on the left 
to concede that fossil fuels aren't going to disappear instantaneously, 
and it will require those on the right to recognize that investing in 
clean energy technologies doesn't necessarily mean picking winners and 
losers. We have wind energy in nearly all States--in fact, more in 
Republican than in Democratic States--and we have tea party members 
everywhere who love the freedom and liberty that distributed 
generation--rooftop solar--offers. We also have clean energy 
progressives, including myself, who understand that we have to deal 
with the energy system we have, not the one we wish we had.
  The areas I have mentioned are not the only opportunities for 
bipartisan compromise, but we do need to start a dialogue, either on 
the floor, in committees or in informal discussions, about what we can 
actually do. As we consider a policy solution, let's ask the following 
questions: Can it be enacted into law? Will it advance American energy 
security? Will it strengthen the economy and provide economic growth? 
Will it reduce pollution?
  There are a few areas where we are going to fight--there is no 
avoiding it--and that is OK. But there is, for the first time since I 
arrived, a glimmer of hope that we may be able to find common ground on 
some of these issues and begin a serious discussion about tackling 
American energy policy and climate change.
  I yield the floor.
  Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MURPHY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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