February 13, 2019 - Issue: Vol. 165, No. 28 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 1st Session

[Pages S1316-S1317]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           The Green New Deal

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I came here this afternoon to give my 
customary weekly climate speech urging that it is time to wake up here, 
and I was planning to speak about a legal brief that a number of 
scientists, led by Robert Brulle and Naomi Oreskes, filed in the Ninth 
Circuit detailing the long history of the oil industry knowing about 
climate change, doing its own research to confirm what it knows about 
climate change, telling the public something they knew was false, and 
yet taking what they knew to be true and using it in their own internal 
planning. But something even better than that came up, so I come here 
to react to the--well, for starters, the Wall Street Journal editorial 
calling for a vote on the Green New Deal.
  Let's go back a bit as to what the Wall Street Journal editorial page 
has been up to for the last, say, 20 years on climate change.
  The Wall Street Journal editorial page has been a mouthpiece for the 
fossil fuel industry's climate denial. The messages of the fossil fuel 
industry are echoed and amplified through the Wall Street Journal 
editorial page. All the way up until 2011, if I recall correctly, they 
were simply denying that this was a problem. They constantly behave 
like what I would call the one-eyed accountant--looking only at the 
costs of responding to climate change, never the costs of climate 
change.
  On this subject, for those who may be interested, I would actually 
like to incorporate by reference two previous climate speeches I gave 
on this completely bogus effort that has been maintained by the Wall 
Street Journal editorial page. The first was my speech of April 19, 
2016, and then I went back at them again on July 24, 2018. They have 
been making it up for a very long time, and sure enough, up comes this 
latest in which just yesterday, February 12, they said: Let's have a 
vote in Congress on the Green New Deal as soon as possible. Then they 
went on with a lot of their usual one-eyed accountant stuff, never 
looking at the costs of climate change, only looking at the costs of 
preventing those harms, and they concluded: ``Let's not hesitate. Take 
the Green New Deal resolution and put it to a vote forthwith.''
  Along the way, they went into some of their usual canards about 
renewables, saying that ``solar costs remain about 20 percent higher 
than natural gas while offshore wind is two-thirds more expensive'' 
without subsidies--well, unless you look at the subsidy for fossil 
fuel, which of course they don't, and the subsidy for fossil fuel has 
been quantified by the International Monetary Fund at $700 billion per 
year--$700 billion per year in the United States--propping up the 
fossil fuel industry. By contrast, the little tiny tax adjustments that 
we get for solar and wind, which the fossil fuel industry is always 
pushing back against, are nothing. There is a monster of a subsidy in 
the energy space, and it is the fossil fuel subsidy, but will the dear 
old Wall Street Journal editorial page ever admit that? Not a chance.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the article be printed in 
the Record at the end of my remarks.
  That came out in the Wall Street Journal that morning. Then Leader 
McConnell went out here to the Ohio Clock for his midday press 
conference, and guess what he said:

       I've noted with great interest the Green New Deal, and 
     we're going to be voting on that in the Senate. That'll give 
     everybody an opportunity to go on record and see how they 
     feel about the Green New Deal.

  I am in the habit of pointing out here how the string-pulling takes 
place and how the fossil fuel industry directs certain things and the 
mouthpieces say certain things and then we behave certain ways, but 
this may be the land speed record for a response. The Wall Street 
Journal says it wants a congressional vote, and that very day the vote 
gets announced. It is almost funny, if the topic weren't so serious.
  The whole idea that this is the Republican response to climate change 
is really classic. It is really classic. Since the Citizens United 
decision, which powered up the fossil fuel industry to have real 
bullying dominance in Congress--at least over the Republican Party--no 
Senator here today has been on any bill to meaningfully reduce carbon 
dioxide emissions. It is never a topic. Nobody wants to talk about it. 
It is like the unwelcome, embarrassing guest at the dinner party: Oh, 
my gosh. Climate change. No, we can't possibly talk about that.
  Never mind that NASA--which, by the way, RIP, Opportunity. The 
Opportunity has been driving around on the surface of Mars for 15 
years, sending back information to us about that planet. NASA 
scientists built that thing, sent it to Mars, landed it safely on Mars, 
and has been driving it around for 15 years. My God, what a project 
that was. What a brilliant thing. So when NASA scientists say, ``Oh, 
and by the way, climate change is serious. You ought to listen,'' and 
we don't, that behavior is hard to explain. When we are listening to 
the flacks of the fossil fuel industry and not the scientists of NASA--
and, by the way, 13 or 14 Federal Agencies in the latest report that 
came out under the Trump administration--we are way past there being 
any serious factual or scientific dispute here. There are just 
political demands by the industry with the biggest conflict of interest 
ever that we can't bring this up.
  For pretty much 10 years, since Citizens United, nobody has brought 
up a serious piece of legislation to limit carbon dioxide emissions on 
the Republican side. Not one. Zero. Now, the majority leader is going 
to break this streak and bring up the first carbon-related bill. It is 
actually not a real bill. It is a resolution, but he is going to bring 
it up with the intention of voting

[[Page S1317]]

against it. I kid you not. The majority leader has announced the 
intention of bringing up a resolution with the intention of voting 
against it. Who does that and why? Who had that brainstorm and where?
  We will never understand this until we understand better how the 
anonymous dark money stuff flows around Washington. We need to clean 
that up. We need to pass the DISCLOSE Act. We need to make sure people 
know who is behind spending, who is behind advertising. We have to do 
all of that, but in the meantime, you do get these amazing moments in 
which the Wall Street Journal says--the editorial page, by the way. I 
think their correspondents, their reporters, are totally legitimate, 
and they do terrific work. It is the editorial page that is the problem 
child here.
  So the Wall Street Journal editorial page says we need to have a vote 
on the Green New Deal. It takes less than a day for the majority leader 
to say we are going to have a vote on the Green New Deal, and he is 
calling up the first piece of climate legislation they have ever called 
up in the majority here, and they are calling it up to vote against it.
  Isn't it finally time to have a real conversation about this? Isn't 
it finally time for there to be a Republican proposal? It has been 
nearly 10 years since Citizens United. I get it. The fossil fuel 
industry has enormous sway, but there comes a time when you even have 
to tell the biggest influencers in Congress that your day is over. It 
is time for us to treat with the facts and to work in a bipartisan 
fashion and to do what the people sent us here to do, which is to 
legislate.
  So where is the Republican proposal? Where is the Republican plan? 
There isn't one. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Nihil. Nitchevo. They are going to 
call this up. They are going to call this up for a vote. I can hardly 
wait for this discussion. Bring it on, please.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

             [From the Wall Street Journal, Feb. 11, 2019]

                       Vote on the Green New Deal

                        (By The Editorial Board)

       Every Member of Congress should step up and be counted.
       Democrats rolled out their Green New Deal last week, and by 
     all means let's have a national debate and then a vote in 
     Congress--as soon as possible. Here in one package is what 
     the political left really means when it says Americans need 
     to do something urgently about climate change, so let's see 
     who has the courage of those convictions.
       Thanks to the resolution introduced last week by New York 
     Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Massachusetts Sen. Ed 
     Markey, there's already official language. While it's 
     nonbinding, the 14 pages give a clear sense of direction and 
     magnitude in calling for a ``10-year national mobilization'' 
     to exorcise carbon from the U.S. economy.
       President Obama's Clean Power Plan looks modest by 
     comparison. The 10-year Green New Deal calls for generating 
     100% of power from renewables and removing greenhouse gas 
     emissions from manufacturing and transportation to the extent 
     these goals are ``technologically feasible.'' Hint: They're 
     not.
       The plan also calls for ``upgrading all existing buildings 
     in the United States and building new buildings to achieve 
     maximal energy efficiency, water efficiency, safety, 
     affordability, comfort and durability, including through 
     electrification.'' That's all existing buildings, comrade.
       Millions of jobs would have to be destroyed en route to 
     this brave new green world, but not to worry. The resolution 
     says the government would also guarantee ``a job with a 
     family-sustaining wage, adequate family and medical leave, 
     paid vacations, and retirement security to all people of the 
     United States.'' Good that they're starting small.
       Sorry to mention unhappy reality, but renewable sources 
     currently make up only 17% of U.S. electric-power generation 
     despite enormous federal and state subsidies. Wind and solar 
     energy have become more competitive over the last decade as 
     costs have plunged. But without subsidies, solar costs remain 
     about 20% higher than natural gas while offshore wind is two-
     thirds more expensive. The bigger problem is solar and wind 
     don't provide reliable power, so backup plants that burn 
     fossil fuels are required to run on stand-by.
       Germany has been gracious enough to show what can go wrong. 
     Despite aggressive emissions goals, Germany's carbon 
     emissions have been flat for most of the last decade as the 
     country had to fall back on coal to balance off-shore wind 
     generation. Last year Germany derived 29% of its power from 
     wind and solar, but 38% from coal.
       Meantime, taxes and rising power-generation costs have made 
     Germany's electric rates the highest in Europe, slamming 
     small manufacturers and consumers.
       ``The drag on competitiveness is particularly severe for 
     small and middle-sized firms,'' Eric Schweitzer, President of 
     Germany's Chambers of Commerce, told Bloomberg News last 
     year. German manufacturing has become less competitive due to 
     soaring energy costs. Electric and natural gas prices in 
     Germany are two to three times higher than in the U.S.
       By contrast, the U.S. is having a modest manufacturing 
     renaissance as shale drilling has created a cheap source of 
     lower-carbon energy. Natural-gas prices have plunged by half 
     over the last decade as production has increased 50%, mostly 
     in the Marcellus and Utica formations in Pennsylvania, Ohio 
     and West Virginia. Carbon emissions from power generation 
     have fallen by 30% since 2005, mostly due to the substitution 
     of coal with natural gas.
       Meantime, oil production in Texas's Permian and North 
     Dakota's Bakken shale deposits has soared 80%. Demand for 
     drills, pipelines and other mining equipment has also boosted 
     U.S. growth.
       The Green New Deal means that all of this carbon energy and 
     all of these jobs would have to be purged--at least in the 
     U.S. China would suffer no such limits on its fossil-fuel 
     production. Conservatives have long suspected that 
     progressives want to use climate change to justify a 
     government takeover of the free-market economy, but we never 
     thought they'd be this candid about it.
       Yet, remarkably, the Green New Deal has been met with 
     hosannas from liberal interest groups and in Congress. It 
     already has 67 co-sponsors in the House and the support of 11 
     Democrats in the Senate including presidential candidates 
     Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren and Amy 
     Klobuchar.
       So let's not hesitate. Take the Green New Deal resolution 
     and put it to a vote forthwith on the House and Senate floor.

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. With that, I yield the floor.
  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. MORAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. MORAN. Mr. President, I also ask unanimous consent that I be able 
to address the Senate as if in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.