February 27, 2019 - Issue: Vol. 165, No. 36 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 1st Session

[Pages S1520-S1522]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Climate Change

  Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Missouri. I thank 
him for his leadership and levelheadedness.
  As he is on his way out, I will say that I think the current way we 
deal with nominees is not tenable. I imagine a scenario where we have a 
Democratic President, and it will take even longer than it is currently 
taking to confirm nominees. I think there are a number of us on both 
sides of the aisle who are open to modifying the way we operate.

[[Page S1521]]

  For me, the blue-slip question is a redline. I think what they are 
doing with the blue slips undermines the individual ability for any 
Senator to have their say, especially as it relates to the circuit 
courts, but I think there is an opportunity to have a conversation.
  On climate generally, I am looking forward to a debate, but it is 
very difficult to debate in the Senate when only one party proffers a 
proposal. I don't mean this as rhetorical flourish. I don't mean this 
as a personal accusation or a partisan attack. It is just a fact that 
there are no climate proposals coming from the Senators who are 
Republican. There are zero. So they are trying to have a debate about a 
resolution which was nonbinding and which was signed by 12 Senators. I 
get it, but I think, given that this is the world's greatest 
deliberative body, we ought to have a proper debate about climate 
change.
  We are actually in a climate emergency. This is the most important 
moment in the world's history as it relates to this particular crisis. 
We are sitting here trying to score points about an FAQ that was posted 
on a new Congresswoman's website and trying to make fun of each other 
and say: They are going to ban cows and ice cream. It is very silly, 
and it is not worthy of the seriousness of the moment.
  I would ask my Republican colleagues--I see a number of them who take 
the debt, foreign policy, cyber security, personal privacy, and the 
rules of the Senate very seriously. They are very levelheaded human 
beings with a seriousness of purpose. Yet when it comes to climate 
change, it gets into this goofy thing where they are doing everything 
except debating climate change and what ought to be done about it.
  We spent 5, maybe 10 years trying to get most Republicans to concede 
that this problem exists at all. Now a lot of them are feeling 
comfortable saying: Yes, this problem exists, but all of the solutions 
proposed by Democrats are wrong.
  That is fine, but I ask this question in all sincerity: What do 
Republican Senators propose to do about the climate crisis? What is 
your plan? If you don't like cap and trade; if you don't like a fee on 
carbon; if you don't like massive investment in green technology and 
clean technology; if you don't like the extension of the investment tax 
credit and the production tax credit; if you don't like our solution; 
if you don't like being part of the Paris climate accord--which, by the 
way, is nonbinding, which means we get to decide what our pathway is to 
clean energy. It is not as though the U.N. gets to tell us what to do. 
It gives us leverage to make sure that as we move forward toward clean 
energy, the other countries don't cheat. It actually gives us leverage 
in this situation.
  If you don't like our solutions, that is fine. This is the world's 
greatest deliberative body. This is where the greatest debates in U.S. 
history have happened. Yet, maybe 19 times out of 20, I have come down 
to the floor to talk about climate change, and there were Members on 
this side of the aisle and zero Members on the other side of the aisle. 
Again, I don't mean this as an attack; I just want a real debate.
  I am looking at the Senator from Georgia. We have had robust 
discussions about debt and deficits and the way we try to avoid 
shutdowns and sequester and all the rest of it. When it comes to 
climate change, everybody gets really goofy. Everybody puts on their 
partisan uniform and refuses to engage. If this debate about the Green 
New Deal offers us an opportunity to talk about the planetary crisis, 
then I am happy for it.
  We are in debate time on the nomination of Andrew Wheeler to lead the 
EPA, so it might be helpful to know the origins of the Agency.
  In the 1960s, the state of the environment was catastrophic. Millions 
of freshwater fish and rivers around the country were being poisoned by 
insecticides, hurting consumer trust and the countless fishermen and 
families who made a living that way. Pollution was so bad that debris 
floating in the Cuyahoga River actually caught on fire, causing 
thousands of dollars in property damage. The water in Lake Superior 
became so toxic from companies' dumping asbestos-laden waste that local 
communities had to start filtering their own water. Think about that. 
People could drink the water from their local reservoirs unfiltered 
until industrial pollution came along.
  This was the path our country was on. Pollution was destroying many 
of the most beautiful places in the country and, maybe more 
importantly, putting the health of the public at risk.

  A scientist named Rachel Carson came along and changed everything 
when she wrote a book that helped the United States see that we 
couldn't go on like this. Her book was a call for change, and millions 
of Americans, on a bipartisan basis, demanded change.
  There was a predictable backlash. Here is what one industry spokesman 
said as public opinion began to coalesce around addressing pollution:

       The major claims of Miss Rachel Carson's book ``Silent 
     Spring'' are gross distortions of the actual facts, 
     completely unsupported by scientific, experimental evidence, 
     and general practical experience in the field. Her suggestion 
     that pesticides are in fact biocides destroying all life is 
     obviously absurd in the light of the fact that without 
     selective biologicals, these compounds would be completely 
     useless.

  This controversy went on for the next few years. The public, the 
science, and the reality pointed toward the truth, but a few loud 
voices tried to stop the country from making progress. They said that 
Rachel Carson distorted the facts, that the science wasn't there, and 
that there was no need to rush judgment.
  The U.S. Government moved forward anyway and began to lay the 
foundation for a new America--one that would preserve and protect our 
country and its resources for the next generation.
  In 1970, President Nixon united several offices and bureaus already 
in the Federal Government into one single agency, the EPA. The EPA was 
charged with protecting the Nation's health and being the steward of 
the environment. It has a legacy of fulfilling that mission. The Agency 
ended the use of a dangerous pesticide called DDT. It found a solution 
to acid rain, which was once a major issue for fish, forests, and 
farming. It took on secondhand smoke, banning smoking in indoor public 
places.
  Thanks to the EPA, Rachel Carson's ``fable for tomorrow'' did not 
become a reality, but here we are decades later facing another 
environmental crisis, one that affects the United States and every 
other Nation on this planet, and I am worried that we are not going to 
do the right thing this time.
  Instead of facing head-on and in a bipartisan way the biggest crisis 
in the planet's history, the party in power is not just ignoring the 
problem; they are making it worse. And they are doing it by nominating 
and confirming people like Andrew Wheeler. This is someone who said: 
``Manmade global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the 
American people.'' This is the guy to head the EPA. He says manmade 
global warming is a hoax. This is someone who was formally the vice 
president of the Washington Coal Club, who lobbied for coal companies.
  We are in a planetary emergency, and Republicans want someone who is 
advancing the interests of top polluters to be the Nation's chief 
environmental steward so that he can continue to advance the interest 
of the top polluters. Again, it is not just that they are ignoring 
climate change, which would be bad enough; it is that they are 
aggressively, proudly, gleefully sometimes, making it worse.
  Researchers at Harvard found that the EPA's recent plans to gut the 
Clean Power Plan will lead to more greenhouse gas emissions. Their plan 
will be worse for climate than if they did nothing at all. Think about 
that. If the EPA did nothing at all, it would be better than what they 
are doing now. This is the result of Mr. Wheeler's leadership, which 
has until now been in an Acting Director capacity.
  During the Presidency of Ronald Reagan, the EPA was led by Anne 
Gorsuch Burford, who ended up resigning in scandal. President Reagan 
nominated as her replacement William Ruckelshaus, whom people trusted 
to do the job and stabilize the EPA. He was a moderate. He was a steady 
hand. The EPA could use a steady hand after Scott Pruitt, who promoted 
the interests of polluters over the health of the American people and 
who crossed many ethical lines. Yet Andrew Wheeler is no Ruckelshaus. 
That much is clear from his time at the EPA. Under his leadership, EPA 
inspections are at a 10-year

[[Page S1522]]

low. EPA fines are at a 25-year low. Restrictions on new coal plants 
have been eliminated. Limits on methane pollution are in the process of 
being rolled back. In other words, polluters are getting their way. 
That is great news for people who own oil and gas companies, but it is 
horrible news for people with asthma, for farmers who are trying to get 
through the worst drought season seen in a century, and for small 
businesses that are losing customers because of fires.

  Listen, climate change is here. It is hurting everything from local 
economies, to public health, to national security, and the Republicans 
have decided that the best person to lead the Agency to do something 
about it is a coal lobbyist. It would be funny if it were not so 
outrageous.
  The Democrats have a plan for climate change. We have ideas to invest 
in clean air, clean water, and smarter infrastructure. We have bills on 
investment and production tax credits, solar energy, wind energy, 
conservation and efficiency, carbon pricing, and planting trees, and we 
have stood together against nominations like this one. It is time for 
the Republicans, if not to stand with us, to at least then stand on the 
other side against us and engage in this great debate. What are we 
going to do with climate change? We have proposals, and they have none.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.