March 7, 2019 - Issue: Vol. 165, No. 41 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 1st Session

[Pages S1718-S1719]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           THE GREEN NEW DEAL

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, for all of the Senate's vaunted 
traditions about grand debates, we very rarely practice the actual 
art--the real back and forth, the exchange of ideas. For weeks now, we 
have heard our Republican colleagues come to the floor and rail against 
the Green New Deal, as the leader just did. Democrats have simply been 
trying to get a few honest answers out of the Republican leadership 
about their position on climate change so that we might have a real 
debate.
  Yesterday, as Republican after Republican lined up to give speeches 
against taking bold action on climate change, several Democrats tried 
to steer the conversation in a more positive direction by asking our 
Republican colleagues simple questions--and I ask this again of every 
Republican, particularly of Leader McConnell: Do you, Leader McConnell, 
and our Republican friends believe climate change is real? Yes or no? 
Do you believe that climate change is caused by human activity? Yes or 
no? Most importantly, do you believe Congress should do something about 
it? Yes or no?
  If our colleagues believe it is a problem and agree to that, what is 
their plan to deal with climate change? We know they don't like the 
Green New Deal. They have made that clear. It doesn't forward the 
debate. But what is their plan?
  We might have ruffled some feathers on the other side. I think my 
colleagues just wanted to give speeches on the Green New Deal and then 
leave the floor. It is a sad state of affairs when even a little 
debate, even heated debate, is something unsettling here in the Senate. 
But I have to give credit to the few Republicans who did engage us.

[[Page S1719]]

  A few said they did believe in climate change and offered some 
examples of minor legislation where our parties could work together to 
begin tackling this crisis. I give them credit for that. But here is 
the problem: When is Leader McConnell going to schedule time for 
consideration of this and other climate change legislation? We 
Democrats are ready to work. Will Leader McConnell bring his own 
Members' clean energy legislation to the floor?
  Others have said that climate change is happening, but the free 
market could take care of it through ``innovation.'' With all due 
respect, that doesn't mean much. Most of us would agree we live in an 
incredible time of innovation and technology, yet we continue to pour 
even more carbon into the atmosphere than in previous years, not less. 
Left alone, the market has proved incapable of curing climate change 
for the simple reason of what economists call externalities. You run a 
coal plant; you make the profits from selling the electricity that the 
coal plant produces, but you don't pay the price for the carbon you put 
in the air. So it is not going to happen through the free market alone 
because of what even Adam Smith recognized: There are externalities 
that have to be captured, and it is government's job to at least make 
sure they are captured.
  Another block of Republicans took a different tack. A few of our 
Republican colleagues said yesterday that climate change was real but 
only because the climate has always been changing and all flora and 
fauna contribute to it. ``What are we to do,'' they say, as they throw 
up their hands and look to the sky, ``ban volcanoes?''
  Unbelievable. What an amazing canard that is. Those who said it--and 
there were a few right here yesterday--would get an F in middle school 
Earth science with that kind of reasoning. We all know--at least we all 
ought to know--that human activity, particularly the burning of fossil 
fuels, has pushed the amount of carbon in our atmosphere to record 
levels, trapping more heat than ever before and changing the climate in 
ways not seen before in our history.
  Maybe denying or misleading about climate change is considered 
acceptable in the modern Republican Party, where it has come to be 
expected, and we wonder why that is so. Some argue it is because people 
don't believe in science. Some argue it is because they just are stuck 
in the status quo. And some argue it is because there is a lot of oil 
money cascading into the Republican Party, when you read about all 
these multimillionaire and billionaire new oil magnates who send tons 
of money there. Some argue that. You can't prove which one is true, but 
we do know it leads to terrible, terrible inaction.
  So I would like to see my colleagues who don't admit the severity of 
climate change go talk to the farmers in Iowa dealing with drought, the 
fishermen in Alaska and North Carolina, the homeowners in Florida and 
the Mountain West. See if denying recent climate change works there. It 
sure doesn't work on the south coast of Long Island, where we had 
Sandy, which made believers out of many who were skeptical in the past.
  Nonetheless, we made some progress yesterday. At the very least, my 
friends on the other side know they will not able to execute their 
standard playbook. Democrats are not going to sit around while 
Republicans come to the floor and yell about socialism as they have the 
past two decades. We are going to make Republicans answer core 
questions about real change. That is what America wants.
  One of the reasons all of these scare tactics didn't work in 2018 and 
the House is now Democratic and we kept most of our seats, even in very 
red States--I suspect many of my more reasonable colleagues would 
prefer that--a real debate--over ``gotcha'' politics that Leader 
McConnell is so adept at playing and is playing once again with this 
cynical Green New Deal ploy.

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