December 17, 2019 - Issue: Vol. 165, No. 204 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 1st Session

[Pages S7121-S7122]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             CLIMATE CHANGE

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, we are rapidly running out of time 
to protect our future and that of our children and grandchildren from 
worsening climate upheaval. America ought to be taking every measure 
available to rein in greenhouse gas emissions from legislative action 
to legal action, to diplomatic action, to regulatory action, which is 
going to be a theme of this talk tonight. We are not doing those 
things, and, frankly, it is because of corruption, plain and simple.
  Regulatory action, that means enforcing the laws on the books. We 
have a Clean Air Act that requires the Environmental Protection Agency 
to stop dangerous pollutants from fouling our air. The EPA has found 
that greenhouse gases are pollutants under the Clean Air Act, and the 
Supreme Court has upheld that finding. That means we ought to be 
regulating methane. Methane is among the most potent of greenhouse 
gases. When released into the atmosphere, it traps about 30 times more 
heat than its chemical cousin, carbon dioxide. Oil and gas extraction 
releases massive methane pollution. In fact, a growing body of research 
suggests methane pollution from natural gas extraction may completely 
offset the climate gains of switching from coal to natural gas.
  To fulfill its duties under the Clean Air Act, as a matter of law, 
EPA needs to prevent methane pollution. It is the law; it is not 
optional. But the corrupt Trump EPA won't fight methane pollution. This 
corrupt EPA is run by the fossil fuel industry, which could not care 
less about methane emissions.
  Within weeks of Scott Pruitt taking control of the Agency, the 
corrupted EPA withdrew its request that oil and gas companies even 
report methane emissions. The industry knew a true report on methane 
leakage would damage their case for natural gas as a less dangerous air 
pollutant, so they went to a line of attack, taken directly from the 
Big Tobacco playbook: Silence the science. The fewer facts the EPA has, 
the less action it needs to take under law--the corrupt Trump EPA 
deliberately made itself ignorant and stopped the reporting so it could 
avoid its duty.
  Step 2 came in March 2017 with the corrupt Trump effort to roll back 
existing greenhouse gas regulations, including methane regulations. 
Trump's Executive order reads like a fossil fuel lobbyist's dream, 
probably because fossil fuel lobbyists wrote it. He called on the EPA 
to ``review existing regulations that potentially burden the 
development or use of domestically produced energy resources and 
appropriately suspend, revise, or rescind those that unduly burden the 
development of domestic energy resources.''
  Regulations to limit methane pollution were among those that Trump's 
Executive order singled out, saying, ``As soon as practical, suspend, 
revise, or rescind [them].''
  Step 3 was to write a do-nothing replacement. After lots of dawdling, 
Trump's corrupt EPA decided to draft a fake rule, a rule they could 
point to if challenged in court for doing nothing, but a rule that 
would conveniently do nothing to limit methane emissions. The fake rule 
exempts a huge chunk of oil and gas production from regulation, leaving 
the industry with an effective blank check to pollute as much methane 
as it likes.
  As I speak, the corrupt Trump EPA is preparing to issue its final 
rule, and the corrupted fossil fuel industry is poised to grab 
everything it wanted. The final rule is one that industry stooges could 
have written themselves because, well, it looks like they did write it 
themselves. They bought that privilege the old-fashioned way, by buying 
it.
  Even before Trump took office, the fossil fuel industry began 
showering him with money. Trump raised a record amount for his 
inauguration--nearly doubling the previous record--and Hess, Chevron, 
BP, Citgo, ExxonMobil, Consol Energy, Continental Resources, Murray 
Energy, and Valero all made six- or seven-figure donations. The oil and 
gas and mining sector was the second largest source of donations, 
providing more than $10 million to Trump's inaugural committee. That 
money still flows as the 2020 election ramps up.
  Fossil fuel companies are among the largest donors to the political 
group supporting Trump's reelection. A pipeline company is the largest 
single donor to the Trump victory political action committee, more than 
$700,000 as of this November. The oil, gas, and mining industries 
account for more than $5 million to the Trump Victory PAC.
  Fossil fuel executives are some of the largest individual donors to 
the Trump Victory PAC. One executive alone gave $360,000. These known 
donations likely represent the tip of a big dark iceberg. Dark-money 
political organizations accept unlimited donations and provide no 
disclosure, and Super PACs accept unlimited donations with little 
disclosure. So the bottom line is we cannot tell exactly how much 
fossil fuel money is flowing to groups supporting Trump, but it is a 
lot. When you consider the $650 billion annual subsidiary the fossil 
fuel polluters enjoy, they have every reason to buy control over 
government from a corrupt Trump administration.
  Money isn't the only way the fossil fuel industry exerts control. 
Oklahoma oil king and Scott Pruitt patron Harold Hamm set up a Trump 
leadership council to advise Trump. The fossil fuel industry was the 
heart of the council, with coal giants Alliance Resource Partners and 
Murray Energy, oil services company Baker Hughes, and natural gas 
company Devon Energy all active members. Of course, there was the 
National Association of Manufacturers, a trade association recently 
identified as America's worst climate obstructer.
  With all these obstructers and polluters on board, the fossil fuel 
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council fed Trump a steady diet of talking points about slashing 
regulations and achieving ``complete American energy independence.''
  These fossil fuel industry talking points became the Executive order 
I mentioned earlier, an order to kill any environmental protection that 
``unduly burdens the development of domestic energy resources.'' Do you 
want to know who the winners were from that Executive order? Check the 
list of attendees at the signing ceremony: fossil fuel executives and 
fossil fuel industry trade association executives, come to celebrate 
the freedom to pollute that their influence and money had bought them.
  Chevron has recently been identified as one of the companies that has 
done the most to damage our oceans. They are one of the top ocean-
wrecking companies on the planet. In February of 2017, Chevron wrote to 
the corrupt Pruitt with a list of deregulatory proposals the company 
wanted to see implemented at the EPA. Included was a request to 
``refocus methane regulations, particularly those that impact existing 
sources, to encourage voluntary approaches.'' For sure, you can trust 
one of the world's worst ocean polluters with voluntary approaches.
  The corrupt Trump EPA was stocked with fossil fuel industry cronies 
ready to implement whatever the industry wanted. Pruitt rose to 
political power on a wave of fossil fuel money and demonstrated a 
willingness to sell his office by putting fossil fuel industry asks 
verbatim onto his official letterhead.
  Andrew Wheeler, Pruitt's successor as Administrator, had been a 
leading lobbyist for the coal industry. The head of the EPA Air Office, 
Bill Wehrum, rose to prominence by helping build and run an array of 
trade associations and front groups for--guess what--the fossil fuel 
industry.
  Beyond Pruitt and Wheeler and Wehrum, the EPA's political leadership 
crawled with fossil fuel flunkies, like the one who left to set up the 
fossil-fuel dark energy group Energy 45 to help promote fossil fuel 
energy policies; or the lawyer-lobbyist for energy interests Dominion 
Energy, Koch Industries, and TransCanada overseeing Air Office 
compliance, of all things. It has been an infestation.
  It is easy for the fossil fuel industry to spend big money to corrupt 
the EPA because the corruption payback is so big; the dirty methane 
work alone is estimated to save oil and gas companies hundreds of 
millions of dollars.
  Meanwhile, the American Petroleum Institute, the largest trade 
association for the oil and gas industry, announced a new seven-figure 
ad campaign called ``We're on it.'' ``We're on it.'' These ads--on the 
Internet, TV, and billboards--they are all over the Washington, DC, 
airport. They are designed to fool the public and to fool policymakers 
that the oil industry is ``on its'' methane emissions problem. Of 
course, they are not. Of course, they are lying. It is what they do.
  Science tells us that methane emissions are far higher than the 
estimates out of the corrupt Trump EPA. The investigative journalism 
group Unearthed found that leading oil companies are emitting 
unprecedented methane pollution. In just three producing basins, in 
just 1 year, oil companies emitted methane equivalent to the annual 
emissions of 10 coal-fired power plants or 8 million cars.
  There is a recent New York Times article that you can link to showing 
infrared imagery--it is really impressive to see, actually, if you 
click through to it--infrared imagery of methane billowing out of what 
they call super-emitter fossil fuel facilities.
  A recent article described one methane blowout in Ohio leaking as 
much ``methane than the entire oil and gas industries of many nations 
do in a year.''
  ``We are on it.'' Yeah, they are ``on it.'' What they are on is a 
binge of lying about emissions, corrupting our politics, and blocking 
climate action. These massive polluting industries have a long track 
record of climate denial and deceit. It is how they roll.
  A top climate obstructer, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, pays for a 
phony study, claiming the Paris agreement would cost jobs and economic 
growth, and Trump pulls out a pass. Oil companies lobby to gut auto 
fuel efficiency standards, and Pruitt and Wheeler gut the standards. 
The natural gas industry objects to rules limiting methane emission. 
The corrupt Trump EPA rolls them back.
  Just now, on the Senate floor, we are looking at a tax extenders 
package that wipes out the tax extenders for solar going forward, wind 
going forward. They gave us 1 year looking backwards. Great, thanks a 
bunch. Electric vehicles, storage, and batteries, all of that had been 
in a tentative agreement. The fossil fuel industry and the Trump 
administration kiboshed all of it. ``On it,'' indeed.
  Will Attorney General Barr look into any of this? Of course not. In 
the corrupt Trump administration, fossil fuel money and influence puts 
that industry above the law. They can pollute and corrupt more or less 
at will. We cannot afford this self-dealing from polluters any longer. 
This is flat-out wrong. Indeed, it is flat-out crooked. It is not only 
time to wake up, Madam President, it is time to clean up. This behavior 
is a disgrace.
  I yield the floor.

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