Cloture Motion
Floor Speech
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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am here for the 143rd time now to urge Congress to wake up to the damage that carbon pollution is inflicting on our atmosphere and oceans and to make a record for when people look back at this time and at this place and wonder why Congress was so unresponsive in the face of all of the information.
What are we up against that has prevented progress? What we are up against is a many-tentacled, industry-controlled apparatus that is deliberately polluting our discourse in this Nation with phony climate denial. That apparatus runs in parallel with a multi-hundred million dollar electioneering effort that tells politicians: If you don't buy what the apparatus is selling, you will be in political peril.
As we look at the apparatus that is propagating this phony climate denial, there is a growing body of scholarship that helps us that is examining this apparatus, how it is funded, how it communicates, and how it propagates the denial message. It includes work by Harvard University's Naomi Oreskes, Michigan State's Aaron McCright, Oklahoma State's Riley Dunlap, Yale's Justin Farrell, and Drexel University's Robert Brulle, but it is not just them. There are a lot of academic folk working on this to the point where there are now more than 100 peer-reviewed scientific articles examining this climate denial apparatus itself. These scientists are doing serious and groundbreaking work.
Dr. Brulle, for instance, has just been named the 2016 recipient of the American Sociological Association's Frederick Buttel Distinguished Contribution Award, the highest honor in American environmental sociology. Dr. Brulle has also won, along with Professor Dunlap, the American Sociological Association's Allan Schnaiberg Outstanding Publication Award for their book ``Climate Change and Society.'' The work of all of these academic researchers maps out an intricate, interconnected propaganda web which encompasses over 100 organizations, including trade associations, conservative so-called think tanks, foundations, public relations firms, and plain old phony-baloney polluter front groups. A complex flow of cash, now often hidden by donors' trusts and other such identity-laundering operations, support this apparatus. The apparatus is, in the words of Professor Farrell, ``overtly producing and promoting skepticism and doubt about scientific consensus on climate change.''
The climate denial apparatus illuminated by their scholarship is part of the untold story behind our obstructed American climate change politics.
This apparatus is huge. Phony-baloney front organizations are set up by the score to obscure industry's hand. Phony messaging is honed by public relations experts to sow doubt about the real scientific consensus. Stables of payrolled scientists are trotted out on call to perform. Professor Brulle likens it to a stage production.
Like a play on Broadway, the countermovement has stars in the spotlight--often prominent contrarian scientists or conservative politicians--but behind the stars is an organizational structure of directors, script writers, and producers, in the form of conservative foundations. If you want to understand what is driving this movement, you have to look at what is going on behind the scenes.
The whole apparatus is designed to be big and sophisticated enough that when you see its many parts, you can be fooled into thinking it is not all the same animal, but it is, just like the mythological Hydra-- many heads, same beast.
The apparatus is huge because it has a lot to protect. The International Monetary Fund has pegged what it calls the effective subsidy to the fossil fuel industry every year in the United States alone at nearly $700 billion. That is a lot to protect.
Here is one other measure. The Center for American Progress has tallied the carbon dioxide emissions from the power producers involved in the lawsuit to block implementation of President Obama's Clean Power Plan, either directly or through their trade groups. It turns out they have a lot of pollution to protect. The companies affiliated with that lawsuit were responsible for nearly 1.2 billion tons of carbon pollution in 2013. That is one-fifth of the entire carbon output in our entire country, and 1.2 billion tons makes these polluters, if they were their own country, the sixth biggest CO
Not only is this apparatus huge, it is also complex. It is organized into multiple levels. Rich Fink is the former President of the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation. He has outlined the model they use called the ``Structure of Social Change'' to structure what he called ``the distinct roles of universities, think tanks, and activist groups in the transformation of ideas into action.''
As a Koch-funded grantmaker out to pollute the public mind, the Koch Foundation realized that multiple levels were necessary for successful propaganda production. They went at it this way: The ``intellectual raw materials'' were to be produced by scholars funded at universities, giving the product some academic credibility. I think at this point, Koch funding reaches into as many as 300 college campuses to create this so-called intellectual raw material. Then think tanks and policy institutions mold these ideas and market them as ``needed solutions for real-world problems.'' I guess they are using the technique of ``think tank as disguised political weapon'' described by Jane Mayer in her terrific book ``Dark Money.''
Then comes what we would call ``astroturf''--citizen implementation groups ``build diverse coalitions of individual citizens and special interest groups needed to press for the implementation of policy change'' at the ground level. So the apparatus is organized not unlike a company would set up manufacturing, marketing, and sales.
18, 2012] The Structure of Social Change (By Rich Fink, President, Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation) why public policy?
Universities, think tanks, and citizen activist groups all present competing claims for being the best place to invest resources. As grant-makers, we hear the pros and cons of the different kinds of institutions seeking funding.
The universities claim to be the real source of change. They give birth to the big ideas that provide the intellectual framework for social transformation. While this is true, critics contend that investing in universities produces no tangible results for many years or even decades. Also, since many academics tend to talk mostly to their colleagues in the specialized languages of their respective disciplines, their research, even if relevant, usually needs to be adapted before it is useful in solving practical problems.
The think tanks and policy development organizations argue that they are most worthy of support because they work on real-world policy issues, not abstract concepts. They communicate not just among themselves, but are an immediate source of policy ideas for the White House, Congress, and the media. They claim to set the action agenda that leaders in government follow. Critics observe, however, that there is a surfeit of well-funded think tanks, producing more position papers and books than anyone could ever possibly read. Also, many policy proposals, written by ``wonks'' with little experience outside the policy arena, lack realistic implementation or transition plans. And all too often, think tanks gauge their success in terms of public relations victories measured in inches of press coverage, rather than more meaningful and concrete accomplishments.
Citizen activist or implementation groups claim to merit support because they are the most effective at really accomplishing things. They are fighting in the trenches, and this is where the war is either won or lost. They directly produce results by rallying support for policy change. Without them, the work of the universities and policy institutes would always remain just so many words on paper, instead of leading to real changes in people's lives.
Others point out, however, that their commitment to action comes at a price. Because activist groups are remote from the universities and their framework of ideas, they often lose sight of the big picture. Their necessary association with diverse coalitions and politicians may make them too willing to compromise to achieve narrow goals.
Many of the arguments advanced for and against investing at the various levels are valid. Each type of institute at each stage has its strengths and weaknesses. But more importantly, we see that institutions at all stages are crucial to success. While they may compete with one another for funding and often belittle each other's roles, we view them as complementary institutions, each critical for social transformation. Hayek's Model of Production
Our understanding of how these institutions ``fit together'' is derived from a model put forward by the Nobel laureate economist Friedrich Hayek.
Hayek's model illustrates how a market economy is organized, and has proven useful to students of economics for decades. While Hayek's analysis is complicated, even a modified, simplistic version can yield useful insights.
Hayek described the ``structure of production'' as the means by which a greater output of ``consumer goods'' is generated through savings that are invested in the development of ``producer goods''--goods not produced for final consumption.
The classic example in economics is how a stranded Robinson Crusoe is at first compelled to fish and hunt with his hands. He only transcends subsistence when he hoards enough food to sustain himself while he fashions a fishing net, a spear, or some other producer good that increases his production of consumer goods. This enhanced production allows even greater savings, hence greater investment and development of more complex and indirect production technologies.
In a developed economy, the ``structure of production'' becomes quite complicated, involving the discovery of knowledge and integration of diverse businesses whose success and sustainability depend on the value they add to the ultimate consumer. Hayek's model explains how investments in an integrated structure of production yield greater productivity over less developed or less integrated economies.
By analogy, the model can illustrate how investment in the structure of production of ideas can yield greater social and economic progress when the structure is well-developed and well-integrated. For simplicity's sake, I am using a snapshot of a developed economy, as Hayek did in parts of Prices and Production, and I am aggregating a complex set of businesses into three broad categories or stages of production. The higher stages represent investments and businesses involved in the enhanced production of some basic inputs we will call ``raw materials.'' The middle stages of production are involved in converting these raw materials into various types of products that add more value than these raw materials have if sold directly to consumers. In this model, the later stages of production are involved in the packaging, transformation, and distribution of the output of the middle stages to the ultimate consumers.
Hayek's theory of the structure of production can also help us understand how ideas are transformed into action in our society. Instead of the transformation of natural resources to intermediate goods to products that add value to consumers, the model, which I call the Structure of Social Change, deals with the discovery, adaptation, and implementation of ideas into change that increases the well- being of citizens. Although the model helps to explain many forms of social change, I will focus here on the type I know best--change that results from the formation of public policy. Applying Hayek's Model
When we apply this model to the realm of ideas and social change, at the higher stages we have the investment in the intellectual raw materials, that is, the exploration and production of abstract concepts and theories. In the public policy arena, these still come primarily (though not exclusively) from the research done by scholars at our universities. At the higher stages in the Structure of Social Change model, ideas are often unintelligible to the layperson and seemingly unrelated to real-world problems. To have consequences, ideas need to be transformed into a more practical or useable form.
In the middle stages, ideas are applied to a relevant context and molded into needed solutions for real-world problems. This is the work of the think tanks and policy institutions. Without these organizations, theory or abstract thought would have less value and less impact on our society.
But while the think tanks excel at developing new policy and articulating its benefits, they are less able to implement change. Citizen activist or implementation groups are needed in the final stage to take the policy ideas from the think tanks and translate them into proposals that citizens can understand and act upon. These groups are also able to build diverse coalitions of individual citizens and special interest groups needed to press for the implementation of policy change.
We at the Koch Foundation find that the Structure of Social Change model helps us to understand the distinct roles of universities, think tanks, and activist groups in the transformation of ideas into action. We invite you to consider whether Hayek's model, on which ours is based, is useful in your philanthropy. Though I have confined my examples to the realm of public policy, the model clearly has much broader social relevance.
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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, investigative books, journalists' reporting, and academic studies repeatedly compare the climate denial effort to the fraud scheme that was run by the tobacco industry to disguise the harms of smoking. When I was a U.S. attorney, the Justice Department pursued and ultimately won a civil lawsuit against tobacco companies for that fraud. When I was here in the Senate, I wrote an opinion piece about a possible DOJ investigation into the fossil fuel industry fraud on climate change. This gave me a new appreciation of the apparatus in action. In response came an eruption of dozens of rightwing editorials, most of which interestingly were virtually identical, with common misstatements of law and common omissions of facts. The eruption recurred some months later in response to me asking Attorney General Lynch about such an investigation when she was before us during a hearing of the Judiciary Committee.
Virtually every author or outlet in these eruptions was a persistent climate denier. Common markers in the published pieces seemed to point to a central script. When multiple authors all say something that is true, that is not necessarily noteworthy, but when multiple authors are all repeating the same falsehoods, that is a telling fingerprint. I happened to notice this because unlike most people, I get my news clips so I saw all these articles as they emerged in this eruption that took place. The articles regularly confused civil law with criminal law, suggesting that I wanted to ``slap the cuffs'' on people or ``prosecute'' people when the tobacco case was a civil case, and in a civil case there are no handcuffs. The articles almost always overlooked the fact that the government won the tobacco fraud lawsuit and won it big. The pieces usually said my target was something other than the big industry protagonist. My targets were described as ``climate dissidents'' or ``independent thought'' or ``scientists'' and ``the scientific method'' or even just ``people who just disagree with me.'' Nothing like that transpired in the tobacco fraud case, obviously.
Time and time again, the articles wrongly asserted that any investigation into potential fraud by this climate denial apparatus would be a violation of the First Amendment. This was a particularly telling marker because it is actually settled law--including from the tobacco case itself--that fraud is not protected under the First Amendment. So the legal arguments were utterly false, but nevertheless the apparatus was prolific. They cranked out over 100 articles in all in those two eruptions.
Now the State attorneys general who have stepped up to investigate whether the fossil fuel industry and its front groups engaged in a fraud have faced a similar backlash. First came the editorial barrage, often from the same outlets and authors as mine and usually with the same false arguments. Then, Republicans on the U.S. House Science, Space, and Technology Committee sent the attorneys general letters with a barrage of demands to discourage and disrupt their inquiries. A group of Republican State attorneys general even issued a letter decrying the efforts of their investigating colleagues. All of them insisted the First Amendment should prevent any investigation.
In one ironic example, the Koch-backed front group Americans for Prosperity rode to the rescue of the Koch-backed Competitive Enterprise Institute, one of the climate denial mouthpieces under investigation. The Koch-backed front group Americans for Prosperity announced it was joining a coalition of 47 other groups to support what it called ``a fight for free speech,'' but according to realkochfacts.org, 43 of the 47 groups in that so-called coalition also have ties to the Kochs, and 28 of them are directly funded by the Kochs and their family foundations. Welcome to the apparatus.
The Koch brothers' puppet groups claim to stand united against what Americans for Prosperity described as ``an affront to the First Amendment rights of all Americans,'' but scroll back, and the tobacco companies and their front groups and Republican allies made exactly the same argument against the Department of Justice's civil racketeering lawsuit--the one the Department of Justice won.
Big Tobacco's appeal in court argued that, quoting the appeal, ``the First Amendment would not permit Congress to enact a law that so criminalized one side of an ongoing legislative and public debate because the industry's opinions differed from the government or `consensus' view.''
How did they do? They lost. They lost because the case was about fraud, not differences of opinion. Courts can tell the difference between fraud and differences of opinion. They do it all the time. Fraud has specific legal requirements. The courts in the tobacco case held firmly that the Constitution holds no protection for fraud--zero-- and the tobacco industry had to stop the fraud. Now the fossil fuel industry says it is different from the tobacco industry while it uses the very same argument as the tobacco schemers.
To really appreciate how bogus the First Amendment argument is, think through what it would mean if fraudulent corporate speech were protected by the First Amendment. Out would go State and Federal laws protecting us from deceitful misrepresentations about products. Consumer protection offices around the country would shrivel or shut their doors, and it would be open season on the American consumer. That is a dark world to envision, but it is the world that results if corporate lies about the safety of their products or industrial processes are placed beyond the reach of the law. I say lies because you have to be lying for it to be fraud.
This begs the question of whether there is really a difference of opinion about climate change among scientists. Last week, 31 leading national scientific organizations, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union, and 28 others sent Members of Congress a no-nonsense message that human-caused climate change is real, that it poses serious risks to society, and that we need to substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They told us this:
Observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research concludes that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver. This conclusion is based on multiple independent lines of evidence and the vast body of peer-reviewed science.
Dear Members of Congress: We, as leaders of major scientific organizations, write to remind you of the consensus scientific view of climate change.
Observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research concludes that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver. This conclusion is based on multiple independent lines of evidence and the vast body of peer-reviewed science.
There is strong evidence that ongoing climate change is having broad negative impacts on society, including the global economy, natural resources, and human health. For the United States, climate change impacts include greater threats of extreme weather events, sea level rise, and increased risk of regional water scarcity, heat waves, wildfires, and the disturbance of biological systems. The severity of climate change impacts is increasing and is expected to increase substantially in the coming decades.
To reduce the risk of the most severe impacts of climate change, greenhouse gas emissions must be substantially reduced. In addition, adaptation is necessary to address unavoidable consequences for human health and safety, food security, water availability, and national security, among others.
We, in the scientific community, are prepared to work with you on the scientific issues important to your deliberations as you seek to address the challenges of our changing climate. American Association for the Advancement of Science American Chemical Society American Geophysical Union American Institute of Biological Sciences American Meteorological Society American Public Health Association American Society of Agronomy American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists American Society of Naturalists American Society of Plant Biologists American Statistical Association Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation Association of Ecosystem Research Centers BioQUEST Curriculum Consortium Botanical Society of America Consortium for Ocean Leadership Crop Science Society of America Ecological Society of America Entomological Society of America Geological Society of America National Association of Marine Laboratories Natural Science Collections Alliance Organization of Biological Field Stations Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Society for Mathematical Biology Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles Society of Nematologists Society of Systematic Biologists Soil Science Society of America University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. That letter is the voice of fact, of scientific analysis, and of reason.
Up against it is the apparatus. The apparatus has the money. The apparatus has the slick messaging. The apparatus has the political clout. It has that parallel election spending muscle, it has the lobbying armada, and it has that array of outlets willing to print falsehoods about climate change and, for that matter, about fraud and the First Amendment.
The scientists? Well, they have the expertise, the knowledge, and the facts. Whose side we choose to take says a lot about who we are.
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