Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, this afternoon, the Republican leader is bringing the Green New Deal resolution up for a vote on the floor of the Senate. What the Republican leader, however, is not doing is allowing us to have any hearings, any witnesses, any science, any evidence of the massive destruction in our country.

Just from fires and flooding over the last 2 years, there has been $400 billion worth of damage. None of that will ever be heard out here. None of it was heard in a committee because the Republican leader is making a sham of this process. This is not the serious process this incredible issue deserves. The United Nations has made it clear that climate change is now an existential threat to our country and to the planet.

Notwithstanding the incredible damage that is being done to our planet, the Republicans' concern is that the Green New Deal is an existential threat to the Koch brothers, to ExxonMobil, and to all of those polluting companies that do not want to end business as usual. The Republican leader does not want a hearing at which we will learn that we now have 350,000 people who are in the wind and solar industries and that we have 350,000 blue-collar jobs--electricians, roofers, steelworkers--in our country. The Green New Deal would supercharge that even more to our having millions of clean energy jobs in our country.

We can save all of creation by engaging in massive job creation, which is the core of the Green New Deal, and we can do it in a way that ensures we protect people in our country. We have gone now from 80,000 solar jobs to 240,000 solar jobs in just the last 10 years. We have gone from 2,500 all-electric vehicles to 1 million all-electric vehicles in just 10 years. There have been 500,000 new electric vehicles sold this year in the United States--1 year--after only having 2,000 of them sold 10 years ago. We went from 1,000 megawatts of solar capacity to 65,000 megawatts in 2018. That is a revolution in 10 years. We have gone from 25,000 megawatts of wind to 98,000 megawatts of wind in 10 years.

That is the revolution the Koch brothers are afraid of, and that is the revolution the polluters want to stop because it is the existential threat to their business model. That is what the fight is all about out here--the Koch brothers v. the Green New Deal. It is one business model against another, and our business model is the job creation engine of this generation for blue-collar jobs.

Now, who paid for the Republican study that they all came out on the floor to use? It was paid for by the Koch brothers. They put together what they believe are the costs of the Green New Deal. This was not some private, independent group. The Koch brothers themselves paid for the study that the Republicans have used out here on the floor.

The hearings, if the majority leader had ever ordered them to have been conducted, would have just picked out some of the items regarding how much harm had been done to our planet and to our own country in the last 2 years--$24 billion from western wildfires in 2018, $24 billion from Hurricane Michael, $24 billion from Hurricane Florence, $18 billion from western wildfires in 2017, $91 billion from Hurricane Maria, and on and on and on--Hurricane Harvey, $127.5 billion.

This is all climate related. We pay the price for this. There is no exempting America from having to pick up the costs. Shouldn't we be investing in job creation? Shouldn't we be investing in this incredible change that is already taking place in our economy?

The Green New Deal is not just a resolution; it is a revolution that is taking place across our country. That is why people are rising up all across our country. It is because they know we can do this and because they know this is a job-creation engine that absolutely can create millions of jobs and that can absolutely begin the process of having America, once again, be the leader on this issue.

The denier in chief sits in the White House. The denier in chief addressed the United States at the State of the Union for an hour and 20 minutes just 7 weeks ago, but he did not mention climate change and did not mention clean energy jobs. That is why we are in this fight. We are in the fight because, if we don't lead, the rest of the world will not follow. You cannot preach temperance from a barstool. You can't tell China and you can't tell India what to do if you yourself are not leading. We are the United States of America.

President Kennedy challenged our country to have a mission to the Moon. He said in his speech at Rice University that we would have to invent new metals, new alloys, and propulsion systems that did not exist. He said we would have to bring that mission safely back from the Moon through heat that was half the intensity of the Sun and get it completed within 10 years. We did that as a nation. We can do this as well. We can deploy these technologies; we can invent new technologies; and we can create millions of jobs within our country because we are bold--because we are a country that can do it.

The President is, for all intents and purposes, John F. Kennedy in reverse. He says we can't do it. He says we should not accept this challenge. Ladies and gentlemen, the Green New Deal is our accepting the challenge, and we are looking forward to this debate today and every day until election day of 2020. We are going to inject this issue into the Presidential and congressional races of 2020 in a way that ensures that unlike in 2016, when Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were not asked a single question about climate change, the candidates will be asked every day about what their plans are.

We say to the Republican leader: Do you believe in the science? Do you believe it is an existential threat? If you do, where is your plan? Where is the Republican plan to deal with the science of climate change?

If you do not believe it is a threat, then, say it. If you do not believe the science, then, say it. But if you do believe the science, then, all we say to you is this: Where is your plan to deal with this challenge?

President Kennedy responded to the challenge of the Soviet Union controlling outer space, and we succeeded. What is the plan of this Republican era to deal with the challenge of climate, an existential threat to our planet?

We thank you for your attention.

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