Grand Canyon Centennial Protection Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. GOSAR. Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise in opposition to H.R. 1373, the so-called Grand Canyon Centennial Protection Act. It is an antimining attack on northern Arizona and my district.

This legislation imposes a massive land grab of more than one million acres, permanently banning mining and other multiple-use activities in an area nearly the size of Delaware. The withdrawal is also, I would like to point out, very far outside the Grand Canyon. The actual Grand Canyon, of course, is already subject to a multitude of Federal protections.

Around one-third of the proposed withdrawal area in this bill is in my district. The rest is in Representative O'Halleran's district. And none of the lands in this bill are in the sponsor of this bill, Representative Grijalva's, district.

This bill would have direct negative impacts on six counties in Arizona and Utah, with an estimated two to 4,000 jobs lost and $29 billion in foregone overall economic activity. The withdrawal area also contains 4,204 acres belonging to the Arizona State Land Department for the benefit of Arizona's school children. This withdrawal will mean hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue for local communities and for our schools. I think every single school district is hurting for money in Arizona.

Further, the majority of the active and historic mining claims are in my district, and the main point of this bill is to lock up those lands for mineral development.

I said that this is an attack on northern Arizona, and that is true, but that is not all. This bill is a specific, targeted attempt to prevent access to the highest grade and largest quantity of uranium reserves in the country. In doing so, this legislation has serious defense and energy security implications for the entire Nation.

Uranium is a uniquely valuable element. It is a source of renewable energy and also an irreplaceable application in defense and medicine. And yet, domestic uranium production in 2018 was 33 percent lower than in 2017. This year those numbers are likely to be even worse. Our domestic industry is disappearing. If nothing is done, it will be completely gone in just a few years. Look at what has happened with our timber industry in Arizona. We have completely wiped out the mechanism, and now we are victims of catastrophic wildfires.

During consideration of this bill in committee, my colleagues across the aisle claimed that we source most of our uranium from allies like Canada and Australia. But they neglected to mention that a Canadian mine, which provided 15 percent of the global uranium supply, closed just last year. An Australian mine is scheduled to stop operations in 2021 after 40 years of mining.

But why is this? Why is our domestic industry struggling to stay in business and the uranium supply from our friends in Canada and Australia shrinking?

Well, the largest uranium producer in the world is Kazakhstan, and together with Russia and Uzbekistan, these countries have been deliberately trying to ``corner'' the global market. Yes, I said it. Corner the global market. They are pushing the price of uranium down to artificially low levels and driving competitors in the United States and elsewhere out of business. In fact, China is joining in it too, buying up mines in Namibia.

We currently import about 97 percent of our uranium from foreign sources. As of 2018, the majority of our uranium imports now come from hostile nations like Russia. This is not always the case, but the problem has gotten worse and worse over time, especially in recent years. I think all of us here today should consider that very alarming.

Now, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have cited concerns about water quality as a reason to prevent mining in the withdrawal area. But, in fact, successful uranium mining occurred in the 1980s. These mines were reclaimed so well that you can't tell where they have even existed. There was no damage done to the Grand Canyon watershed. In fact, they may have improved the watershed. And due to the small footprint of a typical breccia pipe operation, usually less than 40 acres, even if every mining claim in the area became a mine, only a small fraction of the withdrawal area would be affected.

Keep in mind that this is an area where mining and other multiple-use activities can coexist. In fact, a thoroughly-negotiated compromise to do just that was created by the Arizona Wilderness Act of 1984, supported by the entire Arizona and Utah delegations. 387,000 acres of land was added to the National Wilderness Preservation System in exchange for 540 acres to be available for multiple use, including mining.

Unfortunately, some of the environmental groups involved in that compromise have forgotten why it was made. Attempts to withdraw this area have returned with very strong opposition from my constituents and residents of northern Arizona.

There is no question that H.R. 1373 will hurt local revenues, kill jobs, and undermine American energy security. It is opposed by the people of my district, and I urge my colleagues to join me in opposition.

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Mr. GOSAR. Madam Chairwoman, I want to explain. This is a cross- section of geological formations. These yellow areas are called the breccia pipes. What ends up happening is these alluvial fans actually direct water. Uranium is water soluble. This is the Grand Canyon down here. This is where the springs come through. So what ends up happening is it dissolves into water, and it comes into the water.

So it seems like to me, what we would want to do is get rid of that so there was not a perpetual leaching into the subsurface water. Geology tells us a lot.

Madam Chairwoman, I yield 4\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock).

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Mr. GOSAR. Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I might consume.

Madam Chair, I thank the gentlewoman from Arizona (Mrs. Kirkpatrick) for acknowledging that.

We are going to go back to learning about geology. Once again, we have these breccia pipes, and you can see them on this location on the platform here.

Now, let's look at something that naturally occurs in the next picture. What do you think this is? This is an exposed breccia pipe next to an alluvial fan.

This is exactly what she was talking about. When water and air get to this, it immerses it into the water and carries it down.

This is a concentrated supply of uranium. Wouldn't it be better to mine that area? That is what we have to get after. It is safe; it is effective; and it will show some mitigation.

Madam Chair, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Westerman).

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Mr. GOSAR. Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I might consume.

Madam Chair, it is great that the gentleman brought this up. So once again, let's go back to our geological timeframe.

This water cuts through. This is the Grand Canyon. This is the shelf that you go over and look over at the beautiful, majestic aspect of the river.

Look at what we have cut across, these breccia pipes. Once again, this is exposure. It is water-soluble, air-soluble. It goes back into the watershed.

Once again, we are talking about up here, where mitigation should be very, very important.

Madam Chair, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Stauber). He has been a stalwart person in regard to the mining industry; that it is a way of life in northern Minnesota.

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Mr. GOSAR. Madam Chair, may I inquire as to how much time I have.

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Mr. GOSAR. Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Chair, once again, let's look at mitigation. The previous speaker on our side, Mr. Stauber from Minnesota, actually talked about it.

Well, here is an active mine site called the Pigeon Mine. This is what it looked like: a footprint of less than 40 acres; right around 30 acres. And this is it, newly minted right as it was done for reclamation. In 2 years, you are not going to be able to find anything here.

Once again, look at what we are dealing with here. This is an exposed breccia pipe. Any water, any rain, any snow, any air will actually dissolve this and put it in the air--not just uranium, but arsenic as well. These are eroded away.

Once again, geology teaches you everything you need to know. Once again, all these breccia pipes are built here.

Here is the Grand Canyon. We are not doing anything here. But look at the exposure here for the uranium leaching into the subsurface and into the Colorado River--not just that, but arsenic as well.

Look at what we are mining up on here, protecting and clearing that out. And you can see that their mitigation is exemplary.

Eighty years ago, we abandoned a bunch of mines, but a lot of Federal Government was to blame about that.

We also heard the dissertation in regards to the park could generate all sorts of other revenue. Well, the last time I looked, the park wasn't generating; they were going in the negative. In fact, the backlog on maintenance is over $12 billion.

The government doesn't run these very, very well, and this is a great opportunity for multiple use. It actually cleans the water, improves the drainage into the subsurface water, and gets to a problem with a solution that works and has been trusted.

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Mr. GOSAR. Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Chair, once again, geology tells us everything we need to know. Once again, the gentlewoman actually talked about the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Once again, I feel sorry for the public being misused and used like pawns by the other side about the misnomer.

Once again, the Grand Canyon--this is the Grand Canyon. There is nothing going on right here. Oh, I forgot. Water runs down, dissolves uranium and arsenic, and puts it into the water.

What we are talking about is mitigation on this plateau. This is outside the Grand Canyon experience. This is what is so important is that this is helping out the health and the strength of the purity of water. That is the key here.

Not only that, but the last time I knew, Arizona fights over water because we have to drink whiskey. We want clean water here, so we are enabling, actually, clean water here.

Once again, there are dozens of fights for the conversation we are having today. The American people are being used like pawns. They don't know what is right. Go back to geology. The geology sets you free.

You have seen the mitigation. Yes, 80 years ago, there wasn't great mitigation. That was a big part of the U.S. Government and its oversight. But now, there is great opportunity for this to happen. We are not talking about the Grand Canyon. It is outside on the plateau.

Once again, as these are exposed through erosion, you have contamination of subsurface water. It seems to me like we should actually clean it up.

The other thing I keep hearing about is we have got plenty of supplies. Well, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are so narrow-sided that they forgot about: How did China actually grow to own the world market of rare earths? I mean, think about that. In order to have a cell phone, you have got to have these critical minerals and rare earths.

In the trade debate, what did China threaten us with? Withholding rare earths.

Why do we have some of our leading battery technology over in China? Because we didn't have supply chains here.

The other side talks about globalization. Well, let's talk about globalization. Nobody--let me repeat--nobody--in the world does mining like the U.S. No one does it under the same protections, and the same protections for the workers--nobody.

And if we are talking about globalization, which always keeps coming out of the other side's mouth, well, then we ought to be bringing all this home so that we are the entrepreneur, we are the one forcing this issue, and we are the one who controls our own destiny.

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Mr. GOSAR. Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Chair, once again, the gentleman made my point perfectly for me: This is about people.

There is mitigation. We are holding people accountable. They are empowered because now we are controlling the energy cycle. We are not indentured to another country like China or Russia.

We are looking at the long series, making sure that we control our own destiny. That was the American experience. And we are accountable. That is key.

So when you look at mitigation like this, you can't dispute it. You are not entitled to your own facts. The facts are what they are.

So there is a way forward and a way forward to do this right, and it is being presented right here. The answer is not ``no''; it is about what it takes to get to ``yes.'' This bill is totally wrong for that very format.

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Mr. GOSAR. Madam Chair, may I inquire as to how much time I have.

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Mr. GOSAR. Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Chair, I include in the Record a list of organizations that are opposed to this bill; a Statement of Administration Policy threatening to veto this bill if it were even to get through; a letter from the Uranium Producers of America in strong opposition to the bill; an article from The Epoch Times, dated September of 2019, basically talking about the U.S. needs alternatives to China's rare earth monopoly, once again, a stranglehold. Western Caucus, Chairman Paul Gosar Opposition to H.R. 1373

So far H.R. 1373 is opposed by: American Exploration & Mining Association (Group Letter), Arizona Liberty (Group Letter), Arizona Mining Association (Group Letter), Arizona Pork Producers (Group Letter), Arizona Rock Products Association (Group Letter), Citizens For America (Group Letter), Conservative Coalition of Northern Arizona (Group Letter), Conservatives for Property Rights (Letter), Denver Lumber Company (Letter), enCore Energy Corp (Letter), Lake Havasu Chamber of Commerce (Letter); the Mohave County Supervisors (Resolution), National Mining Association (Letter), National Stone, Sand & Gravel Association (Letter), New Mexico Cattle Growers' Association (Letter), New Mexico Federal Lands Council (Letter), New Mexico Wool Growers Association (Letter), Western Energy Alliance (Group Letter). ____ Statement of Administration Policy H.R. 1373--Grand Canyon Centennial Protection Act--Rep. Grijalva, D-AZ, and 122 cosponsors

The Administration strongly opposes H.R. 1373, the Grand Canyon Centennial Protection Act. This bill would permanently make more than 1 million acres of Federal lands in Arizona off limits to development and uses that would otherwise be permissible under Federal laws governing public lands, mining, mineral, and geothermal leasing. The Administration opposes such a large, permanent withdrawal, which would prohibit environmentally responsible development, as determined through site-specific analysis, of uranium and other mineral resources.

The United States has an extraordinary abundance of mineral resources, both onshore and offshore, but this legislation would restrict our ability to access critical minerals like uranium in an area known to have them in large supply. Moreover, the size of the withdrawal included in H.R. 1373 is inconsistent with the Administration's goal of striking the appropriate balance for use of public lands described in two executive orders. This withdrawal would conflict with the objectives set forth in Executive Order 13783, Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth, and Executive Order 13817, A Federal Strategy to Ensure Secure and Reliable Supplies of Critical Minerals. Development of our Nation's mineral resources is essential to ensuring the Nation's geopolitical security, and this bill would not help us achieve that goal.

If H.R. 1373 were presented to the President, his advisors would recommend that he veto it. ____ Uranium Producers of America, Santa Fe, New Mexico, October 28, 2019. Hon. Raul Grijalva, Chairman, House Natural Resources Committee, Washington, DC. Hon. Rob Bishop, Ranking Member, House Natural Resources Committee, Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Grijalva and Ranking Member Bishop: On behalf of the Uranium Producers of America (UPA), I write to express our strong opposition to H.R. 1373, the Grand Canyon Centennial Protection Act. The permanent mineral withdrawal imposed by H.R. 1373 unnecessarily eliminates access to significant known deposits of uranium, rare earth elements, and other critical minerals.

UPA is a national trade association representing the domestic uranium mining and conversion industries. UPA members conduct uranium exploration, development, and mining operations in Arizona, Colorado, Nebraska, New Mexico, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming. UPA members operate valuable, high-grade uranium deposits that provide quality, high-paying jobs, tax revenues, and produce clean energy for the citizens of the United States. UPA's mission is to promote the viability of the nation's uranium industry, while being good stewards of the environments in which we work and live.

H.R. 1373's permanent withdrawal of over one million acres of federal land from mineral development ignores the comprehensive suite of federal, state, and local environmental regulations that apply to the mining process, from exploration and production to reclamation and closure. H.R. 1373 disregards the well-documented success of mine reclamation in the withdrawal area and the fact that all federal lands within Grand Canyon National Park were already withdrawn from the Mining Law when the park was created. Moreover, the U.S. Geological Survey estimates that there are significant undiscovered uranium resources in the withdrawal area, but the mineral assessment required as part of the current moratorium has not yet begun. This means H.R. 1373 would permanently strand resources without an informed understanding of the economic value of the deposits and the national security impact of their permanent withdrawal.

Ensuring responsible access to uranium deposits on federal land is a crucial component of ensuring the long-term viability of the domestic uranium industry, the survival of which is vital to energy and national security. Despite the existence of vast deposits, domestic producers forecast 2019 production to plummet below one percent of what is required to power our commercial nuclear reactors, which is not enough uranium to power even one of our nation's 98 reactors. These reactors produce approximately 20 percent of the electricity for the U.S. power grid, representing the world's largest commercial nuclear fleet and supplying more than half of the carbon-free power in the United States. In addition, international agreements require domestically-sourced uranium to meet our defense requirements, including our nuclear weapons and the nuclear-powered Navy.

H.R. 1373 is particularly objectionable at a time the United States is at risk of losing its domestic uranium industry and becoming completely reliant on imported uranium. Uranium imports from state-backed entities have created an uneven global playing field on which market-driven uranium companies in the United States are unable to compete. An increasing share of uranium imports into the United States are coming from government or state-controlled entities located in nations that are not aligned with U.S. interests. While free market companies are forced to adapt to market conditions, state-backed entities within the Russian sphere of influence (RSOI) have ignored the market, increased their total supply, and added further downward pressure to prices. U.S. uranium companies are not competing with free market companies in the RSOI; they are competing with governments more concerned about increasing market share, and geopolitical advantage, than profitability.

We urge you to vote against H.R. 1373 and instead prioritize policies to revive and expand domestic uranium mining, nuclear fuel production and the provision of clean energy in the United States. Sincerely, Jon J. Indall, Counsel for UPA. ____ [From the Epoch Times, September 8, 2019] US Needs Alternatives to China's Rare Earth Monopoly (By James Gorrie)

As the trade war goes on, China threatens to deprive the US of critical elements its economy and its military can't do without.

Many consider China's vast portfolio of U.S. Treasuries as their not-so-secret weapon in the ongoing trade war. And it some ways. that is certainly true. China could decide to liquidate much or all of its U.S. bond holdings in response to rising tariff, and use other tactics. like currency devaluation.

But such a move would damage their economy along with America's. The Chinese are smarter than that. China State Media Hints at Embargo

Besides. the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has another. more tangible ace up its sleeve. As unbelievable as it sounds. China holds a near global monopoly on the supply--or more accurately. the processing capacity--of rare earth elements (REE).

Should China decide to impose an embargo against the sale of REEs to the United States, the American economy and the U.S. military would be scrambling to replace them, at least in the short run. That's not overstating this situation, by the way. As Foreign Policy magazine recently observed. ``Beijing could slam every comer of the American economy. from oil refineries to wind turbines to jet engines. by banning exports of crucial minerals.'' The list of REE- critical products includes smartphones. special alloys. navigation systems, and much more. China, of course. is well aware of this. In fact. China's state-run media have been promoting an embargo, or leveraging the threat of one. in response to the U.S. tariffs on Chinese products. and specifically. against the U.S. blacklisting of Huawei. China's biggest telecom equipment manufacturer and a leader in 5G networks. Since all media in China is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). it's a certainty that this message is being sent to U.S. trade negotiators directly from the CCP. China Made This Play Before

If China docs stop selling REEs to the United States. it wouldn't be the first time they've played that card. In 2006. China began limiting its exports of REEs. reducing them by 40 percent until 2010. The reduction caused the prices of non- China-sourced REEs to skyrocket. China also took advantage of its market dominance and stopped selling to Japan in retribution for a maritime incident.

After the United States. along with Japan and Europe. prevailed against China in a WTO fight in 2015. China dramatically dropped its REE prices and drove the only active REE processing plant in the United States, Molycorp, into bankruptcy. At that time China produced 95 percent of the world's rare earth metals. How Did We Get Here?

But how has the U.S. allowed itself to be put in such bind? Wouldn't it make sense to have secured an American or at least a friendly source of these REEs on which so much of our military preparedness and our economy are reliant? Shouldn't that have been a priority, say, decades ago?

Actually. it was. But that changed in 1980. when rare earth mineral mining and processing came under the purview of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency. Regulatory guidelines became increasingly restrictive, driving up costs, steadily decreasing U.S. producers' competitiveness. By the mid-1990s, the U.S. was no longer producing REEs. Rare Earth Elements Aren't so Rare After All

Fortunately, REEs aren't rare at all. In fact, they're actually quite plentiful around the world, even in the United States. The 17 elements that are categorized as REEs have magnetic and conductive aspects and are typically unearthed as a result of mining operations. but most are present in only small amounts. There are few, if any. specific ``rare earth mines.'' The costs and health risks of producing REEs are in the processing. For instance. since toxins and radiation are a by-product of processing REEs. many Western nations' environmental and labor laws make processing them both costly and a health risk to miners. It has been easier much cheaper for other nations to let China produce them, since neither health codes nor environmental standards are significant factors there. An REE Shortage Crisis?

But the costs of allowing China to gain the upper hand in the world's supply of REEs are now becoming clear. If China does in fact restrict REE sales to the United States in the near future. it would certainly impact both the consumer product markets and the military.

The key question is, how long it would take to bridge the supply gap and find alternatives? One mitigating factor is Australian-based Lynas. the world's only major rare-earth producer outside of China. It has partnered with Texas-based Blue Line to establish U.S. operations by 2021. However, the United States still lacks any REE processing capacity, representing a critical and ongoing vulnerability in its military capabilities. But the news isn't all bad. The Mountain Pass mine in California is currently being prepared to ramp up REE processing operations by 2020. Coincidentally. Mountain Pass was previously owned by Molycorp, which had invested over $1.5 billion in the processing project. before being forced out of business by China in 2015. The critical role that REEs play in both military and consumer products is impossible to overstate. The U.S. economy is dependent upon a steady and dependable supply. If America is to be successful in its bid to roll back China's power and influence over the rest of the world. ensuring its own supply of strategic REE is not just an option. it's a necessity.

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Mr. GOSAR. Once again, let's go back. Let's look at the geology. The geology tells us everything that we need to know.

We need to understand the minerals. The minerals are water soluble. These are condensed pipes, vertically. What is happening is that, as water runs--and this is a lot of sedimentary rock. That is why the Grand Canyon is so deep.

When it runs over these breccia pipes, like we have talked about, they are exposed naturally. Prior to that, they are covered with what they call a sulfite cap. But once they are exposed--and you can see this under the Grand Canyon experience--you walk over these breccia pipes. You walk over them. They are exposed naturally.

Don't you think it is wise to remove these? It is a good concentration. It keeps the supply chain in.

And if you get rid of our only mining uranium concentrator, it doesn't come back. It won't come back. And then you sold your soul to China and you sold your soul to Russia, because they own the monopoly.

That is what is wrong here.

Last, but not least, we also have to make sure that multiple-use is put down forward. We are stewards of that--we, as Congress.

Public lands were taken aside by the Federal Government from the States in a joint tenancy, that they would be vested properly for the best use, the best investment, and the best return. The last time I have been watching, we have been actually denigrating that.

When is enough enough? Arizona has more national monuments than any other State in the country.

Congress then told the people that we will give payment in lieu of taxes. We have had to beg for every penny that we get. That is wrong. This contract is about, yes, you can do all this. You can clean up mine sites that were left before.

And don't get me started on the Bennett Freeze, by the way. The Federal Government put an arbitrary line, that you can't do anything under that Bennett Freeze line. Wow, that is wonderful. Thank the Federal Government for that. That is amazing, and particularly a lot of the mine shafts that have been exposed from that very era.

Once again, this is about common sense, facts. We have disputed everything that they have talked about. This is a natural formation. It is millions upon millions upon millions of years old. As that water runs down, as that air runs down, we contaminate it with low levels of uranium. Wouldn't it be better if we actually got rid of that and actually got better and more clean water, clean of uranium and arsenic?

That is an important process here. That is where we are actually helping people out. People benefit from it.

Once again, here is a breccia pipe exposed, not by man but by nature. You are walking all over it.

Once again, you see this alluvial fan where water runs. What do you think it is running over? What do you think it is dripping down through? What do you think is dissolving in there?

Madam Chair, this isn't rocket science, but it is not an emotional one either. It is an articulated, scientific argument.

Once again, the mitigation, I could take somebody up here and nobody could find this mine site now. This is after immediate resolution on it. But what is different about this than 80 years ago is that we are holding people accountable. The government failed at that before. We have seen this type of mitigation over and over again.

In the Resolution Copper mine down in southern Arizona, we have seen an investment of almost $1 billion by the mining company to mitigate a previously mined area. It is beautiful. It is absolutely beautiful. I want people to go see it. I want them to try the water. It is pristine. It is cleaner than they found it.

That is good stewardship. That is utilizing the things that were given to us to make this country and technology grow. That is the opportunity that we have.

Arbitrarily just taking things off back and forth, that is not the right way to go.

Talking about the indigenous people there, well, it is sad when we use them as pawns, when we have a press conference and they don't even know what they are coming to the press conference for. That is sad.

America needs to wake up. This has nothing to do with the Grand Canyon. This has everything to do with monopolization and removing part of the segment that we promised future generations for that investment. That is what we have done. That is what the other side wants to do.

There is a way forward, responsibly, clean, and proper.

Madam Chair, I would like to have all of my colleagues vote against this measure. Once again, the President issued a SAP that he will not sign the bill, and it will die in the Senate.

Once again, this is a messaging bill. It is sad that we are bombarding everyone with bad facts. Spend time looking at the facts. Geology, the rocks, set you free. I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. GOSAR. Madam Chair, I include in the Record this document.

It is titled ``Why I Changed My Mind About Nuclear Power.''

It details very clearly and wisely why nuclear power and its supply chains are very important. [From Environmental Progress, September 12, 2019] Why I Changed My Mind About Nuclear Power: Transcript of Michael Shellenberger's TEDx Berlin 2017--November 21, 2017 (By Michael Shellenberger)

Like a lot of kids born in the early 1970s, I had the good fortune to be raised by hippies. One of my childhood heroes was Stewart Brand. Stewart is not only one of the original hippies, he's also one of the first modern environmentalists of the 1960s and 70s. As a young boy, one of my favorite memories is playing cooperative games that Stewart Brand invented as an antidote to the Vietnam War.

I'm from a long line of Christian Pacifists known as Mennonites. Every August, as kids, we would remember the US government's atomic bombing of Japan by lighting candles and sending them on paper boats at Bittersweet Park.

After high school, throughout college, and afterwards, I brought delegations of people to Central America to promote diplomacy and peace and to support local farmer cooperatives in Guatemala and Nicaragua.

Over time, as I've travelled around the world and visited small farming communities on every continent, I've come to appreciate that most young people don't want to be stuck in the village. They don't want to spend their whole lives chopping and hauling wood. They want to go to the city for opportunity--at least most of them them do--for education and for work.

What I've realized is that process of urbanization of moving to the city is actually very positive for nature. It allows the natural environment to come back. It allows for the central African Mountain Gorilla, an important endangered species, to have the habitat they need to survive and thrive.

In that process you have to go vertical, and so even in places like Hong Kong you can see that with tall buildings they can spare the natural environment around the city.

Of course, it takes a huge amount of energy to go up, and so the big question of our time is how do you get plentiful, reliable electricity without destroying the climate?

I started out as an anti-nuclear activist and I quickly got involved in advocating for renewable energy. In the early part of this century I helped to start a labor union and environmentalist alliance called the Apollo Alliance and we pushed for a big investment in clean energy: solar, wind, electric cars.

The investment idea was eventually picked up by President Obama, and during his time in office we invested about $150 billion to make solar, wind and electric cars much cheaper than they were.

We seemed to be having a lot of success but we were starting to have some challenges. Some of them you're familiar with. Solar and wind generate electricity in Germany just 10 to 30 percent of the time, and so we're dependent on the weather for electricity.

There were other problems we were noticing, though. Sometimes these energy sources generate too much power and while you hear a lot of hype about batteries we don't have sufficient storage even in California, where we have a lot of investment and a lot of Silicon Valley types putting a lot of investment in battery and other storage technologies.

While we were struggling with these problems, Stewart Brand came out in 2005 and said we should rethink nuclear power. This was a shock to the system for me and my friends. Stewart was one of the first big advocates of solar energy anywhere during the early 1970s. He advised Governor Jerry Brown of California.

But he said, look, we've been trying to do solar for a long time and yet we get less than a half of a percent of our electricity globally from solar, about two percent from wind, and the majority of our clean energy comes from nuclear and hydro.

And according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, nuclear produces four times less carbon emissions than solar does. That's why they recommended in their recent report the more intensive use of renewables, nuclear and carbon capture and storage.

Let's take a closer look at Germany. Germany gets the majority of its electricity and all of its transportation fuels from fossil fuels. Last year Germany got 40 percent of its electricity from coal, 13 percent from nuclear, 12 percent from natural gas, 12 percent from wind, and six percent from solar.

Keep in mind that you don't just have to go from 18 percent solar and wind to 100 percent solar and wind. To replace the entire transportation sector with electric cars you'd need to go from 18 percent renewables to something like 150 percent. Germany's done a lot to invest in renewables and innovate with solar and wind, but that's a pretty steep climb--even before you get to the question of storage.

Let's look at last year, Germany installed four percent more solar panels but generated three percent less electricity from solar.

Even when I'm in meetings with energy experts and I ask people if they can make a guess as to why they think that is, and you'd be shocked by how many energy experts have no idea.

The reason is just that it wasn't very sunny last year in Germany.

Well, that probably meant that it was windier, right? Because if it's not as sunny then maybe there's more wind and those things can balance each other out?

In truth, Germany installed 11 percent more wind turbines in 2016 but got two percent less of its electricity from wind. Same story. Just not very windy.

So then you might think, ``Well, we just need to do a lot of solar and wind so that when there's not a lot of sunlight or wind we can get more electricity from those energy sources.''

That's what Germany is trying to do. Its plan is to increase the amount of electricity it gets from solar by 50 percent by 2030, which would take you from 40 to 60 gigawatts.

But if you have a year like 2016, you'll still only be getting nine percent of your total electricity from solar. And this is the biggest solar country in the world. Germany is the powerhouse of renewables.

The obvious response is we'll just put it all in batteries. We hear so much talk about batteries. You would think that we just have a huge amount of storage.

Environmental Progress took a look at our home state of California and we discovered that we have just 23 minutes of storage for the grid--and to get that 23 minutes you'd have to use every battery in every car and truck in the state. (Which, as you can imagine, is not super practical if you're trying to get somewhere. And Germany might be a little different but not very different from California.)

Most people are aware that to make this transition to renewables, Germany has been spending a lot more on electricity. And German electricity prices rose about 50 percent over the last 10 years. Today, German electricity is about two times more expensive than electricity is in France.

You might think, look, that's a small price to pay to deal with climate change. And I would agree with that. Paying a bit more for energy--at least for those of us in the rich world--is a decent thing to do to avert the risk of catastrophic global warming.

But when you compare French and German electricity, France gets 93 percent of its electricity from clean energy sources, mostly hydro and nuclear while Germany gets just 46 percent, or about half as much clean energy.

Here's the shocking thing: German carbon emissions have gone up since 2009, and up over the last two years, and may go up again this year. And while German emissions have gone down since the 1990s, most of that is because, after reunification, Germany closed the inefficient coal plants from East Germany. Most of its emissions reductions are just due to that.

Let's look at last year. One of the ways you can reduce emissions quickly is by switching from coal to natural gas, which produces about half as much emissions. Coal to gas switching would have resulted in lower emissions except for the fact that Germany took nuclear reactors off-line. And when it did that, emissions went up again.

There's still question about the future: if we do a lot of solar and wind, won't it all work itself out?

One of the biggest challenges to solar and wind has come from somebody in Germany who is not a pro-nuclear person at all. He's an energy analyst and economist named Leon Hirth. What he finds is that the problem I described earlier--where you have too much solar or wind and you don't know what to do with it--reduces their economic value.

The value of wind drops 40 percent once it becomes 30 percent of your electricity, Hirth finds, and the value of solar drops by half when it gets to just 15 percent.

One of the things you hear is that we can do a solar roof fast--just one day to put up the thing--whereas it takes five or ten years to build a nuclear plant. And so people think that if we do solar and wind we can go a lot faster.

But the speed of deployment was the subject of an important article in the journal Science last year, which was coauthored by the climate scientist James Hansen. They found that even when you combine solar and wind you just get a lot less energy than when you do nuclear. That goes for Germany as well as the United States. They just compared ten years of deployment for the two technologies and it's a stark comparison.

Well, I can tell what you're thinking, because it's what I was thinking: it sounds like I might need to rethink my views of nuclear power. But what about Chernobyl? What about Fukushima? What about all the nuclear waste? Those are really reasonable questions to ask.

When I was starting to ask them, there were other people who were starting to change their minds. One of the ones I was most impressed by, and who was very influential, was George Monbiot.

Monbiot wrote a column shortly after Fukushima where he went through the scientific research on radiation and concluded, ``The anti-nuclear movement to which I once belonged has misled the world about the impacts of radiation on human health.''

I write some pretty harsh things sometimes, but this was a pretty strong column. He was talking to a lot of scientists who study radiation.

One top British scientist who studies radiation is Gerry Thomas. She started something called the Chernobyl Tissue Bank out of her concern for the accident. She's a totally independent professor of pathology at Imperial College in London.

I called her and said, ``I'd like to present on the science of radiation but I'm not a radiation scientist, so can I just steal your slides? If you let me, I'll put your picture on them.''

The first thing she points out is that most ionizing radiation--that's the kind of radiation that is potentially harmful that comes from a nuclear accident--is natural.

I was like, ``That sounds alright. I like natural foods. Natural radiation from hot springs.''

Gerry said, ``No, actually, natural radiation is just as potentially harmful as artificial radiation.''

What's striking is that the total amount of ionizing radiation we're exposed not just from Chernobyl and Fukushima but all of the atomic bomb testing in the sixties and 70s totals just 0.3 percent. Most of the radiation we're exposed to comes from the earth, the atmosphere, and the buildings around us.

Let's look at the big one: Chernobyl. This was the event that led me to be anti-nuclear and become an anti-nuclear activist.

The United Nations has overseen these very large research efforts involving hundreds of scientists around the world who do this research. So the possibility of somebody fudging the data or covering something up is pretty low in that environment, because there are so many credible scientists at different universities doing the research.

This was a pivotal moment for me. Chernobyl is the worst nuclear accident we've ever had. Some people say it's the worst accident we'll ever have. I don't need to make a statement that strong. But they literally had a nuclear reactor without a containment dome and it was on fire. It was just raining radiation down on everybody. It was a terrible accident.

But when they start counting bodies, what they come up with is 28 deaths from acute radiation syndrome, 15 deaths from thyroid cancer over the last 25 years. As horrible as it sounds, thyroid cancer is the best cancer to get because hardly anybody dies from it. It's highly treatable. You can have a surgery to remove the thyroid gland and take thyroxine, which is a synthetic substitute. In fact, most of the people who died were in remote rural areas where they couldn't get the treatment they needed.

If you take the 16,000 people who got thyroid cancer from Chernobyl, they estimate 160 of them will die from it. And it's not like they're dying of it right away. They'll die from it in old age. That's not to say it's okay, but it's to put it in some context.

And there's no evidence of any increase in thyroid cancer outside of the three nations most affected, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.

There's no evidence of an effect by Chernobyl on fertility, birth malformations, or infant mortality; nor for causing an increase in adverse pregnancy outcomes or still births; nor for any genetic effects.

I think this last one is the most striking thing: there's no evidence of any increase in nonthyroid cancer including among the cohort who put out the Chernobyl fire and cleaned it up afterwards.

I'm still surprised by this finding, and so I put the link to the web site on that slide, because I don't think you should take my word for it. Reading about Chernobyl was, for me, a big part of changing my mind.

What about Fukushima? It was the second worst nuclear disaster in history and a lot smaller than Chernobyl. There have been no deaths from radiation exposure, which is pretty amazing. Meanwhile, 1,500 people died being pulled out of nursing homes, hospitals--it was insane. It was a panic. The Japanese government shouldn't have done that. It violated every standard of what you're supposed to do an accident. You're supposed to shelter-in-place. In fact, by pulling people out of their homes and moving them around outside they actually exposed more people to more radiation.

And you have to put that in comparison of the other things that were going on, like the 15,000 to 20,000 dying instantly from drowning--pinned down by many different technologies, by the way--from that tsunami.

So while there was no increase in thyroid cancer, there was the stress and fear from believing you were contaminated despite the evidence showing that that wasn't the case at all.

Some scientists did an interesting study. They took a bunch of school children from France to Fukushima and had them wear dosimeters, which is what we call geiger counters now.

You can see here that when those kids go through the airport security system their radiation exposures spiked. When they flew from Paris to Tokyo on the airplane their radiation exposures spiked. They went through the French embassy's security system their radiation exposures spiked.

When they went to the city of Tomioka, which received a lot of radiation from the accident, it was just a tiny blip compared to the security systems.

Let's put this in an even larger context. If you live in a big city like London, Berlin, or New York, you increase your mortality risk by 2.8 percent, just from air pollution alone. If you live with someone who smokes cigarettes your mortality risk increases 1.7 percent.

But if you were someone who cleaned up Chernobyl, your mortality risk increased just one percent. That's just because there wasn't as much radiation exposure as people thought.

I'm from the state of Colorado in the United States where we have an annual exposure to radiation about the same as what people who live around Chernobyl get.

This is really basic science and is right there on their web site but nobody knows it. Only eight percent of Russians surveyed accurately predicted the death toll from Chernobyl, and zero percent accurately predicted the death toll from Fukushima.

Meanwhile, there are seven million premature deaths per year from air pollution and the evidence against particulate matter only gets stronger. That's why every major journal that looks at it concludes that nuclear is the safest way to make reliable electricity.

All of this leads to an uncomfortable conclusion--one that the climate scientist James Hansen came to recently: nuclear power has actually saved 1.8 million lives. That's not something you hear very much about.

What about the waste? This is the waste from a nuclear plant in the United States. The thing about nuclear waste is that it's the only waste from electricity production that is safely contained anywhere. All of the other waste for electricity goes into the environment including from coal, natural gas and--here's another uncomfortable conclusion-- solar panels.

There's no plan to recycle solar panels outside of the EU. That means that all of our solar in California will join the waste stream. And that waste contains heavy toxic metals like chromium, cadmium, and lead.

So how much toxic solar waste is there? Well, to get a sense for that, look at how much more materials are required to produce energy from solar and wind compared to nuclear. As a result, solar actually produces 200 to 300 times more toxic waste than nuclear.

What about weapons? If there were any chance that more nuclear energy increased the risk of nuclear war, I would be against it. I believe that diplomacy is almost always the right solution.

People say what about North Korea? Korea proves the point. In order to get nuclear power--and it's been this way for 50 years--you have to agree not to get a weapon. That's the deal.

South Korea wanted nuclear power. They agreed not to get a weapon. They don't have a weapon.

North Korea wanted nuclear power. I think they should have gotten it. We didn't let them have it, for a variety of reasons. They got a bomb. They are testing missiles that can hit Japan and soon will be able to hit California.

So if you're looking for evidence that nuclear energy leads to bombs you can't find it in Korea or anywhere else.

Where does that leave us? With some more uncomfortable facts. Like if Germany hadn't closed its nuclear plants, it's emissions would be 43 percent lower than they are today. And if you care about climate change, that's something you at least have to wrestle with--especially in light of the facts I've presented on the health impacts of different energy sources.

I'd like to close with a quote from somebody else who changed his mind about nuclear power, and somebody else who was a huge childhood hero for me, and that's Sting: ``If we're going to tackle global warming, nuclear power is the only way to generate massive amounts of power.''

Thank you for listening.

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