Climate Change

Floor Speech

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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I am here today for the 267th time to call this Chamber to wake up to the threat of climate change. My chart here is getting a little dog-eared with use.

Let me dive right in with a report from over 30 years ago that was presented to a major conference here in Washington, DC. On the very first page of this report it says:

Increases in atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other key gases . . . that are opaque to portions of the infrared spectrum result in the ``greenhouse effect'' or global warming. When short wavelength infrared radiation from the sun warms the earth's surface, and this heat is later radiated from the earth, some gases in the atmosphere are not transparent to the longer wavelength re- radiation, the heat does not escape, and the atmosphere becomes warmer, much as does the interior of a greenhouse.

That is a flawless description of climate change. I wonder who wrote it. Well, let me continue.

After some hedging about the state of the science and the uncertainty surrounding how much climate change could be attributed to humans at that point in time, this same report delves into the expected effects of climate change on our planet. It reads:

There is qualitative agreement among prognosticators that sea levels will rise, wetlands will flood, salt water will infuse fresh water supplies, and there will be changes in the distribution of tree and crop species and agricultural productivity.

Wow. That is really accurate. That is all the stuff we are actually seeing happen right now. Gosh, I wonder who wrote that. Let's continue on through the report.

A significant rise in sea levels will flood now habitable land in some countries. . . . Developed countries may be able to protect their cities, at least for some years, by building levees and dikes at a considerable cost to avoid major displacements of people and their economic bases.

We are also seeing that. Impressive--whoever wrote this report really got this quite accurately 30 years ago.

Let me go on with the report:

These same actions will affect wetlands and it may not be possible to protect both coastal and wetland areas.

Once you have built your dike, it pushes water out into wetland areas.

The report says:

Flooding will intrude into water supplies, such as coastal cities (e.g. Miami and New Orleans) . . . .

Wow. Who wrote this? This is good.

It continues:

Changes in temperature patterns will affect natural ecosystems by altering the distributions of species, and affecting forestry and silviculture. Under various scenarios, commonly harvested species will move north and try to grow in different soil types. Ranges of particular species are likely to change because trees in the southern part of the present range may die off much more quickly than they can propagate further north . . . .

This is all stuff we are seeing now--all predicted 30 years ago in this report. Wow. I wonder who wrote it.

I will continue quoting the report:

Similarly, crop lands will change. In present farm areas, there will be greater reliance on irrigation. The stress will depend on changes in precipitation patterns, which is now difficult (at best) to predict. Grain production will move north and productivity may fall because of differing soil types. Global warming could expand the northern range of livestock disease and pests . . . .

Still quoting from this report:

Global warming will affect snowfall patterns, hence melt, and affect water supplies. Most of California's water supplies are from snow melt and if snow is reduced to rain, or melts quickly during the winter, water supplies in the summer will be less than now.

Wow. Thirty years ago they predicted all of that. That is really impressive. Fast forward to today, and that is exactly what we are seeing. All of it is underway already. Sea level rise is already happening. The tide gauge in Naval Station Newport, in my home State of Rhode Island, shows over 10 inches of sea level rise over the last century. Temperatures are up globally, with some areas measuring increases well above 2 degrees Celsius. Wildlife and plants are indeed shifting away from the equator, like the maple trees whose range is creeping out of the United States toward Canada. And, of course, we have seen water tables continue to drop as temperatures rise and snowpack dwindles.

Wow. This report was so accurate. Who wrote it?

Well, let's look for a minute at the prescriptions that the report lays out. What should we do about this problem it describes so accurately? Those prescriptions are pretty good for 30 years ago, too. Here is what its authors reckon typical, sensible governments would do in response to climate change:

(1) Reduce the emissions of CO2 by reducing the use or mix of fossil fuels; (2) Reduce the emissions of potential pollutants; (3) Improve energy efficiency; (4) Ban or restrict the manufacture of certain chemicals; and (5) Seek to affect the natural emissions of key chemical compounds.

Wow. Indeed, governments around the world have adopted these policies. There are dozens of carbon pricing regimes in place, including in some of our biggest global competitors, like the program China is rolling out this year. There are comprehensive energy efficiency programs and bans on climate-damaging chemicals like HFCs and global efforts to harness natural processes like growing trees to sequester carbon.

That is really good prescription, whoever wrote it. This rigorous analysis was so good that its authors eagerly thrust it into the hands of political leaders here in the United States. Not only did the authors present it to the Symposium on Industrial Development and Climate Change in May 1989, but they submitted it to the U.S. House of Representatives at a hearing on the same day. In the hearing, the authors condemned the House committee on climate-related legislation and expressed support for ``coordinat[ing] federal research and national global climate change policy efforts.''

So who was it? Who was this sensible, forward-thinking group that lauded a smart bill 30 years ago that was designed to prepare us for climate change? Who was it over 30 years ago who presented all of these sound findings and recommendations to international business leaders and to Members of Congress? Who was it? Hold your breath. It was the U.S. Chamber of Commerce--the biggest, most powerful trade group in Washington and one of the biggest obstructors of climate action in Washington today, according to the nonpartisan watchdog Influence Map.

Here is a chart showing the big corporate players in Washington on climate. The good guys are over here on the green side, and the bad guys are over here on the red side. The worst is that climate miscreant, Marathon Petroleum, that is busy messing around with electronic vehicle taxes and messing around with vehicle fuel efficiency standards. Yet, right here, lined up with Phillips 66, the Southern Company, and Marathon Petroleum, is--boom--the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. It is way over on the far side of climate obstruction and denial.

As Influence Map's Dylan Tanner testified last fall, ``The U.S. Chamber of Commerce . . . is likely the most authoritative voice of American business,'' and it has been one of the most ardent opponents of climate action.

It is just gross. The chamber knew about this problem early on. It took its own sound climate report to business leaders and to the U.S. Congress in the 1980s. It described then what we are seeing now. It described then what it has denied since then. It made recommendations that we are still pushing for now. It was poised back then, in the 1980s, to be a part of the solution to climate change--to get onto this problem early before it metastasized into the climate crisis we experience today.

Instead, here is what the chamber did: It opposed one comprehensive climate bill after another in Congress. It opposed them all--the bipartisan cap and trade bill in 2005, the Energy Policy Act. The chamber sent out a Key Vote Alert signal that whoever voted in favor of the bill could face an onslaught of political attacks in the next election. That is another feature of the chamber's climate obstruction.

It runs TV ads against candidates who might do something about the climate. Here are some hot moments from some of its climate attack ads: If we were to do anything about climate change, obviously, you would be freezing in your bed, wearing your coat while in a sleeping bag with your covers. Clearly, you would have to cook your breakfast over candles, in a tin can, and you would have to walk to work.

That is its crooked, political electioneering image of what doing something about climate change would mean for Americans. There is its logo, proudly, on that whole pack of lies.

In 2007, the chamber ran political TV ads against climate legislation, making all of those threats: People would be prevented from heating their homes. People wouldn't be able to drive to work. People would cook over candles.

Then, in 2009, the chamber led the charge against the Waxman-Markey bill. The chamber tanked Waxman-Markey, and since then, the Republicans in Congress have refused to hold hearings on, to mark up, to debate, or to vote on any legislation that proposes a policy framework for economy-wide reductions in carbon pollution. We have a lost decade, in significant respects, thanks to the misbehavior of the chamber of commerce--the largest, most powerful lobbying force in our country.

The chamber doesn't just try to beat climate action in Congress; the chamber also has fought climate action in the courts, and it has fought climate action in the agencies of the executive branch. Here are some lowlights of chamber mischief:

In 2010, the chamber sued the EPA and sought to overturn the finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare. Disabling the endangerment finding would cripple the EPA's ability to regulate carbon under the Clean Air Act. When the courts rejected the chamber's lawsuit, the chamber became central command for corporate lawyers, coal lobbyists, and Republican political strategists who devised the legal schemes to fight climate regulations. This produced another chamber lawsuit to block the Clean Power Plan to reduce carbon pollution from powerplants.

Of course, once President Trump took office, the chamber switched from defense and obstruction to offense and began attacking Obama administration rules that limited carbon pollution. The chamber even funded the phony report that President Trump used as his justification for leaving the Paris accord. That is the contribution to this of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. It authored 30 years ago the report that I read from. It made the recommendations 30 years ago about fixing this problem. Then it turned into this climate obstruction, political monster.

Worst of all, the chamber has been fighting science itself. It actually proposed putting the evidence of climate change on trial in what its own officials branded as the ``Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century.'' The chamber said the trial ``would be evolution versus creationism.'' Of course, the chamber has been the 800-pound gorilla in elections that every Member of Congress and candidate for Congress knows all too well.

The 2010 Citizens United decision allowed what we call outside groups, anonymous groups, to spend unlimited sums on electioneering activities. In the wake of that decision, the chamber has funneled, roughly, $150 million into congressional races--$150 million. This makes the U.S. Chamber of Commerce the largest spender of undisclosed donations on congressional races--the largest spender of what we call dark money on congressional races.

If you dare cross the chamber or don't subscribe to its climate denial-climate obstruction point of view, you risk its running an ad against you like this ad, which was run against a U.S. Senate candidate in Pennsylvania in 2016. This is toward the end of the ad, and the theory of the ad is that the candidate is so determined to tax energy that she is going to tax the energy of these women's children who are running around on a playground.

Here are two moms on a playground who are watching their children run around, and the setup is: Oh, wow. How energetic Johnny and Billy are. Oh, but don't you know? The Senate campaign is going to tax their energy.

``Run, Jimmy. Run'' is the punch line.

Classy.

So what gives? How did the chamber go from being the sensible climate realist to the hardened climate obstructor?

The answer is pretty simple--fossil fuel money.

As Influence Map's Dylan Tanner told us at our hearing, big trade groups like the chamber tend to adopt the lowest common denominator positions on climate of their most oppositional members. For the chamber, that lowest common denominator is Big Oil and other fossil fuel giants.

Fossil fuel uses the chamber as its tool to defend--at all costs-- what the International Monetary Fund estimates as being a $650 billion subsidy in the United States. That was the number estimated by the IMF for 2015--a $650 billion subsidy to fossil fuel for getting away with what economists call negative externalities--shoving their costs on other people. If you believe in market economics, those negative externalities should be baked into the cost of the product, but they don't want that. They want the public to bear the cost so they can sell their products cheaper. That is a subsidy, and it is a $650 billion subsidy every year. So giving the chamber, let's say, $150 million to spend is chump change against $650 billion. That is exactly what the chamber does. It lets itself be used by fossil fuel interests to deliver this message.

What about the rest of the chamber's members? Not everybody in the chamber is a fossil fuel company.

Big tech, what about you guys? You have companies in your ranks who claim to care a lot about the climate.

Google, for instance, has the company motto: ``Don't Be Evil.'' Google warns its investors that climate change threatens its operations, that its ``systems are vulnerable to damage or interruption from natural disasters [and] the effects of climate change (such as sea-level rise, drought, flooding, wildfires, and increased storm severity).''

Google also tells investors that ``[c]limate change is one of the most significant global challenges of our time'' and that it has a goal to reach 100-percent renewable energy for its operations. Google even signed the Corporate Renewable Energy Buyers' Principles and the American Business Act on Climate Pledge. Yet Google also funds the chamber's anti-climate crusade.

I don't know about my colleagues, but Google does not come to my office and say: Hey, you need to do something good on climate. Google has a million issues it lobbies us on, but they are not on climate change. On climate change, it supports the chamber of commerce, and the chamber of commerce is our adversary.

Look at the big food and beverage companies. They have crops--a supply chain of grain and fruit and vegetables. They have crops that the chamber's report of 30 years ago told us would be affected by climate change. Those crops are the bread and butter--the supply chain--of these big food and beverage companies. Where are they?

Many food and beverage companies say they understand the threat of climate change. Pepsi signed the Ceres BICEP Climate Declaration and the Prince of Wales's Corporate Leaders Group Trillion Tonne Communique. Those were both important commitments to climate action. There is Pepsi's rival, Coca-Cola. Coke says it plans to reduce CO2 emissions by 25 percent and that to do so will work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across its value chain and make comprehensive carbon footprint reductions across its manufacturing processes, packaging formats, delivery fleet, refrigeration equipment, and ingredient sourcing. Yet both Coke and Pepsi fund the chamber of commerce's denial and obstruction operation, and they fund the American Beverage Association--their little beverage trade association--which, in turn, runs more money to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

What is the net result here in Congress of all of that?

You have two companies that actively reduce their carbon emissions and enthusiastically, publicly, support good climate policy, but in Congress, through their funding of the chamber, they take the position of opposing climate action here in Washington--the place where it really, really counts.

Decades ago, one of most powerful political forces in Washington, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, knew climate change was coming. It wrote that report. It described how global warming happened. It described what the consequences were going to be in the oceans, in the agricultural sector, across our country. It made regulations as to how to head it off. It understood the risks. It knew. It knew what we needed to do to head off the worst consequences and, even back then, supported legislation to help us prepare.

Then, in came the fossil fuel industry. The chamber will not tell us how they are funded. I could tell you right now how this all worked except that the chamber will not disclose how it is funded. But it sure looks as though floods of fossil fuel money came in and bought the chamber, caused it to change its position on the facts of climate change, caused it to change its position on the consequences of climate change, caused it to change its position on what we needed to do to head off climate change.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce let itself be bought by the fossil fuel industry. And thanks to the greed of that one-member industry, the fossil fuel folks, and thanks to the indifference of the others--thanks to the indifference of the tech sector, the indifference of the ag sector--we still have yet to act, 30 years later.

At the close of the chamber's report is a really telling quote from the satirical comic strip ``Pogo.'' ``Pogo,'' in a legendary cartoon from when I was about as young as the pages here, says: We have met the enemy, and it is us.

The chamber quotes that at the end of its report: ``We have met the enemy, and it is us.''

Well, that was an observation about what was going wrong with the planet and how it was our emissions that were causing it. We have met the enemy; we see this danger; we understand it; and we are the cause of it. It is us.

But at the same time, it is also like a preconfession by the chamber: ``We have met the enemy, and it is us.'' For 30 years, the chamber has been the enemy. Since Citizens United, it has been an implacable enemy. They have been wrong on climate. They knew it 30 years ago; they know it now.

We need to fix this, and we need corporate America to extract itself from the thrall of the evildoers in its midst, and we need to solve, at last, this problem.

So time to wake up.

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